When my mother was alive, she used to talk of her friend, Princess Tarhata. She had many stories about Princess Tarhata, how beautiful she was, how smart, how powerful. I was reminded of the Princess because she supposedly owned a huge natural pearl; that point of interest came up because of the next book project I'm trying to cultivate in my head.
I thought Princess Tarhata Kiram was just one of my mother's society women friends, but when I looked her up, realized she was a woman who created a lot of impact in the Philippines.
She was a Tausug of royal blood, born in Sulu, in the oldest sultanate in the Philippines. Her father was the Sultan of Sulu, Mohammed Esmali Kiram, although she was adopted by her uncle Sultan Jamulul Kiram II. She was sent to the US in 1920 as the first woman pensionado; when she returned to the Philippines, she went back to Sulu and the traditional ways.
She married three times: first to Datu Tahil, a Tausug leader of the 1927 Moro revolt; second to Datu Buyungan; and third to a Christian lawyer Salvador Francisco. The Princess had to go on exile for a few years because of her first husband's involvement in the 1927 Moro revolt in Sulu.
The Princess was an important consultant on Islamic affairs to the Philippine government, and she contributed much to the the government's development activities in Mindanao.
Princess Tarhata was one of the heirs of the Island of Sabah,which the Sultan of Sulu had leased to the British, but which the British never returned.
She died in 1970, and as a tribute to her, the government printed a three-peso stamp bearing her image; there is also a marker with her name in Jolo, Sulu.
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Tags: Mindanao, Sulu, Sabah, Muslim, Princess Tarhata, Philippines, Filipino, politics, Filipina
This is all for now,
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