The barangay was the basic political and economic unit in pre-colonial Philippines, headed by a datu or rajah. Society consisted of a petty nobility class that owned land, the maharlika or freemen class, timawa serf class, and alipin slave class. Higher political development occurred in the Islamic sultanates of Sulu and Mindanao, which had a feudal social structure under the supreme rule of sultans over datus. By the time of Spanish colonization, the people had developed agriculture, infrastructure, trade, and crafts.

1. The barangay was the typical community in the whole archipelago. It was the basic
political and economic unit independent of similar others. Each embraced a few
hundreds of people and a small territory. Each was headed by a chieftain called
therajah or datu.
Social Structure[edit]
The social structure comprised a petty nobility, the ruling class which had started to
accumulate land that it owned privately or administered in the name of the clan or
community.
• Maharlika (Datu in Visayas): an intermediate class of freemen called
the Maharlika who had enough land for their livelihood or who rendered special
service to the rulers and who did not have to work in the fields.
• Timawa: the ruled classes that included the timawa, the serfs who shared the
crops with the petty nobility.
• Alipin (Oripun in Visayas): and also the slaves and semislaves who worked
without having any definite share in the harvest. There were two kinds of slaves
then: those who had their own quarters, the aliping namamahay (aliping
mamahay in Visayas), and those who lived in their master's house, the aliping
sagigilid (aliping hayohay in Visayas). One acquired the status of a serf or a
slave by inheritance, failure to pay debts and tribute, commission of crimes and
captivity in wars between barangays.
Islamic Monarchy[edit]
The Islamic sultanates of Sulu and mainland Mindanao represented a higher stage
of political and economic development than the barangay. These had a feudal form
of social organization. Each of them encompassed more people and wider territory
than the barangay. The sultan reigned supreme over several datus and was
conscious of his privilege to rule as a matter of hereditary "divine right."
Though they presented themselves mainly as administrators of communal lands,
apart from being direct owners of certain lands, the sultans, datus and the nobility
exacted land rent in the form of religious tribute and lived off the toiling masses. They
constituted a landlord class attended by a retinue of religious teachers, scribes and
leading warriors.

2. The sultanates emerged in the two centuries precedent to the coming of Spanish
colonialists. They were built up among the so-called third wave of Malay migrants
whose rulers either tried to convert to Islam, bought out, enslaved or drove away the
original non-Muslim inhabitants of the areas that they chose to settle in. Serfs and
slaves alike were used to till the fields and to make more clearings from the forest.
Throughout the archipelago, the scope of barangays could be enlarged either
through the expansion of agriculture by the toil of the slaves or serfs, through
conquests in war and through interbarangay marriages of the nobility. The
confederations of barangays was usually the result of a peace pact, a barter
agreement or an alliance to fight common internal and external enemies.
As evident from the forms of social organization already attained, the precolonial
inhabitants of the Philippine archipelago had an internal basis for further social
development. In either barangay or sultanate, there was a certain mode of
production which was bound to develop further until it would wear out and be
replaced with a new one. There were definite classes whose struggle was bound to
bring about social development. As a matter of fact, the class struggle within the
barangay was already getting extended into interbarangay wars. The barangay was
akin to the Greek city-state in many respects and the sultanate to the feudal
commonwealth of other countries.
The people had developed extensive agricultural fields. In the plains or in the
mountains, the people had developed irrigation systems. The Ifugao rice terraces
were the product of the engineering genius of the people; a marvel of 12,000 miles if
strung end-to-end. There were livestock-raising, fishing and brewing of beverages.
Also there were mining, the manufacture of metal implements, weapons and
ornaments, lumbering, shipbuilding and weaving. The handicrafts were developing
fast. Gunpowder had also come into use in warfare. As far north as Manila, when the
Spaniards came, there was already a Muslim community which had cannons in its
weaponry.
The ruling classes made use of arms to maintain the social system, to assert their
independence from other barangays or to repel foreign invaders. Their jurisprudence
would still be borne out today by the so-called Code of Kalantiyaw and the Muslim
laws. These were touchstones of their culture. There was a written literature which
included epics, ballads, riddles and verse-sayings; various forms and instruments of

3. music and dances; and art works that included well-designed bells, drums, gongs,
shields, weapons, tools, utensils, boats, combs, smoking pipes, lime tubes and
baskets. The people sculpted images from wood, bone, ivory, horn or metals. In
areas where anito worship and polytheism prevailed, the images of flora and fauna
were imitated, and in the areas where the Muslim faith prevailed, geometric and
arabesque designs were made. Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, a record of
what the Spanish conquistadores came upon, would later be used by Dr. Jose Rizal
as testimony to the achievement of the indios in precolonial times.
There was interisland commerce ranging from Luzon to Mindanao and vice-versa.
There were extensive trade relations with neighboring countries like China,
Indochina, North Borneo, Indonesia, Malaya, Japan and Thailand. Traders from as
far as India and the Middle East vied for commerce with the precolonial inhabitants
of the archipelago. As early as the 9th century, Sulu was an important trading
emporium where trading ships from Cambodia, China and Indonesia converged.
Arab traders brought goods from Sulu to the Chinese mainland through the port of
Canton. In the 14th century, a large fleet of 60 vessels from China anchored at
Manila Bay, Mindoro and Sulu. Previous to this, Chinese trading junks had been
intermittently sailing into various points of the Philippine shoreline. The barter system
was employed or gold and metal gongs were used as medium of exchange.