143. JOSE DAKOYKOY, THE DEAF SCULPTOR OF CEBU

Philippine Free Press, 12 December 1936 p. 32
 By Sol H. Gwekoh

Hard at Work. Surrounded by saints, he always keeps good company.

Where physical defects have been a handicap in the pursuit of happiness and livelihood to a great many unfortunate individuals, to Jose Dakoykoy of Cebu City, they have been a blessing in disguise and an indispensable factor in the attainment of his chosen work.

The fourth son of a family of seven, he accidentally became deaf at an early age. He comes from a family known for its musical talent and artistic taste. His brothers are all musicians, having inherited the art from their father, Marcelo, who attended to the choir of the Augustinian order in the Santo Niño church in Cebu. They now furnish church music and religious music for the traditional and popular novenas in the southern islands.

 Although Jose is deaf, he has not given up his love for art. He embraced early the painting and sculpturing lines, in which, though no Michaelangelo, he does well. From his eldest brothers, he learned to master the brush and palette as well as the chisel.

As a result, for the last 30 years, he has been furnishing Cebu and the neighboring islands with his pastels or miniature images of the different religious characters connected with the life of Jesus Christ in different stages. The rich and the aristocrats as well as the poor go to him for their Belens, especially shortly before Christmas. 

He also does interior decorating and portrait ainting, and designs decorative fancy objects. He works fast and alone throughout the year in his own home which he constructed out of his earnings as a painter-sculptor. Quiet and reserved, Jose leads a peaceful and simple life. To him, cockfighting and gambling, and drinking are mere frivolities.

He is a determined bachelor. Simple and humble as he is, relatively few know of his real talent. Contented with His Art Unschooled in the art and technique of his profession, he is contented and at ease working with crude instruments, principally with a small, sharp knife for shaping objects, and the chelepads of crabs for carving delicate features of images.

From religious and illustrated calendars, he copies his models. From September to December, he is kept busy until late at night when orders for belens from different provinces have to be delievered before the Yuletide season. An ordinary belen of 30 figures sells at between P40 and P60, while the more elaborate, which have bigger characters, cost as much as P150; part of the amount he receives for his productions is distributed to his relatives on Christmas Day.

 Now 54, he still plays native songs—the popular and melodious balitaws—on the guitar, especially at night to comfort him in his solitary life.

119. Santo Stories: THE FALL OF CHRIST

"Ang Pagkarapa ng Panginoon" represents the Third Fall of Christ while bearing the cross en route to Calvary. The tableau includes figures such as soldiers in the act of whipping and dragging Christ, with Simon Cyrene holding on to the Cross, in an act of supporting the fallen Jesus.

The santo figures were commissioned by the Veron-Dulay-Cloma Family, in the Parish of Santo Cristo (Caingin, San Rafael, Bulacan) on March 2007, from the workshop of Francisco Vecin of Makati. In memory of Felipa M. Veron-Dulay (16 May 1912/5 October 2004).

MEDITATION ON THE FALL OF OUR LORD

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless You, because by your Holy Cross, You have redeemed the World.
 O Jesus, it was for our sins that You bore the heavy burden of the Cross and fell under its weight. May the thought  of your sufferings make us watchful over ourselves and save us from falling into sin.
O Christ, our repeated falls into sin have added the burden that you carried for our redemption. As you are weakened by the weight of our sins, we are the cause of your fall. Please give us the strength never to offend You again.
O Lord, we beg you, by the merits of your most painful fall, to pardon our frequent relapses and our long continuance in sin. May the thought of Your sufferings grieve us and move us to make frequent acts of love and reparation.

Our Father...Hail Mary...Glory Be...

115. RETRO-SANTO: Nstra. Sñra. Del Pilar of Sta. Cruz

DEL PILAR VIRGIN, as she looks in 1954, enthroned at the Sta. Cruz Church, Manila.

The original Virgin of the Pillar resides in Zaragoza, Spain. The one enshrined in the Sta. Cruz Church in Manila is a replica of that statue, bought to the Philippines by Jesuits before 1768.

