[Time Trowel] Zamboanga City and ‘Chief of War’

A trowel (/ˈtraʊ.əl/), in the hands of an archaeologist, is like a trusty sidekick — a tiny, yet mighty, instrument that uncovers ancient secrets, one well-placed scoop at a time. It’s the Sherlock Holmes of the excavation site, revealing clues about the past with every delicate swipe.

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A television series set in Hawaii is an unlikely place to encounter an idea that resonates with Zamboanga City’s past, yet Chief of War gestures toward something familiar. Its fictional framing is embellished, but it echoes a real condition of Zamboanga City.

As the series implies, Zamboanga City has long been a hub. Not a hub in the cinematic sense of empires rising overnight, but in the slower, enduring way that places of passage shape history. Long before Zamboanga became a dot on a modern map, it functioned as a crossing point of people, goods, languages, and ideas. Its location at the edge of the Sulu Sea and the Celebes Sea placed it within maritime routes linking Mindanao, the Sulu Archipelago, Borneo, and the wider region. Trade moved through its waters. So did sailors, families, stories, skills, and food.

That layered past explains why Zamboanga resists simple narratives. Chavacano, a Spanish-based creole, developed through sustained contact among Spanish speakers, local populations, and migrants, taking shape as a shared language for daily interaction rather than as a planned or imposed form. Communities formed around movement rather than enclosure. The city’s importance never came from being a center that pulled everything inward, but from being a place where connections met and continued. In that sense, the fiction lands close to the truth.

That history lives on in Chavacano. The language developed around Fort Pilar, where Spanish forces stationed soldiers and resettled Christian populations from the Visayas and parts of Luzon to serve the garrison and the town. Daily interaction among Spanish speakers, Lumad and Muslim groups, traders, and migrants produced a language that worked across differences. Chavacano emerged through use. It reflects how Zamboanga absorbed outside influences and made them local. The language captures a pattern that defines the city, exchange without erasure and continuity without isolation. Zamboanga did not become a hub by closing itself off. It became one by staying open.

That same openness is now under pressure as the city confronts climate change. Zamboanga sits on a coast shaped by monsoons, sea-level change, and tectonic activity. Fishing communities track shifts in fish stocks. Coastal villages deal with erosion and flooding. Urban areas manage heat, water supply, and infrastructure stress. These are not distant concerns. They affect food access and daily lives.

Climate change often enters public discussion through models and projections. Those tools affect policy and planning. In places like Zamboanga City, however, climate knowledge has long been part of community practice. Fishers read currents and winds. Farmers adjust planting cycles. Elders recall past storms and dry years. This knowledge does not stand in opposition to science. It complements it. The challenge is not choosing between community knowledge and academic research, but creating space where the two can speak to each other.

This is where academic conferences take on real value. Recently, we organized a conference in Zamboanga, hosted by the Western Mindanao State University. The gathering in the city, much like in the history of the place, emphasized an important point. Meaningful collaborations and engagement, particularly on climate adaptation work, grows out of relationships. It requires trust and time. Conferences and workshops work best when they do not just arrive, collect, and leave, but instead create pathways for sustained engagement between community and academe.

We are, thus, grateful to Ma. Carla Althea Ochotorena and to Western Mindanao State University for hosting the Program for Early Modern Southeast Asia (PEMSEA) gathering. WMSU provided the venue that facilitated conversations in local priorities and lived conditions. Universities in regional centers play roles that extend beyond instruction. They connect students, scholars, local governments, and communities in ways that national institutions often cannot.

This gathering was made possible through collaboration. We thank the co-sponsoring institutions for their partnership and commitment to the work, including Zamboanga Peninsula Polytechnic State University, Zamboanga State College of Marine Science and Technology, Basilan State College, Sulu State College, Tawi-Tawi Regional Agriculture College, and Agusan del Sur State College of Agriculture and Technology. We also thank Department of Science and Technology Region IX for its support.

This conference builds on the long-standing work of PEMSEA, made possible in large part through the sustained support of the Henry Luce Foundation. That support has allowed PEMSEA to convene institutions, foreground regional priorities, and develop an integrative, interdisciplinary framework for understanding environmental change in Southeast Asia over the last 1,000 years, bringing community knowledge and academic research into sustained conversation.

One important part of the gathering was the recognition of Ka Aman Nuño of Barangay Taluksangay. His work reflects years of engagement founded on community practice. Recognition like this signals a shift in how knowledge is valued. It affirms that community leaders are not just informants or beneficiaries, but partners and co-producers of insight. When universities acknowledge this publicly, the terms of engagement change.

Such partnerships do not emerge on their own. They require effort and patience. In Zamboanga, that work has been facilitated in large part by Melanie Lear. Bridging community priorities and academic frameworks is beyond administrative exercise. It involves listening, translation, and negotiation. It calls for knowing when to step back and when to step in. The result is not a polished formula, but a working relationship that allows research to respond to lived conditions rather than impose external agendas.

As an archaeologist, I often argue that the past offers insight into how societies adapted, or failed to adapt, to environmental change. Zamboanga’s history as a hub offers a lesson. Flexibility and shared knowledge have long supported continuity. Climate change raises the stakes, but it does not erase that history.

What lies ahead will require collaboration across sectors and scales. National policy shapes direction. International frameworks influence priorities. At the same time, barangay-level practices and local histories guide everyday decisions. Universities such as Western Mindanao State University are well positioned to hold these pieces together when they work with communities as partners rather than as sites of study.

The experience of Zamboanga shows us that climate work is not only about risk. It is about relationships. The city’s past demonstrates how connections shape survival and continuity. Its present shows how those connections can inform climate responses shaped by local realities. Sustaining these partnerships, not as one-off events but as ongoing commitments between community and academe, is what makes climate futures livable. – Rappler.com

Stephen B. Acabado is professor of anthropology at the University of California-Los Angeles. He directs the Ifugao and Bicol Archaeological Projects, research programs that engage community stakeholders. He grew up in Tinambac, Camarines Sur. Follow him on bluesky @stephenacabado.bsky.social