Molo! Molo!

Pancit Molo is a soup of pork dumplings in chicken broth. It is named after one of the oldest sections of Iloilo on the island of Panay in the Visayas. Molo was originally the Parian, the Chinese quarters in Iloilo established in the eighteenth century by the Spanish to segregate the growing Chinese population in the islands. Melanie Padilla, a historian based at the University of the Philippines in Iloilo City, told me that the name Molo, according to local legend, came about when the Chinese called out a warning against approaching Moros [Filipinos from Mindanao] in their vintas who were notorious for raiding coastal villages at the time. The Chinese could not pronounce the r and cried out, “Molo! Molo!”