“La Pilar” has ivory head and hands, mounted on a carved wood beauty. She holds the Child Jesus, made entirely of ivory. The Mother and Child, which were once arrayed with radiant jewelry, sits on top of a pillar, based on a legend in which the Virgin appeared before St. James in that manner.

As early as 1743, a confraternity already existed in the district, thus the arrival of Virgen del Pilar made the devotion official. As a patroness of the Sta. Cruz district, she was the object of prayers, mid-day Saturday Masses and recitation of the Rosary. During novenas, the statue was mounted on a carriage and placed at the left side of the altar until after the procession.

During the second World War, it was taken from the baptistry where the image was kept and and stored inside a bank vault in the office of the PNB president, Juan B. Quintos.

 Returned after the War, the Virgen del Pilar now occupies the right side altar of the Church, which has become a shrine of the Blessed Sacrament.

Shrine: Sta. Cruz Church, Plaza Sta. Cruz, Manila Feast Day: October 12

72. Find of the Year: A SAN PIO QUINTO IVORY SANTO

At an out-of-print book shop cum gallery in Cubao, I came to pay for vintage fiesta programs I needed for my historical research----and I went home with this incredible ivory image of Pio Quinto ( St. Pius V, born Michele Ghislieri 1504-1572) in its original altar.

“Expect the unexpected” was once our ad agency’s creative credo, and it also rings true when it comes to finding sacred treasures such as this one. En route to the Main Avenue office, I had texted my dealer earlier to say that I was dropping by to pay for my purchases worth Php400. He was kind enough to open his office for me on a weekend (it was a Sunday) and then casually told me that he had a santo that I might be interested in. In his absence, he instructed a househelp to bring out the image for my perusal.

As soon as I entered the shop, I saw this dirty gothic urna that was threatening to fall apart. Through the dusty glass, I could still make out the figure of a santo with a papal tiara, holding a 3 bar-staff, which I immediately identified as the papal saint, Pius V. It also didn’t take much to recognize that the head and hands of the image were of—gasp!-- precious ivory!

THE FIRST TIME EVER I SAW HIS FACE. The image, when I first saw it in its grimy, dusty state. The urna was collapsing and a bunch of plastic flowers lay crumbling at the image's base.

The image was decorated with tulle and plastic flowers that were crumbling with age. Tacked inside was this torn 1906 prayer card to honor the beatification of Tonkinese (Vietnamese) martyrs.

VIET-ERANS OF THE FAITH. This damaged prayer card commemorates the beatification of Tonkinese beatos: Martyrs Vicente Liem, Castaneda, Ochoa, Jose Kang, Hermosilla, Almalo, Frederich.

I paid for my book purchase, and then rang up the dealer to tell him nonchalantly that I had seen the santo and was not impressed (I am so good in feigning disinterest). I suppose, I told him, given the santo’s sorry state—it would be priced accordingly. But of course, he replied, and then proceeded to quote the price of the santo—inclusive of the urna.

THROUGH A CLEAR GLASS, DARKLY. Peering through the front glass panel of the urna, the image of Pius V was clearly, unmistakably of ivory.

I nearly choked at the unbelievable bargain-basement-300-feet-below-sea-level -price. Why, it’s only 1/6 of the current market price for ivory santos of this quality. I just continued on with my best Oscar performance and gave him a ho-hum response. Round off the price, I said, and I will not only issue a Pay-to-Cash check now, but I will also rid your shop of this dusty, grimy santo with its shaky urna. He agreed! I hastily gave him a check, lugged the santo to the car and Pio was mine!

CLEAN AND PURE IN SPIRIT. The ivory image cleaned and re-dressed in its original satin vestments.

Back home, I quickly removed the santo from its case. It was still wearing its original hand-sewn satin vestments in yellow and green. It was even wearing an alb with lacey edgings that you can’t see.

