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Journal of Asian Network for GIS-based Historical Studies Vol.1 (Nov. 2013) 51-60
ⓒ2013 Journal of Asian Network for GIS-based Historical Studies 51
A Preliminary Study on how G.I.S. Know-How Can Spatially Repre-
sent the Distribution of Nineteenth Century Illegal Gambling Appre-
hensions in the Province of Manila
MARCO STEFAN B. LAGMAN Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, University of the Philippines-Diliman
Abstract: Considering the wealth of historical data available on the Philippines, the traditional approach of archival research
has long been used to generate historical knowledge. However, this knowledge could be even broadened and further deepened
through the use of modern technological tools such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The use of GIS could potentially
provide a more visual, spatial, and nuanced means of understanding and analyzing archival information.
This paper aims to explore this combination of conventional documentary research with GIS tools. The Juegos Prohibidos
(Prohibited Games) police reports on illegal gambling cases, specifically on Monte and Panguingue, were given visual represen-
tation through maps in order to gain a better understanding of illegal card gambling behavior of the inhabitants of the Province of
Manila who were arrested from the 1880s to the 1890s.
The use of mapping technology provides a richer and deeper understanding of Filipino behavior during the last years of Span-
ish colonial rule. Not only can the use of this technology contribute to the fields of history and geography in the Philippines, it
can also promote the feasibility of utilizing GIS know-how in order to maximize other information gathered from archival rec-
ords pertaining to the Philippines.
Keywords: gambling, historical geography, Juegos Prohibidos, nineteenth century Manila
1. Introduction
Gambling as an activity was said to have been observed in the
Philippines well before the arrival of western colonizers. By the
late nineteenth century, games that involved betting with money
involved had become a regular source of entertainment among
the country’s inhabitants (Le Roy 1905; Bowring 1963; Fernan-
dez 1990; Bankoff 1991; Mallat 2012). Although certain forms
of gambling allowed the state to collect a significant amount of
revenue (Bankoff 1991), Spanish authorities nonetheless regu-
lated some forms of gambling while deciding to ban others.
With respect to card games, panguingue, a version of rummy
that used Spanish cards or Baraja Espanol (Ledesma 2011) that
was said to be popular with both older individuals and women
(Mallat 2012), was allowed in certain places and times (Fernan-
dez 1990). On the other hand, monte, a fast-playing Spanish
card game (Mallat 2012) wherein a player had to bet on either
two top or two bottom cards that have been dealt face up (Lara
2008), was considered an illegal activity irrespective of context
(Mallat 2012). While panguingue and monte still had its share of
enthusiasts until the late 1900s (Lara 2008, Ledesma 2011,
Szanton 1972), these games are no longer popular in contempo-
rary Philippine society.
As part of their program to curb illegal gambling, the Spanish
government assigned its police forces, particularly their crack
guardia civil units to implement their laws against illicit gaming
and to arrest those who violated such policies. The activities of
these units in their areas of jurisdiction such as the Province of
Manila led to successful raids against panguingue and monte
players which were reflected in the police reports written down
and submitted by such personnel called Juegos Prohibidos (pro-
hibited games) during the waning years of colonial rule in the
1800s. These documents, which usually followed a certain for-
mat with respect to the details they provided, have proven useful
in recreating particular facets of Philippine social life in the last
decades of Spanish rule as can be observed in the landmark
work of Bankoff (1996) on criminal activity in Filipino society
under colonial rule in the 1800s.
This paper argues, however, that the temporal, demographic,
and geographic data found within the Juegos Prohibidos can be
an even richer source of spatial insights and analyses if these
archival documents were used hand-in-hand with Geographic
Information System (GIS) techniques. As such, it is the re-
searcher’s hope that this paper can demonstrate that the use of
such tools on archival data that can be geographically located
with a fair amount accuracy can further maximize the usefulness
of archival sources and thus encourage other historians and ge-
ographers interested in Philippine history to employ GIS as a
common and preferred tool in future historico-geographical
studies.
2. Methodology: From Nineteenth Century Po-
lice Report to GIS-Derived Map
The process of transforming Juegos Prohibidos Monte and
Panguingue arrests into points in various maps with different
features or symbols required the following: a) the creation of a
database containing geographic and demographic information of
each recorded arrest, b) the plotting of these aforementioned
cases as specific geographic points in a map, and c) the genera-
tion of base and thematic maps grounded on characteristics
contained in the said database.
