334. FROM PRAYERS FOR GOOD CROPS, THIS VIRGIN NOW HEARS APPEALS FOR BETTER GRADES, by Floy Quintos

NTRA. SRA. DEL ROSARIO, Panlilio-Santos Joven. Photo:Arwin Lingat

by: Floy Quintos

Reprinted from THE SUNDAY INQUIRER MAGAZINE , October 2, 2005 issue.

Lahar spelled death for the La Naval procession in Bacolor, Pampanga. This month, four La Sallians are bringing the tradition to the De La Salle Campus in Dasmarinas, Cavite so that students can begin their own tradition of homage to the Virgin.

The bucolic grounds of the Museo De La Salle in the Cultural Heritage Complex of the De La Salle campus in Dasmarinas, Cavite, are abuzz with student volunteers and museum personnel busy at work. Their task is a daunting one, perhaps a bit anachronistic in a campus where most of the students major in computer studies and nursing. They are restoring and assembling the largest extant 19th century “Carroza Triunfal” known, a massive yet graceful carroza of beaten silver.

For this October, the Nuestra Senora del Santissimo Rosario de La Naval of Bacolor, Pampanga comes home to the De La Salle campus in Dasmarinas. And here, every October from now on, she will ride forth again. One can almost hear Nick Joaquin rhapsodizing about his most beloved of Marian festivals.

And when she does, fours sons of De La Salle will have fulfilled a vow to rekindle a devotion to the Naval. They are Brother Andrew Gonzalez, FSC, two-time president of the De La Salle University System, who was just last week installed as the first President Emeritus; Brother Edmundo Fernandez, FSC, the youngest Brother Provincial of the De La Salle community in the country and Brother Armin Luistro, FSC, current president of the De La Salle University Manila and, quite recently, an active participant in national causes.

Providing a delightful counterpoint to this august company is Jose Ma. Ricardo Panlilio, or Joey, Executive Director of the Museo De La Salle and connoisseur of all things pertaining to 19th century Philippine Illustrado style. All four come from diverse backgrounds, but share a quiet devotion spread among the De La Salle students.

For Joey, 41, the image of the Virgin and the attendant St. Joseph, the massive and priceless carro and the very tradition of honoring the La Naval are, at once, a remnant of childhood and a symbol of a painful rite of passage into the real world. The image’s last custodian was his paternal grandmother, the late Luz Sarmiento Panlilio, a grand dame of Bacolor, Pampanga, and elder sister to the fabulous jeweler Fe.

“My childhood was greatly influenced by Inang Lucing,” says Joey. “I remember how the carro and the image of the virgen was the most important thing in her life. And how the entire year centered on the preparation for the November festival, which is when the La Naval was celebrated in Bacolor. My brothers and I were studying in La Salle and our immediate family was based in Manila. But every November just as the novena began, we had to come home. Inang Lucing would ask our parents to issue excuse letters. It was important to our family.”

FUN SIDE

Joey, from a very young age, took a great interest in the preparation of the carro. Weeks before, the pieces were taken out from the camarin or warehouse for polishing, reconstructing, repairing. “Inang would show me the lace and tissue that she had bought from her trips to Spain and involve me in the work. She would teach me the way the virgen must be dressed, the appropriate flowers, the appropriate music that the marching band would play. I just took to it naturally, it was all a part of my education in the traditions of the 19th century.”

But such archaic minutae also had a fun side. “Kapampangans are great eaters, and the day of the fiesta was one big celebration of Bacolor cuisine. We would wake at dawn to see the formal living room of the old house strewn with barongs. We would get into them and go to the high Mass. Then, we would come home to breakfast, a meal to which everyone in town was invited. At mid-morning, Segundo almuerzo, a heavy merienda was offered to all who had worked on the carro. Lunch was hectic because all the visitors from Manila would arrive, and it was a matter of Kapampangan pride that Inang offer them a table of the very best specialties.

NTRA. SRA. DEL ROSARIO in her Carroza Triunfal.

Then, at 3 p.m., another merienda for the latecomers from Manila. The parade would take place at around seven in the evening. And when we came home, there was a formal dinner in the main house, and food for everyone in the grounds below. It was exhausting, and even more so because at the crack of dawn the next day, my brothers would be herded into the car for the long drive back to school. I would stay an extra week to clean up and put everything back into place. My parents were not amused, especially my father. Looking back, I was really torn between two generations: Inang’s which believed in tradition, and my own family’s pragmatism and modernity!” His mother, the writer Lourdes Abad-Panlilio, once whispered to Joey, just as the carroza was sweeping past in all its dazzling grandeur, “You must always remember, hijo, the virgen was a simple woman.”

Joey looks back with little nostalgia and lots of pragmatism. “It was a feudal lifestyle, yes. But the one thing I most treasure about it is that it taught us to deal with everyone from all classes of life. It wasn’t this stereotyped ideal of having caciques and tenants at your beck and call. Everything was community-based. We worked alongside the people who worked for us. We decorated the carro together, we ate together, we marched in the procession together. It was for the Virgin, that was the way we thought about it. It was a dying tradition even then. But in Bacolor, the procession was a source of community pride.”

BENIGHTED TRADTION

Sadly as Joey grew into adulthood, he saw the gradual loss of interest in the benighted tradition. “It needed only the lahar to put an end to the procession, to that entire way of life.”

Joey and his siblings must have been ready to say goodbye to it in 1990, when the Pinatubo eruption covered most of Bacolor in lahar. But Inang Lucing, well into her eighties, had other plans. “I remember I told her that it would be difficult to organize an evacuation for the furniture and the household effects. She told me, “What furniture? All we really need is the carro.” It dawned on me that this feisty old woman had lived her entire life for only two things, her family and the virgen. We had to do it.”

