Filipino styles and honorifics

In the Spanish colonial era, Philip II of Spain decreed that the nobility in the Philippine islands should retain their pre-hispanic honours and privileges.

[4][5][6][7] Events/Artifacts (north to south) Events/Artifacts Artifacts Historically Southeast Asia was under the influence of Ancient India, where numerous Indianized principalities and empires flourished for several centuries in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Cambodia and Vietnam.

[8] French archaeologist, George Coedes, defined it as the expansion of an organized culture that was framed upon Indian originations of royalty, Hinduism and Buddhism and the Sanskrit dialect.

Indian diaspora, both ancient (PIO) and current (NRI), played an ongoing key role as professionals, traders, priests and warriors.

[16] Sri or Seri (Baybayin: ᜐᜇᜒ) is a polite form of address equivalent to the English Mr. or Ms. in Indianized polities and communities [17] The title is derived from Sanskrit श्रीमान् (śrīmān).

It was called dātu in Old Malay language to describe regional leader or elder,[27] a kind of chieftain that rules of a collection of kampungs (villages).

The Srivijaya empire was described as a network of mandala that consists of settlements, villages, and ports each ruled by a datu that vowed their loyalty (persumpahan) to the central administration of Srivijayan Maharaja.

Unlike the indianized title of raja and maharaja, the term datuk was also found in the Philippines as datu, which suggests its common native Austronesian origin.

The treatment gradually became reserved for persons of the blood royal and those of such acknowledged high or ancient aristocratic birth as noble de Juro e Herdade, that is, "by right and heredity" rather than by the king's grace.

However, by the 20th century, it was no longer restricted in use for the upper classes, since persons of means or education (at least of a "bachiller" level), regardless of background, came to be so addressed, and it is now often used as if it were a more formal version of Señor.

In all else, the governors shall see that the princely ones are benefited justly, and the Indians shall pay them something as recognition, in the form that was in practice at the time of their heathenism, with which this be without prejudice to the taxes that are to be paid to us, nor prejudicial to that which pertains to their entrusters.