The generation of a database for roughly 195 identified gam-
bling arrests and their easy manipulation required the tabulation
of the following information on an MS Excel spreadsheet:
A) Town/district where the specific apprehension occurred;
B) Present-day name of the aforementioned town or district;
C) Specific barrio (village) or street where the gamblers
were caught;
D) Year and month when the said incident occurred;
Article
Journal of Asian Network for GIS-based Historical Studies Vol.1 (Nov. 2013) 51-60
ⓒ2013 Journal of Asian Network for GIS-based Historical Studies 52
E) Number of players and number of males and females in
the apprehended group;
F) Ethnicity of those who were arrested (indio, chino mixed,
chino, Spanish)
G) Social status of those who were arrested (low, medium,
high)
H) Place where the arrest occurred (house, boat, farmland,
empty lot, bamboo grove, wilderness)
I) Time of apprehension (daytime, nighttime)
J) Escapees (Yes/No)
K) Amount of money confiscated
L) Specific archival source
It is clear that the different classifications and
sub-classifications of the aforementioned information will lead
to the generation of thematic maps containing consistent specif-
ic points with different symbols and colors representing differ-
ent descriptions. Of particular importance are those that pertain
to the specific locations of the arrests. It was observed that,
surprisingly, majority of the names and absolute locations of the
towns and barrios have remained stable, with only their classi-
fications changing from village to the barangay, the current
smallest Philippine political unit, while those villages located
near the borders of two towns may sometimes have become a
component of a present-day nearby city in Metro Manila. This
contention was verified through the location of these specific
places through Google Earth and through other readily available
written documentary evidence (Mallat 2012; U.S. Adjutant
General’s Office 1898; Sanger, Gannett and Olmstead 1905). As
for the streets that were identified, some throughways now have
new names that were still identified in Google Earth, while oth-
ers could no longer be determined. Roughly sixty (60) areas and
streets that could no longer be ascertained had to be removed
from the database due to their lack of specific locations.
Given the limits imposed by the Spanish colonial police re-
ports, it was decided that any spatial or map analysis can only be
done at the regional level. This scale of analysis also took into
consideration the geographic extent of all recorded cases, spe-
cifically the location of the farthest points. The highest level of
precision attained in the research was at the street level, but
majority of identified sites exist today as present-day barangays.
Centroids were employed to plot all points in order to address
gaps in precision, while the difficulties presented by the over-
lapping of multiple cases in a single point was dealt with by
randomly offsetting succeeding points in order to differentiate
them vis-à-vis other cases.
Because there is a paucity of maps representing the Province
of Manila, especially ones that have a clear two-dimensional
coordinate system, and given the relative stability of the loca-
tions identified in the reports until present times, Google Earth
was used in plotting all identifiable points. While this same
procedure could have been done using a gazetteer in ArcGIS, a
commonly used integrated package of geographic information
science software applications (ESRI 2004), there was no availa-
ble data that would have made the latter program useable.
Clearly the procedure employed in plotting the points was
rather lenient. Such an approach was unavoidable due to certain
constraints and considerations. For one, the usefulness of his-
torical data greatly depends on what was recorded, and therefore,
its accuracy and precision is limited by whatever information is
available. The study intends to produce maps that can be utilized
for visual spatial analysis of gambling behavior during the latter
Spanish period in the Province of Manila. As such the mapping
process was more for illustrative than statistical purposes and
did not require a very high level of accuracy and precision.
Moreover, place names have remained fairly stable over time, as
a good number of nominal locations still exist to this day. The
only difference is that, due to improvements in geospatial tech-
nologies and the demands of modern day policymaking and
planning, boundaries are more or less clearly delineated, where-
as in the past, naming and locating places was more arbitrary
and their boundaries were not yet clearly established. Other
places that did not retain their old names were only renamed. It
can also be argued that all other spatial characteristics (extent,
length, location, boundaries, and neighboring localities) have
most likely remained intact. Proof of this is that the current
boundaries of Metro Manila approximate that of the late nine-
teenth century Province of Manila minus two towns – Montal-
ban and San Mateo.