CARVED ANGEL DETAILS,

Inang, Joey and his brothers and a few friends from Manila went back in a 10-wheeler truck. “She rode right up front next to the driver. We went back and tried to save as much as we could. Everyday, the lahar would rise a little higher, but we finally managed. On the long ride back, I started to complain. Inang was praying her rosary, but she stopped to say, “ at least we have somewhere to go. During the war, when I evacuated to the carro, there was nowhere to go.” That certainly said a lot about Inang and her character. WE brought everything back and put it into storage. However, there was no more community, no more old friends and neighbors. The entire structure that had made the procession come alive was gone. And there was nothing she could do about that.” Inang Lucing died in 1998, a shadow of her former self, but still an ardent devotee to the La Naval.

Brother Andrew Gonzalez FSC, former President of De La Salle University Manila, himself a descendant of the prosperous Arnedo-Gonzalez clan of Sulipan, Apalit, Pampanga, was no stranger to Kapampangan tradition. “But Brother is one of the most forward-looking men I’ve ever met. He admires the past, but he does not live in it. He knew we had saved all this stuff, he knew that it was in storage. He called me one day and said, “Put all your memories of childhood into a place where students can learn about them. You have a responsibility to the future generation. The Museo De La Salle was born.” As envisioned by Brother Andrew, it would be part of a cultural complex in the 27-Hectare De La Salle Dasmarinas campus, with the Aklatang Emilio Aguinaldo, the Campus Ministry Office and the Cavite Studies Center. All of a sudden, Joey who had been a practicing interior designer, had a new purpose in life. “It was no problem to get the family donate everything to the new museum. It was the least painful way to say goodbye to memories.”

WONDERFUL COUPS

Five years into operation, and the Museo De La Salle located in Dasmarinas, Cavite is not only one of the best-endowed museums in the country, it is also one of the most talked about. As Executive Director, Joey has managed some wonderful coups, such as important private donations, most notably the Guevarra Collection. His old-world tact and diplomacy, coupled with a wicked charm and serendipity, has gotten the museum many important bequests from the crème collectors. But it is his florid style of display, so true to the hyper-refined sensibility of the late 19th century, that make the museum truly unique.

“Still,” Joey says, “It lacked, in Brother Andrew Gonzalez FSC’s words, a spiritual center. Now that the museum is up and running, it seems the best time to bring out the Virgen again. It has been 14 years since she was last seen. But this time, it will be in a setting and at a time where she will give a different meaning to the festivities. And among young people who know nothing of Bacolor, Pampanga and the past, but who are ready to create their own traditions.”

NTRA. SRA. DEL ROSARIO

When the Virgen de la Naval of Bacolor rides forth again in the De La Salle Campus in Dasmarinas, Caviteon this month sacred to her and her devotees, there will be no more caciques and tenants, no proud matrons of feudal society, no children forced home from school to attend to her. Instead she will be pulled along by students who have volunteered for the honor of being her escorts. Perhaps, in Bacolor, she heard very different prayers - for better crops or kinder masters and cancelled debts. This time the prayers will be for exams, for careers, for much-needed jobs. No grand fetes, no groaning tables will mark her fiesta. Only the quiet admiration of a new community that is beginning something they can call their own. No need now for new jewels and crowns for this La Naval. 

316. THE BOHOL CHURCH MURALS

By Mary Marshall

Originally published  in Archipelago, The International Magazine of the Philippines, 1978-VI A-48. Pp. 24-26.

The church of Loboc in Bohol was built in 1602, paintings and ceilings were restored in 1927.

 Bohol island is probably  most well-known in the Philippines for its strange, humpy Chocolate Hills and its startled, saucer-eyed tarsiers. Its mefolk too have something of a reputation. Bohol’s heroes include fierce datus such as Warai Tupueng and Sikatuna (famous for his blood compact with the conquistador Legaspi), Tamblot the apostate pries, and Dagoho the outlaw and priest-killer. Not a breed to be trifled with. Nor a region where one would expect to find the flowering of Christian folk art. Nevertheless, some of the most remarkable churches in the Philippines are found in Bohol, and some of the oldest.

Baclayon. The most ancient, was built by its parishioners in 1595 to the design of Spanish priests, Juan de Torres and  Gabriel Sanchez, members of the first Jesuit mission sent to the Philippines, in 1581. Typically, it is a massive construction made from limestone blocks hewn from the quarries of Baclayon and neighboring Albuquerque. It stands confronting the sea, its massive  three-storey tower with splayed base resembling a fortress is not fortuitous. The belfry served as a citadel in which parishioners could huddle for protection when Moro pirates made one of their lightning salving raids during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The seven sacraments which correspond to the seven ages of man are also depicted in the ceiling murals.

Harassed by Moro pirates from the seas and unbelievers from the hills, Chrstian missionaries had limited success in Bohol. The initial impact of the Jesuit missions was confined to the coastal areas around Baclayon, Loboc and Dauis. Even then, it seems to have been superficial as far as most impressionable Boholanos were concerned.

In 1621,a native priest, Tamblot, incited the lowland converts to abandon the new religion. Only Lobic and Baclayon held firm in the new faith.Elsewhere, the renegades burnt villages and churches and built temples to the old gods. In 1774, another, more serious rebellion broke out. When a Spanish priest refused to give Catholic burial to a Boholano killed in a duel, the dead man’s brother Francisco Dagohoy killed he priest and formed an outlaw band in the hills. Many malcontents and rebels against Spanish rule joined him and the revolt lasted nearly 100 years.