HEADS AND HANDS OF A SAINT. When removed for cleaning, the head turned out to be a solid piece of carved ivory. The finely carved ivory hands were attached to the manikin body with wooden pegs.
The ivory head and hands were in excellent condition. I was wondering about the hairless head. Did it have a flock of hair at some point? The wooden feet were painted to look like papal shoes, decorated in the intricate estofado style. The metal accessories were intact—from the staff to the tiara which was only missing a finial. A restorer dated this as a pre-War piece, possibly made by one of those commercial talyeres in Quiapo district.

Two weeks after, off to santo restorer Dr. Raffy Lopez I, and my santo went. I wanted to save the original vestments but the professional santo restorer prevailed on me to discard them. Instead, for my tabletop image, he opted to get design and color inspirations from the vestments of the original Pio Quinto of Sto. Domingo.

LA NAVAL'S PIO QUINTO. The original lifesize San Pio V of Sto. Domingo in his crimson and cream-colored vestments. Pix courtesy of Wilfred Jason Naval.

He even added a wig to the bald pope! After a month, these were the results:

IVORY SAN PIO QUINTO, (St. Pius V) as restored by Dr. Raffy Lopez.

I have also repaired the urna by myself, stabilizing loose joints with glue and nails and replacing the lost moldings, thanks to my frame shop. And by the way—to rid myself of any guilt feelings--I have also told my dealer that the santo he sold me was of ivory. This was not the first time this happened. Two years ago, he sold me a painted San Roque that turned out to be ivory. For sure, he wouldn’t have let go of these images had he not made a reasonable profit. To him, it was a fair done deal. To me, it was my find of the year.

36. PHILIPPINE SANTOS: Relics of Our Religious and Cultural Heritage

(Catholic Digest, Commemorative issue, April, 1965)


The devotional character of Catholicism in the Philippines is reflected in the numerous statues and statuettes of the saints that fill our churches.

This has led some members of the Filipino intellectual class to look down on Catholicism as nothing more than superstition fit only for the ignorant masses. Thus, a need for developing devotional piety into a mature act of faith, a real norm of action in daily life, arose.


The fact remains that it was the simple childlike piety of the common people as expressed in the popular devotions to Christ, His mother and His saints, that has largely kept Catholicism alive in this country despite the shortage of priests.


As relics of our religious and cultural heritage if not always as works of art, the ‘santos’ found in many old churches that dot the Philippines have inspired the interest of a growing number of collectors in the last seventeen years.


Images that have been put aside to give way to more ‘modern’ ones when old churches were renovated, or which have been kept in private homes as family heirlooms, have gradually found their way into the hands of private collectors who vie with one another for the rarer pieces.

A brisk trade in these statuettes has developed, and concern has been expressed over the fact that a good number of them are being exported out of the country.


A stimulus to the interest in Spanish-Philippine religious art, was an article published in ‘Philippine Studies’, the Jesuit quarterly, by Fernando Zobel de Ayala, the noted artist and art patron.

The article, ‘Philippine Colonial Sculpture’ published in 1958, was later expanded by Mr. Zobel into a book, ‘Philippine Religious Imagery’ (Ateneo de Manila, 1963).

The first on its subject, Mr. Zobel’s book surveys religious painting, sculpture and related arts during the centuries of Spanish rule in the Philippines. Aside from explanatory sketches by the author, the book includes a collection of 147 photographs by the distinguished photographer, Nap C. Jamir.


Seven of the Jamir photographs in Zobel’s books are reproduced in this issue, through the courtesy of the Ateneo de Manila University which holds the copyrights. They include a Santo Niño de Cebu from the Araneta Collection; part of a Via Crucis from Virac, Catanduanes (Araneta Collection); an apocalyptic Virgin (Araneta Collection); another version of the Santo Niño from the Hidalgo Collection; a curious sculpture of the crucifixion inside a glass bottle (Zobel Collection); a bas relief of St, Augustine from the Araneta Collection; and a bread mould decorated with the image of St. Nicholas from the Galvez Collection.


Mr. Miguel Galvez, noted artist and collector, kindly made 20 photographs of pieces from his collection available to the CATHOLIC DIGEST for this special issue.