As mentioned earlier, there were several cases in the initial
database that lacked or had insufficient spatial information and
thus could not be plotted in a map. Sufficiency was also decided
given the abovementioned considerations. Useable geographic
data led to the generation of place marks that were grouped into
a single place folder and exported as a Keyhole Markup Lan-
guage (KML) file, which is a type of file format employed to
present geographic information in browsers such as Google
Earth or Google Maps (Google Developers: KML Tutorial no
date). This KML file was then imported into ArcGIS using the
conversion function included in the ArcToolbox (“KML to Lay-
er”), an ArcGIS software that allows for geographic processing
functions such as data management, data conversion and ge-
ocoding (ESRI 2004).
The imported KML had a field containing identification (ID),
which are numbers stored as text, for each point. Another col-
umn containing numerical information was created and calcu-
lated from the ID field to create an identical field as a back-up to
ensure that the database can be joined. The Excel spreadsheet
containing the initial database was also further processed to fix
bugs encountered when joining the table with the spatial data.
This processing activity included the following:
o Removal of spaces in field headers
o Re-encoding of numbers stored as text
o Spell checks and rundown for typographical errors
o Re-classification of data (e.g. generalization)
o Re-expression of string information containing numerical
data into mathematically-operable format (done specifi-
cally for the column indicating amount of different types
of coin money involved)
A join between the working (bug-free) database and the result-
ant layer was then made after which maps were then created by
Journal of Asian Network for GIS-based Historical Studies Vol.1 (Nov. 2013) 51-60
ⓒ2013 Journal of Asian Network for GIS-based Historical Studies 53
setting proper symbols for each map.
The base and thematic maps all underwent Adobe Photoshop
for aesthetic purposes, and this was accomplished through the
following steps:
1. Base Map. To achieve the ‘old map’ effect, a stained
paper texture was imported as a background layer. Its
color balance was adjusted to achieve the desired effect.
A simple map was overlaid, and the polygon depicting
the landmass was removed, leaving the white area de-
picting Manila Bay and Laguna de Bay. The opacity of
these white polygons was subdued. The resulting effect
was achieved - it now seems like the landmass was
drawn over a light colored paper.
a. Since the map was exported in A4 size with no
margins, the map had to be resized to fit within
the borders.
b. Fonts used were High Tower Text and a variant
of the Garamond family. Font spacing was
slightly increased for titles and headers.
2. Thematic maps. Other themes were exported from
ArcGIS in JPEG format, and imported in Photoshop as a
smart layer. The layers were rasterized and its white
spaces were removed either by manually deleting white
spaces using quick selection (magic wand) or by apply-
ing a blend mode that removes white from the layer
(multiply). Note that the themes were exported with a
line feature depicting present-day boundaries of LGUs
for reference in resizing. In this procedure, the lower left
corner of the new layer is anchored on the lower left
corner of the base map. Afterwards, the new layer is
resized from the upper right corner and down, carefully
maintaining the aspect ratio of the layer being resized
(holding down the Shift key). The resized layer is then
adjusted further, referring to the LGU boundaries to en-
sure that the points overlay, distortions are entirely
avoided and warping/offsets is minimized.
a. The legends were exported in the same manner –
A4 sized JPEG files containing the legend of
each map were also imported in Photoshop and
resized in exactly the same manner as the maps
so as to maintain their scale. Extra care was tak-
en in creating a legend for proportionally sym-
bolized maps.
b. Upon completion of each map, these were
grouped and turned off whenever a new map was
created. This left a separable base map where
more layers could be added later.
3. The Maps and their Analyses
3.1 The location of gambling incidents
Figure 1 Province of Manila base map.