Despite the constant challenges to Christianity to Bohol and throughout typhoons and earthquakes, the great churches of Baclayon and Loboc survived. Other damaged churches were laboriously rebuilt or repaired (Loboc in 1855 for instance, and Dauis in 1883). Today, the churches of Albuquerque, Loboc, Loon and Dauis house some remarkable ceiling morals which seem to have been first painted around the middle or later half of the last century.

Many of the murals portray scenes from the life of Christ, his mother and various saints, with San Roque and the Santo Niño especially popular subjects. Sometimes, special themes are followed, such as the Resurrection and the Ascension, or the Childhood of Christ. Sometimes, “musical” paintings are carefully selected for the rear of the church near the choir gallery. We see King David playing the harp, or an angelic trio of violinist, harpist, and flautist, with a ladylike accompanist at the piano.

In Albuquerque and Loon, , the murals include a delightful and unusual series of tableaux on the theme of the Seven Ages of Man. The various scenes illustrate events of religious significance in man’s life, from birth through baptism, first communion and confession, marriage, last rites and funeral mass.

The Ages of Man murals have great appeal. The turn of the century middle-class costumes have an evocative period flavor. In the Loon paintings, the artist allows himself some wry humor: in the scene of the first confession, a horned devil lies in wait outside the confessional for a girl who clearly has been no better than she should be.

In November 1876, the river of Loboc overflowed and flooded the town to the level of the feet of the Virgin painted on the altar reredos. The townspeople implored the help of Our Lady and her intervention in stopping the flood is commemorated with ceiling paintings.

The paintings in Loboc have very local reference. In November 1876, the waters of the river Loboc, across the street from the church, rose during a severe typhoon to the level of the feet of the Virgin of the church, in the reredos above the altar. At this pint, the flood waters were stayed and gradually receded. The miracle, attributed to the Virgin, is recalled in two of the  ceiling paintings, one a Filipino version of the biblical flood with dramatically tumbling nipa huts.

The Bohol mural painters make no claim to be Michelangelo, but their rk has vigor and sincerity hich endows their church interiors with a warmth and life missinh from many more austerely or conventionally modernized Spanish churches elsewehere. For one travel-strained visitor least, their discovery was truly a serendipity.

298. ANTIPOLO, by Ileana Maramag

People make yearly pilgrimage to this Rizal town to pay homage to centuries-old Brown Madonna.

By Ileana Maramagpublished in The Sunday Times Magazine, 20 May 1962.

Still drawing a steady stream of pilgrims at this time of year is Antipolo, the small hilly town in Rizal province made famous as the shrine of the centuries-old brown Madonna as Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage.

Antipolo, however, is not what it used to be. In the olden days, old folks like to recall, the place was no more than an isolated hamlet that could only be reached by carretela or cascos, via one of the Pasig River’s tributaries that wends its way to several Rizal towns. Thus, pilgrimages to the Virgin of Antipolo in those days were more hazardous and involved no small amount of sacrifice.Often enough, the pilgrims had ti hike the slippery trails of the region or cross the difficult terrain in man-borne hammocks. Aisde from this, the pilgrimages were made more festive by the bright parasols, colorful balintawaks and camisas de chino worn by the pilgrims, Today, the practice has all but disappeared; Antipolo is easy to reach via paved highways and modern-day pilgrims make the Maytime trek in buses or drive down the 28 km. road to Antipolo in snazzy cars,

Source: Sunday Times Magazine, May 1962

From Manila, it takes no more than 45 minutes to reach the town proper, and once ed there, pilgrims converge at the modern church which is easily Antipolo’s biggest landmark. Once inside, one discovers that the age-old image of Our Lady of peace and Good Voyage is enshrined in a special niche atop the main altar.

Source: Sunday Times Magazine, May 1962

Annually, on May 1^st, by tradition, the Virgin is borne in solemn procession to an improvised altar atop Pinagmisahan Hill, where a mass is said to commemorate the first Mass celebrate by the early Spanish missionaries on the same hill. Devotees also mark the feast of Antipolo Virgin every first Tuesday of May.

Early historians report that the image was first brought to Manila from Mexico on June 29, 1626 by the then newly-appointed Governor General Juan Niño de Tabora to isnure the safe voyage of the galleons against pirates and typhoons.

No one can tell exactly how the Virgin became enshrined in the town of Antipolo. There are two versions. One reports the image was taken to the Rizal town by the Governor general and Archbishop and crowned as Nuestra Señora de la Paz y Buen Viaje. Another account says the statue disappeared and was found perched atop an antipolo tree, on the same spot where the Antipolo church now stands.

Another legend tells of how the Virgin of Antipolo acquired its dark color. The story goes that during the 1639 Chinese Rebellion (which include Rizal and  Laguna towns), the Chinese burned the statue but somehow the image miraculously remained unscathed. Instead, the carving turned black and has retained its dark hue through the centuries.

When the Japanese commandeered the old Antipolo church and used it as their garrison during the last war, devotees smuggled the image, buried it in a drum, and later transported it to the Quiapo Church where it was enshrined until after the Liberation.

295. ALL ‘S FAIR IN LAL-LO, by Nancy T. Lu

By Nancy T.Lu

Sunday Times Magazine, 28 Sept. 1968, p. 38-41

Experienced collectors with a discriminating eye for genuine museum pieces are wont to spot them all over the archipelago whether be in some isolated, weather-beaten ruins, or in some unexplored nooks of private homes. Because many a Cagayan artifact was not meant to be kept unseen, a number of these cultural treasures which can easily swell he Cagayan pride recently left their forbidding enclaves to undergo maximum public exposure in Lal-lo, the site of the Cagayan Provincial Fair.