“The discovery and political conquest of the Philippines by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century”, writes Fernando Zobel, “ was a spiritual conquest as well. The conversion of the Philippines to Christianity had an immediate effect on art. Catholic Christianity urgently required churches and religious images and very quickly the demand was met”.


“It is true”, continues Zobel, “that these churches and images were based on European models, but they were actually built, carved or painted by Oriental hands and inevitably a new style—a fusion of Spanish, Chinese and Philippine characteristics—emerged.”


In some way, the ‘santos’ preserved the flavor of Philippine Catholicism through the centuries, and to the scholars, they tell a story of how faith grew in this country: the historical model was European, the execution was done locally, and the product is part of our national heritage today.

19. RETRO-SANTO: Sto. Niño de Romblon

If Cebuanos have their revered Sto. Niño de Cebu who is honored through a rambunctious celebration called Sinulog, the people of Romblon province also have an ancient image of the Holy Child—the Sto. Niño de Romblon—which has been an object of veneration for many generations.

Tradition has it that the small Niño image was commissioned by an Augustinian fraile, who had the figure carved in the Philippines, based on the original Sto. Niño de Cebu. This particular Cebuano Niño was carved by a Flemish artist, brought to our Islands in 1521 by Ferdinand Magellan. The replica image was meant to be shipped to Madrid, but when the galleon carrying the image stopped over at Romblon, a typhoon stopped the ship from leaving. The Sto. Niño was thus taken down from the vessel and brought to the local church where a Holy Mass was offered. After the rites, the Sto. Niño could not be moved from its place, and so the galleon left the image behind.

For over 4 centuries, the Sto. Niño de Romblon resided at the Cathedral of San Jose, until it was stolen in 1991. Today, the precious image of the Holy Child remains missing, and the one venerated in the church is just a decade-old replica. Nevertheless, the religious fervor of the people of Romblon continues to burn brighter every year, fuelled by the unabashed pageantry of the Biniray Festival, which serves as a tribute to their beloved patron.

Held in the capital town of Romblon every 2nd week of January, the Biniray Festival is marked with dancing, music and street revelry—echoing the same carnival spirit of Cebu’s Sinulog. The festival re-enacts the attempt to remove the image from the church with the highlight of the fiesta happening on the Bay of Romblon. Here, a flotilla of boats is launched to circle the bay seven times. A land parade follows, with costume revelers accompanying the Sto. Niño de Romblon throughout the streets of the town, carried on a bamboo-supported palanquin.

The Biniray Festival is but one of the many fiestas that not only pays homage to the Christ Child but also the people of Romblon to express their faith and folk piety to the full.

7. AN AGE OF ALTARS, part III

Spain is acknowledged for its rich, emotional widespread Marian following; the fervor spread to the Philippines. Virgin Mary was easily popularized as a maternal figure; perhaps the native predisposition was affected by the fact that in a number of locales, priestesses reigned over pagan rituals and if a man presided, he adopted an effeminate manner.


Each order had its variation of the Mary theme. The Virgen de la Consolacion, also called Virgen de la Correa, was a favorite of Basque immigrants and an Augustinian rendition of the Mother and Child figure; in keeping to the apparition of Sta. Monica, Mary and the Babe wear black leather Augustinian belts. Her cofradia began in Intramuros in 1577 and devotions were strong in Cebu and Bacolod. The same Order ran Malate Church with its Virgen delos Remedios and spread the cult to Pangasinan; it also favored the Angustia or Piedad processioned on Holy Thursdays.


Franciscan manifestations of Mary include Virgen de los Desamparados; the Spanish made replica of Valencia Cathedral’s Lady of the Abandoned was touched to the original before shipment to Sta. Ana Church in 1719. These friars in brown brought the Loreto following to Manila’s Sampaloc district in 1619. Among the most effective of their Marymases are those to Nuestra Señora de Dolores in Pakil, Laguna and Nuestra Señora de Penafrancia in Bicol, They brought a statue of Mexico’s Guadalupe Virgin for Pagsanjan in 1687 and in Los Baños, attributed the hot springs’ curative powers to Nuestra Señora de las Aguas Santas de Maynit.


