Philippines long time good relationship to china-shared the history -

original source: http://dpwh.armm.gov.ph/discover-dpwh

photosource:

The King of Sulu and the Emperor of China
It has been 600 years since 1417, when Chinese
Emperor Yongle personally wrote a long dedication to a good
friend who died in his land - the Sultan of Sulu - and gave him an imperial
burial in Dezou, China, that is today a National Historical site in China.
This month, China celebrates the 600th Anniversary of China-Sulu Relations.
One of the thousands of 21st generation descendant of Sulu Sultan said,
they don't think Sulu is an island. They believed it is a State.

Long before the establishment of the Philippines as a
Republic, there existed Sultanates and Kingdoms governing
various parts of the seven thousand plus islands now
collectively known as the Philippines. During the colonization period,
the Spaniards saw the conversion of many locals into the Christian faith.
But the Sultanates in the southern part of the country resisted and fought
bravely foreign invasion for more than 400 years protecting it’s sovereignty
against the Spaniards, the Japanese and the American forces until it was
illegally annexed into the Spanish colony Philippines through the Treaty of Paris.
The Sultanate of Sulu was one of the Kingdoms in

the southern part of the country that saw this resistance and
remained an independent sovereign kingdom for many centuries.
The Sultanate of Sulu governed the Sulu archipelago, and most of the
Visayas and Mindanao Islands since the 14th century. When the Sultanate of
Maguindanao and Buayan was later established the Sultanate of Sulu ceded
most of mainland Mindanao Island supporting the establishment of the three Sultanates in Mindanao.
The Sulu Sultanate was recognized and acknowledge

by its neighboring empires. It had diplomatic relations,
entered into treaties and built strong economic ties that saw exchange
of people and products from its neighbors Sultanates of Maguindanao and
Buayan, to the Strait of Malacca, the great empire of China and the Sham nations in the Gulf (middle east).
Records from the Royal Hashemite Sutanate of Sulu and Sabah shows that

“the Kingdom of Sulu became a sovereign kingdom nation state in
1390 and signed the Most Favored Nation Treaty with China in 1417.”
“It continued on as a sovereign Sultanate, patterned after the Islamic

sultanates in the Middle East, whose Muslim missionaries brought
the religion Islam in the country, and further records claim that the
Royal Sultanate of Sulu was the very first in the whole world to install the
"Tri-partite Form of Government" in 1457, with the Sultan (Islamic King) as the
Head of State, the Ruma Bichara as Congress or Legislature, and the
Supreme Qadi as the Islamic Supreme Court Justice of the kingdom,
copied by the USA in 1776, the Philippines in 1946, and many other sovereign nations today.”

Revered in honor and prosperous it was as a Kingdom in the
East, the leaders of the Sulu Sultanate paid official visits to other
countries to which it had diplomatic relations with such as China.
One of which is Sulu East King Paduka Pahala who led a delegation on
August 1417 to China to pay Tribute to Emperor Yongle at the time of
Ming Dynasty and was grandly welcomed by Chinese officials.
After 27 days stay in Beijing, on way back to Saltanah Sulu,
unfortunately, Sultan Pahala died from an illness at a courier station of
Dezhou on lunar September 13th, 1417.
Soon after hearing the obituary, Emperor Yongle sent officials to give Sulu East
King an elaborate funeral as the standard of empire’s brother. In the memorial essay,
Emperor Yongle praised Sulu East King as being “wise and gentle” and exerted his gratitude to East King for his efforts in furthering friendship between the two countries. He also asked officials to put relics like royal monuments and sculptures in the south of his tomb, making its scale same as those of Chinese prince’s tombs covering more than 5 hectares.
Sulu East King was accompanied by his family during this visit. After his funeral, his first son Baginda returned to Sulu to take his father’s place while his wife, Kamulin and his two other sons An and Won stayed to take care of the mausoleum for three years. The central government not only pay official salary to them, but also gave them land and sent officials to guard the mausoleum.
In 1424, the government of Ming Dynasty escorted Kamulin back to Sulu but she came a year after because of her emotional attachment to East King. She never left and stayed in Dezhou with her two sons till death. The East King’s descendants and posterity was later recognized as citizens of Dezhou, China with the surname Won and An and have live there up to now.
As a witness of friendship between China and the Philippines, Sulu East King’s Mausoleum is located in northen Decheng District of Dezhou, Shandong Province. It is the only foreign king’s Mausoleum in China and also the only foreign king’s mausoleum with a village in charge of guarding it.
Film workers from China and Philippines co-produced the movie entitled “the King of Sulu and the Emperor of China,” which shows the historical background and reflected the friendship between the two countries and wished it long lasting.

please note: just sharing the history...not my article

credit to abs cbn news video to youtube