The preliminaries involved in the ostentatious display of Cagayan’s cultural heritage demanded concerted efforts including no less the governor’s personalized attempts in convincing the reluctant citizenry to loan the valuable family heirlooms they have been hoarding all this while in the privacy of their homes for the provincial exhibit. Which true-blooded Cagayano dared refuse Governor Dupaya’s request when she made it a point to call on the selected families personally? Repetitious assurances of security precautions had to be made in many cases to assuage the concerned individuals’ anxiety over the loss or damage that may befall their cherished properties.

Thus, the the cultural relics were brought in from all over Cagayan. And thus began also the pressing problem of identifying, sorting out, and classifying the numerable items comprising Cagayan’s cultural wealth. While the mian responsibility was delegated to the committee on relics, artifacts and antiques, a supervising authority was wanting. Invitation was extended a museology expert and soon enough, Fr. Jesus Meriño, O.P., of the U.S.T. Museum of Arts and Sciences flew in as the givernor’s special guest from Manila.

The enthusiastic Dominican friar took one look at all the collected objects laden with dust of the centuries and proceeded to single out slowly the “real wonders of art”. Taking care to jot down the outstanding features of the unique antiques as he went about rummaging for more of Cagayan’s historical possessions, he decided to direct the obliging engineer and helpful architect to classify and arrange the artifacts according to three general divisions: 1). People. Life and History, 2). Home, 3). Church.

Grouped along with the first category were tablewares imported from all over Eirope. There were eighteenth century chocolate cups of Spanish make. Some porcelain plates were German-made as a sopera all the way from Vienna. Certain chinawares had designs that connoisseurs would easily detect as rough British imitations of the fine, delicate artistic Chinese strokes. Gracing the opening of the Cagayan Fair with her very presence, the First Lady was reported to have taken fancy to a platter with a dent for gravy.

An alert guard constantly kept close watch over one of those contemporary glass showcases showing private collections of international coins and currencies. For security reasons, these precious personal belongings had to be locked away elsewhere every night. And for the same reason the owners chose to remain unidentified by name throughout the duration of the cultural exhibit.

Spanish Attires

Sweeping feminine attires of the Spanish era came in different colors tha had faded unevenly with the times. Nineteenth century camisas, panuelos and sayas that lay almost completely forgotten there in dust-colored trunks  and spider-webbed chests that had seen better days were put out once more ahere a fairly strong whiff of air caused that distinct smell of age to permeate the atmosphere. But a real item for Ripley’s Believe it or Not was this sable-hued tapis with romantic Castilian verses woven in white silk thread all over it. Father Meriño obligingly translated the love poem as a love-stricken lovers’ reproach to his loved one never to forget that he is unhappy if should forget him. The Spanish priest volunteered  a surmise that he must have been jilted by the girl. Apparently, the boy must have asked his sister to weave the chiding message into the tapis he later gave his girlfriend as a sentimental gift immortalizing his affections for her. Father Meriño further concluded from the numerous misspelled words that the poetic lover must have been a native and not a Spaniard.

The first recorded museums of old found in Egypt and Greece were reported to have been temples which held community treasures mainly religious in nature. Even today, votive objects for propitiatory purposes constitute a greater bulk of solicited artifacts in the traditional repositories all over the world. By sheer coincidence or otherwise, the recently tagged Artifacts Building found in the Tabacalera Compound in Lal-lo was once a convent-chapel servicing the Lal-lo community. Surviving the earth tremors of the seventeenth century, it had since been converted into some other more mundane use. Nevertheless, the indisputable cracks effected by the earthquake remain visible as the original concrete structure never really gave way to complete renovation. The only incongruous touches contradicting its otherwise incontrovertible claim to antiquity rest in the rust-free galvanized iron roofings and the wooden additions  still fresh with paint. Furthermore, the dimly-lit interior was not stripped of its sacrosanct air.

“I simply directed the architect and the engineer to give a particular portion of the building a semblance of a chapel,” Father Meriño said. “How they would go about it I left it to their discretion for what really mattered was that they should project a suggestion of an improvised altar with all the essential elements that should go with it. It was a pity, however, that the 3-tiered altar could not be reconstructed as such because the ceiling did not extend upward high enough.”

From Tuao, lying ion the boundary of Cagayan and Mountain Province,  had come the curious elements of a once magnificent altar.  For one reason or another, the severely-damaged church of Tuao was neglected for a time by the people and eventually, its gilded altar was exposed to the elements. It took a prudent parish priest to go out of his way to salvage whatever was left of a once beautiful place of worship. Dismantling the whole construction, he proceeded to keep the columns  and the wings of the altar under his house where they would be safe.

Mishandled

Instances of mishandling of the high-priced artifacts were not exactly unheard of. Father Meriño bewailed, for instance, how too much cleaning of the wings of the altarby eager individuals caused the parts of the altra to be deprived of the gold-plated designs of flowers and leaves. The traces of gold sheen came off when the clay beneath got wet and gave way.

Of the twenty one columns chiseled along the pseudo-classic artistic plan, three were not in pairs. Then, too, a number of these elaborated designed columns were as there should be thirty six columns all in all. Also nowhere to be found were the indispensable connecting beams of the altar.

Each pillar was carved from the trunk of the sturdy narra tree. Father Meriño concluded that the columns must have been carved by native artists well-trained in the Spanish tradition. But who supervised these artists? He asked. Could it have been the parish priest who was known to have been an artist himself?