The Immaculate Conception appeared to St. Francis; beyond a doubt spread of the devotion is due to his Order, although many renditions of her image are also found in towns ministered to by other groups. Jesuits, like Franciscans, were fond of Nuestra Señora de Iluminacion, also called Virgen de Candelaria.


It was Sto. Domingo de Guzman himself who first saw Nuestra Señora del Rosario and her rosary beads. The local cult climaxed in the Virgen de la Naval sculptured by a Chinese convert in 1593.


Recollect devotions include those to Virgen de la Salud and Nuestra Señora del Carmen. The latter is a Carmelite devotion. Recollects on their Philippine trip stopped at the Carmelite padres in Mexico who presented them with a Mother and Child wearing Carmelite scapularies; this image was enthroned in Quiapo’s San Sebastian Church. Recollects are known to have used the Paciencia santo, Christ scourged at the pillar, in Eastern rites.


Many home altars had San Isidro Labrador; he is Madrid’s patron and it is no wonder spiritual pioneers introduced this Spanish-born to the Colony. In fact, many settlements and churches are dedicated to the various patrons of the parish priests’ hometowns in España.

Early missionaries used the saintly mélange to prove Christianity’s superiority over animism and Islam. Selecting a church titular or a town patron meant finding a saint whose attributes or “powers” related to the Asian community, many times in direct parallelism with pre-Spanish deities. San Rafael who carries a fish appealed to fishermen; San Isidro was ideal for farmers and when priests introduced the plow which is part of his iconography, natives considered it a gift from their heavenly sponsor.


Before long, localized rationales and signature symbols emerged. San Pedro Apostol became the cocker’s friend because of his feathered sidekick; bird beaks and whole animals disappeared from santo arrangements as talismans. A carabao replaced San Isidro’s ox; equestrian Santiago Apostol acquired a following of coachmen and jockeys; knifemakers identified with San Bartolome who carried the flaying knife of his martyrdom; San Nicolas de Tolentino’s breadroll transformed into a tarat known to fly back on his fiesta like Capistrano Mission’s swallows. And, as an indication of the language problem that existed despite the cleric attempts to promptly learn native dialects (considered faster and simpler than teaching Spanish to a multitude), San Pascual Baylon is favored by dancers because his family name recalls the Spanish verb bailar.


As the saints marched onwards unto more Virgen de Bien Aparecida in Santander, Nuestras Señoras de Fuensicia and Fuensanta in Segovia and Teruel’s Nuestra Señora de Tremedal—all Hispanic Madonna and Child variants. Island moon tips are occasionally pegged in the base’s sides whereas Iberian moons are small low-relief seldom wider than the Madonna’s skirt.


Many Immaculadas in the Murillo tradition find provenance in Franciscan towns; those in stiff farthingales with equally rigid cloaks pushed behind Mary’s shoulders or at least baring her forearms appear to be from Augustinian and Recollect areas. Bicol folk immaculadas may be in farthingales but their cloaks drape languildly and they retain the serpent and globe of Franciscan tradition that are usually missing from Visayan versions.


Religious art was strictly controlled by the Orders until in May 1785, Carlos abolished their censorship and hoped to encourage a migration of European artisans with free passage to the Colony. Advancements in ecclesiastic plastic arts were naturally obvious among church and elite, and more so after the Island’s art academy opened in 1855; sculpture was added to the original drawing and painting curriculum before the 1900s. Nevertheless, the parish priests’ preferences continued affecting community styles.


Popular santos retained a sculptural childlikeness as religion continued its permeating force. The Spaniards came, conquered, Christianized and were replaced by new orders.

Yet the saints prevailed and with them, an exemplary cultural confluence that neatly tied up the tropical Indo-Malay world with the profound age of Christianity, equality, and perhaps even more significantly, with the great civilizations that came before. For early Roman converts were unable to withdraw from their polytheistic habits and carried home venerable images thinly disguised at first as saints; and, unable to detach from the security of their artistic traditions, these reverent Christian-elects depicted their Messiah as a handsome youth resembling beloved Orpheus and Apollo, and even retained the latter’s most popular attribute as Sun God—the halo!