The Province of Manila (Provincia de Manila), which was
formally established in the latter part of the 1850s, was com-
posed of practically the same towns that made up the former
Province of Tondo (Lemps, 2000). With the exception of the
towns of Montalban and San Mateo on its northeastern portions,
the said province approximates the land area and the location of
present-day Metro Manila. It had a land area of 264 square miles
or 684 square kilometers and was composed of 23 towns (pueb-
los) and one city, the Ciudad de Manila, which was also consid-
ered as its administrative and economic center. From Manila
City, the northernmost and easternmost towns, Caloocan and
Marikina, respectively, were approximately 7 miles away, while
Muntinlupa, the farthest town south of the capital, was 21 miles
away (Adjutant General’s Office 1898). Manila City was
clearly the most populous settlement, but there were also heavy
concentrations of people in nearby towns of Navotas and Tam-
bobong (Malabon) along the north as well as along the eastern
towns of the province Pasig, Marikina, Taguig (Sanger, Gannett,
& Olmstead 1905).
Even by simply observing the database that was developed
for this study, it is clear that Manila Province was the site of
many illegal gambling apprehensions. Yet the development of a
map indicating the distribution of these arrests all over the area
(See Figure 2.) yields quite a few insights that are easier to ar-
rive at using spatial tools. For one, while monte and panguingue
arrests tend to concentrate in Manila City and then spill over
towards neighboring towns along its northern (Navotas and
Malabon) and southern (Pineda, Malibay, Parañaque) portions,
there is also a distinct concentration of abbreviated gambling
Journal of Asian Network for GIS-based Historical Studies Vol.1 (Nov. 2013) 51-60
ⓒ2013 Journal of Asian Network for GIS-based Historical Studies 54
activities along the province’s eastern towns, especially the con-
tiguous Makati, Pasig, Taguig, and Pateros pueblos, all of which,
with the exception of Makati, do not share any borders with
Manila.
Also, while panguingue activities seem to be greater in num-
ber compared to monte apprehensions, there seems to be no
clear pattern with respect to the distribution of these arrests.
Thus, it implies that similar to what has been argued in several
accounts, gambling activity during the nineteenth century Phil-
ippines was quite widespread.
Figure 2 Distribution of monte and panguingue gambling
arrests, Manila Province.
The high intensity of illicit gambling in Manila City, as
shown in Figure 2, merits attention, and mapping at a smaller
scale may be able to demonstrate which specific portions of the
capital these activities occurred. According to Lemps (2000), in
the nineteenth century, Manila City was named La Ciudad y Sus
Arrabales, which in English means “The Capital and its Sur-
rounding Areas” (See Figure 3.). Here, the capital refers to In-
tramuros, or the walled city of Manila while the surrounding
areas outside of the walls (Extramuros) referred to the eleven
nearby communities that bordered the capital (Adjutant Gen-
eral’s Office 1898; Lemps, 2000). Figure 4 below clearly
demonstrates how majority of gambling activities successfully
interrupted by the colonial police forces were situated in the
Binondo area, a known commercial area filled with businesses
owned by Chinese and half-Chinese merchants, which include,
among others, gambling houses (Mallat 2012).
Figure 3 Map showing the component communities of Manila
City.
Figure 4 Distribution of Gambling Apprehensions, Ciudad de
Manila.
3.2 Urban-rural distribution of monte and panguingue
There are different means of classifying specific geographic
entities as being predominantly urban or rural entities. From an
economic perspective, it has become standard practice in the
Philippines to classify places where the main types of employ-
ment is non-agricultural (i.e., manufacturing, services) as urban
areas (Serote 2009). While Spanish police reports on gambling
seem to be inconsistent regarding the occupations of those ar-
Journal of Asian Network for GIS-based Historical Studies Vol.1 (Nov. 2013) 51-60
ⓒ2013 Journal of Asian Network for GIS-based Historical Studies 55
rested for illegal gaming, studies by Bankoff (1996) and Lag-
man (n.p.) in both Manila City and the Province of Manila sug-
gest that majority of those arrested were likely to have la-
bor-intensive, service sector-based occupations.
The urbanity and rural nature of a specific area can also be
determined through the existence of infrastructure that is usually
associated with urban areas such as the existence of streets or
street plan, a commercial area, and other community-based fa-
cilities. As late as the 1970s, one of the criteria for determining
if a barangay or village could be considered an urban area was if
it had a clear street pattern (National Statistical Coordination
Board 2003), a feature that can easily be discerned in the colo-
nial police reports that were studied. On the other hand, Filipi-
nos do consider places that are called barrios or sitios as com-
munities or components of provinces that are more rural in na-
ture. Fortunately, the documents from the Juegos Prohibidos do
provide details with respect to the location of apprehensions, as
to whether they occurred in areas along streets or in barrios or
sitios. If these terms, especially the existence of streets, would
be used as markers of the urban or rural character of crime
scenes, it could then be argued that most gambling incidents in
Manila Province, with the exception of those that happened in
the Ciudad de Manila, were likely to have occurred in more
rural than urban settings (See Figure 5.).