Just as attractive was the seventeenth century century retablo from the Camalanlugan church where it served as a screen shielding the interior of the church from the outsiders. Formed from nine enduring narra trunks, the unique relief depicted Our Lady of the Rosary as an intercessor for souls in purgatory. The curious thing about it, however, was in its representation of souls as differentiated from angels flying about freely with wings. The penitent souls ascending into heaven all by themselves were without wings. In had to look closely to see the striking difference.

As borne by the subdued tones of colorings and enamel, artistry was prominent in this work of art. While the planning and drawing , the panorama and the general idea were unquestionably Spanish, the carving itself was adjudged as Chinese,

However, on the whole, the wide array of displayed objects could not boast of outstanding or fine artistry. In several instances, the anonymous creators of these solid figures manifested an obvious lack of artistic academic training. The feet either went out of line thus producing an abnormal effect or the head suggested strongly a mournful absence of a sense of proportion, In one case, the crucified Christ could have passed with fairly good remarks from sharp critics except for the flaw that took the shape of an oversized crown of thorns.

But that was not what really counted. In spite of it all, these classified works of art

Do have a place in national repositories known as museums. They make even more interesting subjects of study.

Trooping in

And so they trooped in—the people from the remote towns all ver Cagayan valley and even the residents of the neighboring provinces. Artifacts galore turned out to be part of Lal-lo’s treat for the day. Garbed in motley attires, they took a close look at Cagayan’s treasured belongings vying for attention: medium sized saints molded along the traditional poses whether it was st. Peter portrayed as a penitent in a sixteenth century carving or St. Thomas Aquinas crushing the malignant church heresies aptly represented by a vicious serpent with seven venomous heads; from Tuao, a sixteenth century pedestal highly suggestive of Kalinga art; round brass candlesticks belying Kalinga influence also; the primitive-looking sitting figure of Our Lord of Patience—an object of special devotion during the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries; the priceless ivory images of the Blessed Virgn Mary and the crucified Redeemer of mankind; priestly vestments from Valencia, Spain, such as the chasuble and the dalmatic all sporting embroidered designs in silk and gold threads.

For objects closer to home , there were chairs from Vienna, a dining table reportedly 265 years old; an antiquated creaking trunk, an austere rattan and wooden bed; a harp and even a strange-looking escribania or writing desk with several minute drawers.

The enterprising organizers who set about introducing a pleasantly stimulating aura of culture consciousness not just to an exclusive sophisticated clique but to the public at large had fanned the clamor for a permanent repository of valuable artifacts. The idea then was for the government to subsidize an aesthetic refuge—call it  a museum—where privately-held relics could be brought for safekeeping. Here, too, experienced personnel, trained to engage in research, curatorial and library work will know how to handle best the delicate works of art so that the artistic heritage of a people may be preserved.

Meanwhile, Lal-lo’s Artifacts Building if converted permanently into a veritable showcase of Cagayan treasures portends well for what may , in the long run, emerge as a flourishing cultural institution for the Cagayan inhabitants. It certainly has the prototype shapings of a provincial museum in the making. And who could have thought of a more fitting place than Lal-lo, with its historical background and interesting topography?

The millennium for complete recognition of the the importance of a museum may not have arrived in the Philippines, but many a Cagayano will certainly not object to Lal-lo, nce the provincial capital, as the site where a sanctuary of Cagayan pride will find a lasting place.

289. COLLECTING ANTIQUE PHILIPPINE SANTOS THE HARD WAY

THE SANTO SEEKERS, Mario Mercado and Lorna Montilla.

Condensed from the original article: "COLLECTING FILIPINIANA THE HARD WAY" ,  first published in Chronicle, 1962.
By C.V. Pedroche

City-bred duo tramped backward towns in Panay to find wealth of artifacts and reliquaries

 Two young people, Mario Mercado and Lorna Montilla, are doing something few others have done: they are collecting old religious images, relics and other Filipiniana the hard way. And they are doing it for love.

With them it is not the collector’s cold-blooded mania for owning and storing precious odds and ends; it is with deep sense of conviction that somehow they will find again the Filipino soul in these bukbok-eaten, noseless, armless, and–in some instances–headless relics of our country’s past. These two dedicated enthusiasts are not swivel-chair collectors.

Having very little money, they cannot afford to wait for precious art items to come their way through profit-conscious agents. They have decided that the cheaper–through more dangerous–way to get their art pieces is to go out and look for them right at the source.

 To Mario who is barely twenty-three this is the right way–the only way. He is hunter, explorer, boxer, writer, painter, amateur archaeologist, photographer, mountain-climber all rolled into one masculine, nervous personality. Lorna is wiry. And she is game. City-bred, she has always pined for the wide open spaces. And she has found in Mario a tough companion who knows his way about both in city and mountain fastnesses, in caves and dark-room. She asks for no quarters. And Mario gives none. Both young, they have no patience with restraint. Nor convention.

Once they had agreed on their itinerary they set out to fulfill it. The first place they decided to explore was Panay where Lorna comes from. After only a few weeks’ stay in the mountain regions of this province they returned to civilization with several crates filled with the most astounding assortment of ancient religious images, shards, plates, vases, jars, daggers, skulls, and yellowed manuscripts. 

SAN VICENTE FERRER, TWO MARIAS AND ONE STO. NINO.

Mario says they have barely scratched the surface. They intend to return soon and continue digging. Lorna walked hundreds of kilometers with Mario and laughingly admits it was no picnic. She dug as fast as furiously as did Mario and the hired hands. She sweated it out, knowing that beneath the rolling knolls lie a pile of priceless artifacts which might give a clue to the history of our country–or at least of that part of our country. Hopping from one hill to another limbered up Lorna’s city legs. But, she said, it was worth all the pounds she lost.