*Felice Sta. Maria’s works appear in periodicals like Archipelago, Contempo and Times Journal, as well as books like Filipino Heritage, Culinary Culture of the Philippines and Turn of the Century. Her title on antiques and heirlooms in the Philippine household will be released next year by GCF Publishing.

6. AN AGE OF ALTARS, part II

Santos were gifted by Spaniards and Filipinos alike with farmland, jewelry, costly clothes, churches, magnificently adorned carriages, vows of loyalty and promises to propagate their cults. There seemed to be magic in the miracles of saints; into the 18th century, churchmen worried about convincing their followers that sculptured images were but inanimate representations.


Somehow, a saint—or its santo—located lost objects, produced offspring in childless couples, kept sweethearts faithful and staid off lightning, locusts, famine, earthquakes, plague and pirates. It is no wonder anthropologist Sir James Frazer shocked his peers by generalizing that magic is the first rung in developing religion.


It is difficult now to fathom forefathers who were but several generations removed from paganism. Over four centuries, the syncretization is total; and separating the ethnic from Hispanic is confusing. But French writer Andre Malraux explains the intimacy shared by early devotees with their santos:


That (to quote a famous definition) a religious picture “before being a Virgin, is a flat surface covered with colors arranged in a certain order” holds good for us, but anyone who had spoken thus to the men who made the statuary of St. Denis would have been laughed out of court. For them…what was being made was a Virgin; and only in a secondary sense of arrangement of colors. The colors were arranged in a certain order not so as to be a statue but so as to be the Virgin. Not to represent a lady having Our Lady’s attributes, but to be; to win a place in that otherworld of holiness which alone sponsored its quality.


Nations, regions and religious orders maintained at various ages, special devotions to particular saints, martyrs as well as manifestations of Mary and Christ on the Roman Catholic calendar.


Many santos of San Nicolas de la Penitencia, Sto. Tomas de Villanueva and San Agustin come from territories of the latter’s Order. This group of friars who arrived with Adelantado Miguel Legazpi in 1565 ministered in Cebu, Iloilo, Masbate, Camarines, Batangas, Laguna, Pampanga, Pangasinan, Ilocos, Cagayan and later Leyte. It is through their efforts that cults like Sta. Lucia (beginning in 1592), Sta. Monica (starting 1756) and Sta. Rita de Cassia were established locally.


San Antonio is a universal saint highly ranked throughout island households. His patronage is due largely to Franciscan efforts. It declined when Our Lady of Perpetual Help, a late 19th century devotion brought by Redemptorists to the Philippines in 1906, took hold after World War II. The Franciscan order also spread the use of Christmas belens, devotion to the Way of the Cross and Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament; Sta. Clara, patroness of good weather is their most popular female object of dulia.


Jesuits served from 1581 to their expulsion in 1843 (*blogger's note: the correct date of explusion is 1767) and returned in 1859. They established towns in Cavite, Bohol, Samar, Leyte, Panay and Zamboanga. Santos of San Ignacio de Loyola, San Francisco Javier and San Roberto Belarmino are usually from their province.


The Order of Preachers administered in the Chinese Parian and Binondo, Bataan, Pangasinan, northern Tarlac, Cagayan Valley and Batanes starting in 1587. Dominican preacher San Vicente Ferrer is considered the Order’s direct rival of San Antonio de Padua; Sto. Domingo de Guzman (founder), Sta. Rita de Lima and Pius V are their special patrons.


When the Augustinian Recollects landed in 1606, they encouraged San Guillermo, San Nicolas de Tolentino and San Sebastian as devotions. They were charged with administration of churches scattered throughout eastern Mindanao, Romblon, Palawan as well as a few missions in Luzon and Visayas.