Figure 5 Gambling incidents in urban and rural areas.
3.3 Hiding places
Foreign accounts about the Philippines in the 1800s make
mention of the gambling places that Filipinos used to hide their
illicit gaming. Mallat (2012) and Bankoff (1991) narrate how
those who gamble would usually utilize structures such as
houses to evade authorities, and the spatial representation of the
precise place where inhabitants of the localities of Manila Prov-
ince gambled supports such contentions. All in all, almost 80%
of apprehensions actually led to the police arresting people who
were into illegal card games inside houses and other structures.
Nonetheless, it is important to point out how there were still
instances where Filipinos, especially those of lower class origins,
employed farms, open lots, bamboo groves and even portions of
sitio despoblados or wilderness areas to hide from the long arm
of the law (Lagman n.p.).
The information on the map below (See Figure 6.) indicates
that, while there were very few cases of people using the natural
environment as a site of their card gaming, the area covering
Pineda, which makes up part of present-day Pasay, and the town
of San Pedro de Makati, had wilderness areas or woodlands
where illicit gambling was played out. In relation this, it is im-
portant to note that these two places, which are now heavily
urbanized, were considered as rough country and part of the
province’s backwoods. Pineda back then was considered a vil-
lage (despite its nearness to the capital) where betel nut, an ag-
ricultural crop, grew abundantly. The dense growth of these
crops made it a very rural area where brigands could hide from
the government. San Pedro de Makati, on the other hand, was
said to be a place that was conducive for convalescents (Mallat
2012; 108, 112).
Figure 6 Gambling incidents by place of arrest.
It can be observed that areas classified as wilderness places
where gamblers were caught were all located outside of Ciudad
de Manila, with three of five (60%) of despoblado cases occur-
ring just outside the provincial center, and two wilderness inci-
dents happening along the eastern and western fringes of Manila
Province. In addition, gambling incidents where the exact nature
of the place could not be determined tended to concentrate in
peripheral areas such as the eastern towns of Pateros and Pasig
and the southern pueblo of Las Piñas.
Journal of Asian Network for GIS-based Historical Studies Vol.1 (Nov. 2013) 51-60
ⓒ2013 Journal of Asian Network for GIS-based Historical Studies 56
3.4 More a daytime than a nocturnal activity
In his landmark work Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms
of Peasant Resistance, Scott (1985) argued that throughout his-
tory, the resistance of marginalized groups against the more
dominant sectors of society, such as the more privileged classes
and the state, rarely came in the form of direct confrontation and
rebellion and instead manifested itself in more indirect forms
that denied the latter of the ability to make claims on them. In
essence, evading the police and violating laws against certain
forms of gambling through uncoordinated means and done by
individuals whom the authorities would have difficulty identi-
fying, such as those who do their illicit activities within struc-
tures, are examples of a weapon of the weak.
Common sense would dictate that doing activities in the cover
of darkness, especially in the outdoors, would be a reasonable
form of resistance and evasion by those who still want to gam-
ble despite mandated restrictions. According to a previous qual-
itative study (Lagman n.p.) of monte and panguingue arrests by
the colonial police yielded several examples of gambling sus-
pects who also employed the nighttime darkness to play their
favorite games. But a more quantitative and spatial analysis of
police report data demonstrates that those who got caught play-
ing in the evening belonged to the minority, as most abbreviated
gambling sessions were held during the day (at least 60% of
all recorded cases). This was especially true for Manila City
where majority of the card game sessions that were raided by
the agents of the state happened in houses and other permanent
structures. The eastern towns Pateros and Pasig again seemed to
have been the recipient of several night-time raids by the colo-
nial police. The same observations can be made for the nearby
pueblo of Makati (See Figure 7.).
Figure 7 Daytime and nighttime distribution of gambling
arrests.