 A Religious Colony in Old Jaro 

 Jaro’s ruins betray the death of a vast religious colony, in the words of Mario. Its foundations are intact but its walls are deadly gray, moss-covered and weed-choked. Paintings inside its churches have somehow survived, murals have been retouched, betraying the inexpert hands of native artisans.


Attempts at sculptures abound in these ancient houses of God –but these, too, reveal the awkward groping for expression of unschooled artists.The two next took in Iloilo, Molo, Tigbauan and Oton which, Mario says, has been almost completely devastated by the convulsions of the earth. 

But, he adds, there was something this violence could not kill –the beautiful palm-lined beaches and the sweet tender coconut meat on which they often had to slake their thirst and hunger.

Primitive Sculptured Statuettes 
Collecting the religious images proved to be less strenuous but as interesting as digging for artifacts. The people are deeply religious, Mario says, and they keep in their houses–even in the humblest huts–wooden images carved hundreds of years ago by their forebears. Soon the the temporary headquarters where our explorers kept their finds began to fill up with all kinds of wooden images–sculptures that show attempts at reverence and form, though utterly awkward beyond description, sometimes comic in an openly honest though unconsciously satirical way.

 The religiosity of these people can be best judged by the number of images they keep in their huts. There were crucifixes and extra-long, extra-short, extra-massive Christs with the bewildered eyes of dolls, or with Mona Lisa smiles, with blood oozing out in geometric pattern on their sides, and many such interesting features peculiar to primitive works of art.

 The statuettes are so old they ooze bukbok from tiny holes on their heads and bodies, so frail that they break into pieces with the slightest fall. Since they look so ugly and mutilated, the town priests have refused to allow them to be carried around during processions–or to bless them during fiestas. So the people have kept them in dark corners of their homes–where the two collectors found them. 

STO. NINO, SAN NICOLAS, SAN RAMON, SAN ANTONIO

How they secured these relics is quite another story. Sometimes the people just flatly refused to part with them however tempting the offer that had been made from them. In most instances they accepted new mass-produced plaster images in exchange for their priceless ones.

 After a while, though, people began to suspect the two. Stories were circulated about how they were spies or that the images they gave away were loaded with time-bombs or some such secret weapons meant to exterminate them. An old woman warned the people of Tigbauan who sold their statuettes to the strangers or exchanged them for plaster ones, that their departed ancestors would haunt them for thus desecrating these heirlooms by giving them away indiscriminately.

 Meanwhile the two daring young explorers are getting restless once again. Already the city dust is getting under their skin and their limbs are beginning to get flabby with inaction. In a few weeks, they assure us, however, they will be out again exploring in parts unknown. What they will bring back this time will be quite another story.

285. ALL THAT GLITTERS IS REALLY GOLD, by Nancy T. Lu

OUR LADY OF THE HOLY ROSARY. De Jesus family. by Maximo Vicente

By Nancy T. Lu  /  Photos by Ben Santos

Originally appeared on The Sunday Time Magazine, 16 February 1969 issue. pp. 26-27

The art of decoration by means of needle and thread is an ancient one. But what remained most fascinating is the needlework done in genuine gold.

Elaborate embroideries of fine floral pattern generally adorn the vestments of religious sttaues gracing the altars and the affluent homes of today. The glitter of gold somehow never fails to catch the attemtion of the human eye because of its richness. The leaves and the flowers  as a continuous sheet of burnished metal.

Such an observation calls for a closer scrutiny leading to the discovery that gold threads and lintejuelas are used artistically for decorative purposes.

Fine needlework in the making is shown here as four trained sewers from
the shop of Maximo Vicente embroider gold designs on the silk foundation
material stretched on the embroidery frame.

Gold threads passed and sewn at intervals vary considerably in structure and quality. A closer look that they are made by winding a high-carat gold around some silk thread. Mrs. Soledad Vicente from the shop of Maximo Vicente announced that she uses only threads imported from France. This, in some ways, accounts for the forbidding cost of ordering a santo for private use or for the church.

Furthermore, the gold leafing process used, for instance, on the Our Lady of Guadalupe in Pagsanjan makes it all the more expensive but pious individuals who are devotees of the of the Blessed Mother do not exactly mind the cost.

Some four sewers expertly-trained in the artwork on the embroidery of one assignment for months. Different kinds of stitches are tried after the silk or velvet foundation material has been stretched and temporarily sewn to an embroidery frame.

Designs are patterned after  that of antiques. Enterprising sewers try out original floral patterns. In some cases, the gold embroidery is lifted from centuries-old santos and transferred elsewhere because the original foundation materials fails to survive the onslaught of time.

Embroidering in gold used to be an uncontested preoccupation of nuns in convents. Gradually, lay families took to the trade. To date the tallere de Maximo Vicente which was established in 1908, has tuned out a good number of religious images found in parishes all over the archipelago.

Its most recently-completed commissioned jobs include the Our lady of the Rosary which has a height of one meter and sixty centimeters, including the base. It was finished in time for the fiesta of San Fernando, Pampanga. An even bigger finished work is the Our Lady of Guadalupe statue, roughly 2 meters in size with a diamond studded diadem for its crowning glory.The residents of Pagsanjan are proud of it.

French-imported gold threads varying in structure and quality
are used to bring the fine floral patterns on the vestments
of our Lady of the Rosary.

282. HOMETOWN BLUES AND 'APO TIAGO', by Blanche David-Gallardo

by Blanche David-Gallardo
Originally published on  @inquirer.net/ Inquirer Lifestyle/ 31 July 2016

SANTIAGO OF BETIS.

Last night I dreamt I went—not to Manderley—but to Betis again, the fiesta and holiday haunts of my youth and childhood and my father’s hometown where, like Manderley,  my grandfather’s house is “no more… ours no longer.”