(MANY THANKS, to Robby V. de la Vega, for his flickr pictures of San Ignacio de Loyola)

5. AN AGE OF ALTARS: The Personification of Popular Philippine Santos, part I

By Felice Sta. Maria


In Dupax, Nueva Vizcaya, when San Isidro Labrador fails to bring rain during drought, his sculptured image is left to the elements; household statues of other uncooperative patrons are made to stand in a corner. Punishment ends and the santos are restored both their altars and their dignity only after devotees get what they pray for.


In Philippine culture, such sulking is proof of a cultivated intimacy akin to the frequently risqué piropes uttered to the Virgins of Seville: “You make other Virgins look like whores”, proclaim the faithful in a show of endearment to their confraternity’s statue!


As early as 1592, a Roman Catholic synod fixed 600 as the maximum number of persons a priest could, in due conscience, service. Upon the outset of Spanish-American hostilities in 1898, the ratio of priests to souls in the Archipelago approximated 1 to 4,000. The flock needed accessible inspiration and consolation. Religious images—including carved santos that are highly collectible today as art pieces—provided the solution.


The age of household altars signified a triumph in missionary efforts. Formation of the initial native gentry began with the profits from exporting indigo, rice, sappan wood, sugar and cotton from 1820 to 1835; subsequent booms commenced immediately after in abaca, coffee then later, copra (from 1880) as well as tobacco (no longer a state monopoly from 1881). In typical nouveau riche fashion, gentlemen farmers chose religion and its accoutrements as a respectable outlet for displaying their hard-earned status.


The growth of island parishes paralleled economic ascendancy. A saintly display no matter how limited and naïve grew commonplace. In the 1850s, Buzeta’s double volume Diccionario geographico, estadistico, historico de las Islas Filipinas included an image of the Virgin Mary and crucifix among such native necessarires as a mortar for grinding rice, clay oil lamps, betelnut chew and coconut shell cups.


There was a profound disparity between Hispanic-Roman Catholic and Philippines-animist-Islamic cultures. Fortunately, Rome had encouraged reinterpretation as early as 2 A.D. when Pope Clement of Alexandria urged that ineradicable pagan symbols be reinvested with Christian meanings. This lenient adaptability not only allowed a Christianization of Filipinos but also Filipinization of Christianity noticeable—from santo iconography to celebration rites in the local church.


Equally effectual was the well-devised schedule of Christian activities that prescribed daily matins and vespers as well as a yearlong saint-a-day calendar. As Catholicism gained headway , Filipinos reckoned time not solely by planting routines but by saints’ and holy days.


Church building began upon conquest; however, the patron saint schema was used with increasing frequency after permanent stone synagogues became feasible around Spain’s second century of occupation. Early friars and their native, Chinese and later Chinese mestizo assistants created awe-inspiring reredos and retables of wood, gilt and silver to house images of the heavenly hierarchy carved locally, in Mexico, China and Europe.


Humanlike santos were teaching aids. Their lovely and poignant faces made dogma believable and comprehensible. Elaborate reliefs like paintings told entire Lenten and Yuletide stories better than many a sermon.

Fearing an overindulgence of ornamentation no matter how educational, Augustinians converged in Lubao, Pampanga in 1627 and limited the number of images a religious could own –no more than one bulky statue and four smaller santos or paintings. Excess was sold to benefit the Order. Superiors inspected parishes bimonthly and warnings were issued against excessive accumulation of inlaid furniture, bracelets, chairs, desks and drawers in the privacy of convents.


Irregardless of these efforts, flamboyant shrines triumphed as the native churcgoers’ novice faith combined with the clerics’ financial stratagems to support ever-expanding Philippine and foreign missions.


Inspired by cathedral magnificence, altars for above-humble homes developed into grand collections of mesmerizing precious ivoryand wooden images set atop altar tables intricately set with bone, highly carved, turned and even pushed out from bedroom seclusion into living room. Processional images were added to altars or stored disassembled and uncostumed in a tiny abandoned room referred to as the cuartito where tots did penance for their pranks. (TO BE CONTINUED..)