Pedro Manuel did not lead a celebrated life. He did not loot one of the most famous and extensive libraries in Asia and hoard its contents in his personal library. He did not promise strategic and military fealty to Diego Silang only to abandon him and his troops to the fate of execution when the British abandoned Manila. He did not withdraw a promised inheritance once he learned the person qualified for a place in the Marylebone Workhouse. He was never an employee of the East India Company, a kind of Microsoft of its day, imbued with the sense of entitilement that comes when vast, unchecked powers are enrobed in royal franchise and ideas of racial superiority. He did not drag an entire nation of people into a war fought for thoroughly baffling political premises 10,000 kilometres away.
So no, as a servant, as a caretaker, as an immigrant, he led a humble life of quiet, if unappreciated, duty.
He lived in Marylebone at 57 Marylebone High Street in what is now a hospital, sitting next door the parish churchyard. He worked for Alexander Dalrymple who was the Governor General of the Philippines and the hydrographer for the British East India Company. Some of his work as a hydrographer is credited in a map of Sulu held in British Library that part of Dalrymple's work.
What he did was not notable or remarkable. But his life ended up being a kind of template for countless migrants who followed his footsteps. His life and work followed a path invisible to colonial historians.
What the Pedro project is about is bringing his life into a high relief, to recover his decidedly non-heroic life and find some poetic value in celebrating it.