At times looming larger than life, at other times dissipating like morning mist in the harsh light of everyday reality, memories of my grandfather’s Betis home float wraithlike, as ghosts from the past.

In the dim light of faulty recall, and through the idealized prism of advancing years acutely aware of time slipping away, I can still see the 19th-century bahay-na-bato, its stone front steps leading up to the wooden upper story living areas.

Branches of a giant chico tree loomed menacingly over the rail-enclosed balcony, occasionally dropping a fruit or two with a thud in the dead of night, confirming our childhood fears that indeed, kapres inhabited the tree and the nearby towering sugar mill. 

It was there we sat, my cousins and I, whiling away lazy afternoons when we outgrew childish pranks and games.

There I learned to love that magic time between day and night, the melancholy of twilight, and discovered the first stirrings of puppy love.

The balcony opens out, through double doors and carved lintel of Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) to a vast living room. To one side stood my grandfather’s bedroom, perpetually dimly lit with flickering oil lamps and votive candles.

 Velvet finery

There the family santo—Apo Tiago, St. James the Apostle— was kept in its glass case, dressed in simple cotton garment for everyday wear, until metamorphosed for delivery to the Betis church, elegant in his gold-embroidered velvet finery, wig in place, cheeks rouged to soften the pallor of its ivory face, and picked up by several groups of marching bands for town fiestas, Holy Week observances, and/or other special occasions.

Like the year waning into shorter days and longer nights, we of the twilight generation of Betis Davids rarely “rage, rage against the dying of the light,” but rather “go gentle into that good night,” notwithstanding Dylan Thomas’s poetic counsel to his father.

Once in a great while, however, we come face to face with a facet of the past—a moment of truth, as it were—that brings together present reality with fragments of ourselves that we have long lost, like pieces of a puzzle recombining to form a whole picture.

One such occasion came for me more than a decade ago. On the eve of the of Betis district fiesta, when a handful of us cousins, remnants of the David clan from the line of my paternal grandfather Pedro Lampa David, came together for a brief, and largely impromptu, family reunion.

The group included my London-based sister Marita, who was in town for the holidays with her Canadian-born husband and their daughter Teresa, and numerous US-based cousins, home for the holidays and the town fiesta, and to attend the wedding of a nephew. 

As well, there were those of us who, like me, were living in Manila or in Pampanga, many of us no longer carrying the David family name by virtue of marriage.

The reunion was held at the home of a cousin who, through the years, has maintained her residence in Betis, at precisely the spot where our grandfather’s house once stood.  The ancestral home is long gone, as are the once extensive family land holdings.

Erratic memories

Only erratic memories remain, along with larger-than-life perceptions of the elegant four-foot-tall ivory and wood image of the town patron saint—Apo Tiago—around which the remaining generations of our branch of Betis Davids found an inspiring rallying point.

We are all, they say, a product of nature and nurture. Nature is what we are born with—the genes we inherit from our parents and ancestors. Nurture is the superimposed layer upon layer of post-natal forces that help shape us as individuals— the milieu and culture into which we are born and raised, and the attitudes, views and influences that color our world view and continue to evolve and transform us through the years.

In our instinctive search for individual identity, we forget— and sometimes deliberately reject—the roots of our “nurture” which, paradoxically, has the power to draw us back precisely to the point of our true identity as an individual.

Spared from the devastation of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, the municipality of Betis adjoins Bacolor, a town so totally devastated by lahar, only the church steeple and a reconstructed portion remains today as a reminder of where the town once stood.

The fact that the lahar flows stopped just short of Betis is a miracle attributed by townsfolk to the intervention and protection of the town’s patron saint, Apo Tiago. To this day, people from neighboring towns and districts borrow the image from my cousin Violeta—for years the family custodian—whenever any of the nearby towns or villages find themselves threatened by floods, or any other natural calamities.

Whether the statue, imported from Spain, was acquired by my grandfather, or by his father before him, is a matter of conjecture among us. But my generation of Davids and those immediately after us, grew up with the familiar sight of the image housed in its glass case in my grandfather’s darkened bedroom.

 Ritual

Whether we were there for the three-day town fiesta, or the weeklong Semana Santa  (Holy Week), it was the first place we headed upon arrival, to touch the hand of the image upon our foreheads, even before we greeted our grandfather and touched his hand to our forehead.

Preparing Apo Tiago for his church sojourn and the religious procession that followed, and setting him upon the gilded carrosa, decked with flowers and lights, were part of the ritual of my growing up years, an intimate portion of our life, upbringing and family traditions.

Thus it was with a rediscovered sense of belonging and oneness that, a decade ago, our assembled kith and kin awaited the marching bands that were to fetch the image from my cousin’s house and escort it to church.

Listed as a national heritage, the St. James Church of Betis is one of the oldest in the country and the only one with wooden floors.  Built by the Agustinians between 1610 and1670 in typical mission architecture, with frescoes on the ceiling, murals on the walls, and carved, gilded wooden altars and pillars, the Baroque church is also one of the country’s most beautiful.

I have often watched with a tinge of nostalgia those Italian, and/or Spanish movies depicting religious processions wending their way through narrow, winding streets, “oompah-pah” brass bands setting the funereal pace, and masses of candle-carrying devotees following hard at the heels of saintly images borne aloft on carriages, or upon the shoulders of devotees.

These are scenes straight out of my childhood, and on that eve of the San Miguel district fiesta, reality and memory came alive in what I can only describe as a “moment of grace” when we, as remnants of a now scattered branch of a Betis David clan, candles lit in the fading light, joined the marching band and the “Coraldal” dancers in escorting our Apo Tiago to the Betis church. Faith in action, glorifying the Creator through an earthly ritual.

