What is "alipin"

The alipin refers to the lowest social class among the various cultures of the Philippines before the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the Visayan languages, the equivalent social classes were known as the oripun, uripon, or ulipon.

The most common translation of the word is "servant" or "slave", as opposed to the higher classes of the timawa/ maharlika (warrior class) and the tumao/ maginoo (noblemen). This translation, however, is inaccurate. The concept of the alipin relied on a complex system of obligation and repayment through labor in ancient Philippine society, rather than on the actual purchase of a person as in Western and Islamic slavery. Indeed, members of the alipin class who owned their own houses were more accurately equivalent to medieval European serfs and commoners.