3.5 Escape: An act of last resort
Police authorities would usually catch their targets while they
were immersed in their illegal card games. For the most part,
apprehended parties would cooperate with the police and would
not resist arrest. Again, it can be determined through a spatial
representation that majority of those who were caught gambling
in Manila City did not resist arrest, and the same can be ob-
served in the northern towns of Navotas and Malabon (See Fig-
ure 8.). But the farther the apprehensions were from the epicen-
ter of apprehensions along Manila’s Binondo District, the pro-
portion of gamblers escaping from the authorities seemed to
increase. This becomes noticeable especially in the towns east
and south of Manila’s southern edge such as the former pueblo
of Pandacan, Pineda, and Malibay (present-day Pasay), Las
Piñas and the Pasig-Pateros-Taguig region.
Figure 8 Illicit gaming escapes and apprehension incidents.
3.6 Small groups and predominantly working class
Le Roy (1905), in his account of the Philippines, mentioned
the penchant of Filipinos to gamble. But what separates his nar-
rations from other western visitors of the nineteenth and turn of
the century Philippines such as Mallat (2012) and Bowring
(1963) is that he made known his opinion that more well-to-do
members of Philippine society were able to avoid getting caught
by the police as they did their gambling within the safety of
their stone-made homes. Bankoff (1996) also mentioned that the
typical prisoner in the Philippines in the 1800s, regardless of the
transgression committed, was usually male, poor and illiterate
and held a job that paid in coin, the preferred betting item in
gambling sessions.
Philippine society during the Spanish period was highly strat-
Journal of Asian Network for GIS-based Historical Studies Vol.1 (Nov. 2013) 51-60
ⓒ2013 Journal of Asian Network for GIS-based Historical Studies 57
ified as people were legally categorized based on their race or
racial mix, and titles (i.e., Don) were used by people to denote
individual status (Larkin 1972). For this study, Spaniards, peo-
ple of Caucasian heritage and members of the native elite were
classified as members of the upper class, the more enterprising
ethnic Chinese, who paid more taxes than the members of the
local population (Mallat 2012) were categorized as individuals
of middle status, while untitled natives or plain indios belonged
to the low status category. Figure 9 below clearly indicates that
most successful apprehensions led to the arrest of ordinary Fili-
pinos as they accounted for a vast majority of arrests in almost
all the towns that were included in the study. Very few Spaniards
and members of the local elite were caught by the authorities,
and those who were arrested resided primarily in Manila, espe-
cially in an area called Sampaloc, the northeastern end of the
city, with isolated cases in Marikina and Taguig. The ethnic
Chinese, on the other hand, were primarily arrested in Binondo,
a known prosperous area during the late 1800s (Agoncillo 1990)
until today; and even during the late 1950s, was recorded by
Philippine government as having a very high number of Chinese
residents (Amyot 1973). It should be noted, however, that there
were a few recorded cases in current-day southeastern Manila,
Makati and San Felipe Nery (modern-day Mandaluyong). Over-
all, it can be observed that successful raids by the police led to
the arrest of relatively small groups of gamblers, which ranged
from one person to sixteen individuals, with 60% of apprehen-
sions netting not more than five players (See Figure 10.).
Figure 9 Number of participants per gambling incident and
their social status.
Figure 10 Number of apprehended players per police raid.
3.7 Gambling as more of a male than a female preoccupa-
tion
The database illustrates that gambling was predominantly a
male activity. Overall, 53% of all arrests involved at least one
female player, but it was only in the game of panguingue that
there was a higher rate of female involvement at 65% of all
cases. Nonetheless, only in 37% of all panguingue police reports
were the number of arrested women more than or equal to the
number of accosted males. The map below represents that ma-
jority of cases involved more males than females for the most
part. Nonetheless, converting the information into map form
allows one to realize that there are still certain portions of the
province where there were relatively a higher proportion of
women card players who were apprehended. This included parts
of present-day southeastern Manila and the then Pandacan town
(now part of Manila City), the Pineda (Pasay) area, the southern
towns of Las Piñas and Muntinlupa, as well as the contiguous
area comprising the eastern part of Makati, Pateros and Pasig
(See Figure 11.).