Every few meters, the procession stopped to allow the dancers to express their exhuberance and joy before the image of St. James in a mock routine of clashing swords and shields—a reference to the mythical James who fought and triumphed over the Moors.

All along the route, people lined the streets, greeting the approach of Apo Tiago with awed reverence, or a burst of firecracker salute!  It was as I remember the event from childhood, and yet different from what I remember! I was told that my memory regarding the “Coraldal” dancers was flawed, because when we were kids, the dancers were elderly, and not the young men who perform the “Coraldal” today.

Perhaps it is only in the twilight of our years that we can appreciate—or be reinvigorated—by our half-forgotten beginnings. But I do hope that one day soon, my own children (and grandchildren) will find the time—and the inclination—to join me on a visit to Betis on the eve of a town fiesta to discover for themselves an undying family legacy that will outlive us and our generation, as it did my father and grandfather before him.

Read more: 

Hometown Blues and Apo Tiago

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275. WANTED: RELIGIOUS ANTIQUES, by Patty F. Mapa

By Patty F. Mapa
Originally published on 2 January 1959, Weekly Women’s Magazine

A local newsman on being shown the ruins of the Pantheon in Acropolis during the course of a conducted tour of the once mighty isle of Greece remarked to his guide in mock disbelief,”You mean these ruins have been here for hundreds of years and you haven’t done anything about them? Why, look at Manila. It was razed to the ground during the last war but look at it now.”

 Although said in fun, this remark is indicative of the attitude of a majority of our people. One of the latest to deplore this lack of artistic values is Prof. Galo Ocampo of the University of Santo Tomas’ College of Fine Arts, who is one of the country’s foremost painters.

Designated by Archbishop Rufino J. Santos of Manila to collect religious antiques for an archdiocese museum which has been given ample space in the new Cathedral building.

Prof.Ocampo laid slow siege on old parish churches throughout the country. The results were not very encouraging. Not because there is a dearth of religious antiques in the Philippines, for sacristies throughout the islands hold a wealth of liturgical items and religious objects of arts, but because custom and habit have contributed to the mutilation of these remaining heirlooms.

Take a typical Filipino town getting ready for its annual town fiesta. Since the reason for a town fiesta is very often, if not always a religious one, a procession is usually the order of the day. Now.processions must have images or statues of saints to grace the occasion; so the townspeople either acquire anew statue or look over their stock of blessed facsimiles.

They find an anay-infested wood-carved image, aged but whose delicate workmanship is still in evidence. To the horror of people like Prof. Ocampo, they cover it with a garish coat of silver paint, which to these simple people is like restoring it to new life.

Or take the once dignified façade of a local parish church. The cracks in the stone carved wall do not please the devout, church-going parishioners; so they patched it up with more paint and galvanized iron, all, of course, with the best of intentions.

In all fairness to the town fiesta devotee, it must be mentioned here that this naivete is not confined to this country alone but to other countries as well.

 This disheartening (both to the collector and the artist) state of affairs prompted the archbishopric of Manila to send out a circular to all parish priests and heads of Catholic schools and colleges entreating them to turn over to of to appraise the archbishopric’s office of “any existence in their respective jurisdiction of any museum items which may be properly displayed and authenticated”.

The inspiration for the establishment of the archdiocesan museum itself came to Archbishop Santos during a visit to the Catedral San Francisco el Grande in Madrid, in the company of Prof. Ocampo. After seeing the church’s sacristy resplendent with religious antiques from all over Spain, he conceived of an idea for a Cathedral Museum.

One drawback in the complete collection of these antqiues is the competiton the museum committee has to contend against rich private collectors. Poor parishes have only been only too willing to sell an antique for much needed cash for the maintenance of parish schools and charitable projects. 

However, the request for the collection and preservation of these religious artifacts is slowly yielding results. Already in the possession of the archbishop’soffice are items from the estate of the late Archbishop O’Dougherty. Belongings of the late Archbishop Gabriel Reyes were also donated by his relatives in Cebu.

The ornately carved Nozaleda chair owned by one of Manila’s most unpopular archbishops, Mons. Bernardino Nozaleda (1889-1899), and long in the possession of the Earnshaw family who sold it to Mrs. Bachrach who in turn sold it to Club Filipino, was also donated to the new museum. Most recent acquisitions of the archbishop’s office is an old chasuble with a unique and distinctive design donated by the parish church of Bocaue, Bulacan.

 During the course of his scouting trips as chairman-in-charge of the collectionof the museum items, Prof. Ocampo came upon some finds.One is a gattered old painting of the Immaculate Conception, found in the parish church of Baras, Rizal. Clearly a collector’s item, it ahd been shelved, almost forgotten,in the sacristy only to be salvaged by Prof. Ocampo. Still another painting, a beautiful Madonna and Child signed “ Angeletti” and dated in the 17th or 18th century, was recovered from the pro-Cathedral school in Tayuman street.

Along the bay towns of Laguna, Prof. Ocampo discovered exquisitely carved reliquaries whose workmanship has been unfortunately refurbished with an ungainly coat of paint.

Wood-carved statues of St. Augustine and St. Anthony de Padua turned up, also bathed in cheap paint, in Binangonan, Rizal. In the possession of the artist is a capital from the one of the limestone-carved columns of the original Manila Cathedral. Also up for exhibition are portraits of the former archbishops of Manila and their coat-of-arms.

 With the cooperation of the parish priest and the possible donations from private collectors, the new Archdiocesan Museum should soon become a “fitting repository to the historical and liturgical relics and heirlooms of Catholic Philippines”.