Reasons why plasencia's custom of the tagalogs is important
Answers
It is important to the grand Spanish narrative as civilizer and savior of our doomed souls from eternal hellfire. That’s why the Spaniards will quote it forever as their prime authoritative source to show just how primitive we were and how great their contribution was to our development.
Juan de Plasencia was simply reporting to the king of Spain what he learned and observed of the Tagalogs. To make of him a scholar of great importance is like taking the opinion of a biology student as good medical advice instead of consulting a physician. Plasencia was hardly an anthropologist (anthropology as a science started in the 1920’s). He was simply a Franciscan friar.
You cannot study Philippine pre-Hispanic times in a vacuum; we were part of the greater Malay society. Our warriors fought with or against warriors from Java, Sumatra, Borneo and Malacca. Their history is our history, their culture is our culture and their heritage is our heritage. We were warring with them, marrying with them and trading with them for centuries before the Spaniards came.
Reading his ‘relations’, you can tell how crude and simplistic his assertions / judgements / conclusions were. Just bear in mind that Spain and Portugal were barely out of the dark ages at that time.
It is like how an account of Enrique, Magellan’s Malay slave, would look like about the customs of the Spaniards when Magellan brought him to Spain. It would be just as shallow and full of misinterpretations and colored with his value judgements, biases, prejudices, predispositions and worldview. You can simply replace the place (Philippines) as Spain and the Tagalogs as Spaniards and you have a theoretical account of Spain by Enrique.
In short, it is hardly a scholarly work, simply a collection of perceptions, observations and recollections mixed with biases, prejudices and bigotry from a Spanish monk.
Hope it helps... please make me as brainest...