Journal of Asian Network for GIS-based Historical Studies Vol.1 (Nov. 2013) 51-60
ⓒ2013 Journal of Asian Network for GIS-based Historical Studies 58
Figure 11 Gambling incidents by sex.
3.8 Gambling with relatively small stakes
Whether the players were male or female, native or of foreign
descent, it is also worth determining the amounts of money in-
volved in these activities, and how the range of amounts were
distributed in the province. One way to learn if the money used
in betting was of a small or large amount during that time is to
compare these monies with the wages commonly received by
the people within the same period. Fortunately, the Philippine
Census of 1903 provides us with a means of comparing confis-
cated gambling money with people’s wages during the late
1890s. People who did menial labor in Manila and other urban
areas would have daily wages that ranged from around P.20 to
P.75 per day. A seamstress and a laundryman would only receive
P.20 for a hard day’s work, a daily laborer usually received P.37,
while a carpenter was a little bit better off as he, on the average,
would receive P.62 a day form his employer. On the other hand,
a tailor could command a daily rate of P. 75 and a clerk would
receive a monthly pay of P25 (Sanger, Gannett & Olmstead
1905). It should be noted that almost half (47%) of all police
raids against panguingue and monte gamblers never exceeded
one P1. If an average gambling session involved around five to
six players, then most sessions had individuals who, on the av-
erage, brought coins that never exceeded the money that an
ordinary person would earn in a day. As such, the amounts being
gambled by individuals would ordinarily be quite modest. It is
clear in the map below (See Figure 12.) that small gambling
money being betted in sessions was fairly scattered all over the
Province of Manila. What is also quite clear is that it is in the
Manila City area, particularly in the District of Binondo, where
amounts of P10 or more were wagered the most.
Figure 12 Distribution of amounts of money wagered in gam-
bling sessions that were abbreviated.
3.9 Gambling in the midst of a revolution
Basic texts in Philippine history would note that it was also
during the latter part of the 1800s that Filipinos were led by a
group called the Katipunan, whose members were predomi-
nantly from the towns of Manila Province and nearby areas
(Guerrero 1998). The first battles between the Filipino revolu-
tionaries and the Spanish colonial forces began in San Juan del
Monte, one of the towns of Manila Province. The said incident
led to the declaration of martial law in eight provinces in the
island of Luzon, including the Province of Manila, and this was
soon followed by continuous fighting between the two groups in
portions of Manila Province and in other areas where such a
state of emergency was declared (Quirino 1978; Guerrero 1998).
Despite being in the midst of great social upheaval and un-
certainty, inhabitants of the province could still not stop them-
selves from gambling (See Figure 13.). Roughly 13% of all
police reports that were examined involved incidents that oc-
curred from August 1896, the month the revolution started, up to
1897, a period wherein fighting between the Filipinos and the
Spanish colonial forces was still on going. Apparently, trends
during war-time mirrored that of more tranquil periods as the
Chinese still actively gambled in Manila’s Binondo District and
ordinary Filipinos still in different parts of Manila Province.
What should be noted, however, is that the relative size of the
groups that did gamble during the outbreak of the Philippine
Revolution was relatively larger than the usual five player group
size during peace time.
Journal of Asian Network for GIS-based Historical Studies Vol.1 (Nov. 2013) 51-60
ⓒ2013 Journal of Asian Network for GIS-based Historical Studies 59
Figure 13 Distribution of gambling incidents during the initial
phase of the Philippine Revolution.
4. Recommendations and future directions
Historical research using archival data on nineteenth century
Philippines has been very effective in reconstructing aspects of
the lives of people during that period that may likely be ne-
glected (Bankoff 1996). While such type of conventional re-
search usually focuses on the socioeconomic aspects of nine-
teenth century Philippine life, modern tools provided by Geo-
graphic Information Science can help researchers maximize the
usefulness of their sources by adding a spatial component to
their analysis and understanding of the past. Through the geo-
graphic information provided by this paper on the distribution
and nature of illicit gambling activities of the inhabitants of the
Province of Manila, it is hoped that other archival researchers
would warm up to the possibility of incorporating GIS tools as
part of their menu of aids in their studies, especially in using
sources that can be geographically located with a fair amount of
accuracy.
The Juegos Prohibidos is by no means the only archival
source in the Philippine National Archives that can yield data
that can be spatially represented. From the past experiences of
this researcher, other materials such as urban real estate taxes
(Fincas Urbana), business permits (Contribucion Industrial),
land sales and transactions from notarial bundles (Protocolos),
and even fish corral permit lists (Pesquerias) are only some of
the bundle types on the Philippine National Archives in Manila
that are readily available to historico-geographical researchers
who are interested in employing GIS tools in their studies.
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[28] Tingin, Neil Eneri and Lagman, Marco Stefan B. <Distribution of
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[29] Tingin, Neil Eneri and Lagman, Marco Stefan B. <Map showing
the component communities of Manila City>. Scale 1:300,000.
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[30] Tingin, Neil Eneri and Lagman, Marco Stefan B. <Distribution of
Gambling Apprehensions, Ciudad de Manila>. Scale 1:300,000.
Quezon City, Philippines: Neil Eneri Tingin, September 2012. Us-
ing ArcView GIS. Version 10. Redlands, CA: Environmental Sys-
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[31] Tingin, Neil Eneri and Lagman, Marco Stefan B. <Gambling inci-
dents in urban and rural areas>. Scale 1:300,000. Quezon City,
Philippines: Neil Eneri Tingin, September 2012. Using ArcView
GIS. Version 10. Redlands, CA: Environmental Systems Research
Institute, Inc., 1992-2010.
[32] Tingin, Neil Eneri and Lagman, Marco Stefan B. <Gambling inci-
dents by place of arrest>. Scale 1:300,000. Quezon City, Philip-
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GIS. Version 10. Redlands, CA: Environmental Systems Research
Institute, Inc., 1992-2010.
[33] Tingin, Neil Eneri and Lagman, Marco Stefan B. <Daytime and
nighttime distribution of gambling arrests>. Scale 1:300,000. Que-
zon City, Philippines: Neil Eneri Tingin, September 2012. Us-
ing ArcView GIS. Version 10. Redlands, CA: Environmental Sys-
tems Research Institute, Inc., 1992-2010.
[34] Tingin, Neil Eneri and Lagman, Marco Stefan B. <Illicit gaming
escapes and apprehension incidents>. Scale 1:300,000. Quezon City,
Philippines: Neil Eneri Tingin, September 2012. Using ArcView
GIS. Version 10. Redlands, CA: Environmental Systems Research
Institute, Inc., 1992-2010.
[35] Tingin, Neil Eneri and Lagman, Marco Stefan B. <Number of
participants per gambling incident and their social status>. Scale
1:300,000. Quezon City, Philippines: Neil Eneri Tingin, September
2012. Using ArcView GIS. Version 10. Redlands, CA: Environmen-
tal Systems Research Institute, Inc., 1992-2010.
[36] Tingin, Neil Eneri and Lagman, Marco Stefan B. <Number of
apprehended players per police raid>. Scale 1:300,000. Quezon
City, Philippines: Neil Eneri Tingin, September 2012. Us-
ing ArcView GIS. Version 10. Redlands, CA: Environmental Sys-
tems Research Institute, Inc., 1992-2010.
[37] Tingin, Neil Eneri and Lagman, Marco Stefan B. <Gambling inci-
dents by sex>. Scale 1:300,000. Quezon City, Philippines: Neil En-
eri Tingin, September 2012. Using ArcView GIS. Version 10. Red-
lands, CA: Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.,
1992-2010.
[38] Tingin, Neil Eneri and Lagman, Marco Stefan B. <Distribution of
amounts of money wagered in gambling sessions that were abbrevi-
ated>. Scale 1:300,000. Quezon City, Philippines: Neil Eneri Tingin,
September 2012. Using ArcView GIS. Version 10. Redlands, CA:
Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., 1992-2010.
[39] Tingin, Neil Eneri and Lagman, Marco Stefan B. <Distribution of
gambling incidents during the initial phase of the Philippine Revo-
lution>. Scale 1:300,000. Quezon City, Philippines: Neil Eneri
Tingin, September 2012. Using ArcView GIS. Version 10. Redlands,
CA: Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., 1992-2010.
Acknowledgment The author wishes to acknowledge Mr. Neil
Eneri Tingin for his invaluable assistance in the production of
all maps used in this paper.