The Biliran Religious Revolt (1765-1774) --Rolando O. Borrinaga, Ph.D

Prof. Rolando O. Borrinaga reads his paper on the Biliran Religious Revolt during the 26th National Conference of the Philippine National Historical Society (PNHS) at Teatro Ilocandia of the Mariano Marcos State University
in Batac, Ilocos Norte.


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The Biliran Religious Revolt (1765-1774)

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Rolando O. Borrinaga, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
School of Health Sciences
University of the Philippines Manila
Palo, Leyte



(Paper presented at the Philippine National Historical Society’s 26th National Conference on Local and National History, Mariano Marcos State University, Batac,Ilocos Norte, October 26-28, 2005.)


In this paper, I present the decade-long Biliran Religious Revolt from 1765 to 1774, a Filipino revolt that has yet to find its way into our national history textbooks. I reconstruct its possible origin, its communal activities that can be inferred from documents, extant folklore, place-names, and monuments, its impact on the folk religious practices of the Leyte-Samar region, as well as its legacy for local millenarian movements, including the Pulahan movement during the early American period, over the next two centuries.


The Setting

The present island-province of Biliran (see Figure 1) was known as Isla de Panamao during the initial century of Spanish colonization, at least until 1668.1 This island was the site of the first large-scale Spanish shipyard in the country around 1600, which was ministered by Jesuit missionaries stationed in Carigara, Leyte. A boat constructed in Isla de Panamao transported Fr. Pedro Chirino, SJ, on his way back to Spain via Mexico to report on the initial Jesuit missions in the Philippines.2


Figure 1. Map of Biliran




The change of names from Panamao to Biliran occurred sometime between 1668 and 1712. This was probably a native ritual to way-lay the destructive nature spirits in response to the speculated cataclysmic eruption of Panamao Volcano northwest of the island around 1669.3 The word biliran, referring to a boat with protruding corners or edges (bilir or bilid), was probably a native label of the Spanish galleons and similar boats that were constructed on this island early that century.4

Biliran was created as a separate pueblo (town) on September 10, 1712.5 Its poblacion (town center) was located in the vicinity of the present Barangay Caraycaray of Naval town.6 A circa-1770 map of Biliran indicates the poblacion’s location (see Figure 2).7




Figure 2. Map of Biliran Island, circa 1770.


Moro raids and their adverse impact

Biliran was next heard of in 1735, when several inhabitants of Leyte petitioned Governor-General Fernando Valdes y Tamon to allow them to resettle Biliran Island in Leyte. They claimed that the island had been abandoned for the past fifty years (sic) and was presently inhabited by bagamundos (vagabonds) due to the frequent Moro raids.8

The pueblo must have been resettled and sufficiently recovered over the next two decades, if the devastation associated with the 1754 Moro raids in its vicinity were to serve as basis. The report of Governor-General Pedro Manuel de Arandia y Santestevan from Manila, dated May 24, 1755, gave prominence to, and provided details of, the raid on Biliran pueblo in the section on Provincia de Catbalonga o Leite (sic, the province then composed of the islands of Samar and Leyte). The relevant texts were translated as follows: 9

“On the twenty-sixth of May of this year [1754] there entered in the pueblo of Biliran of this Province of Leyte and Catbalonga [i.e. Samar] numerous Moros who went by land along the little river of Anas, a distance of one league [about four kilometers] and a half or two away from it. Thus, having reached the interior part of the mountain, they plundered the dwellings and wrought great devastation. They seized or captured many inhabitants with the exception of the gobernadorcillo [native mayor] who managed to escape. They plundered and stole all the jewels [alhajas, i.e., the sacred vessels such as chalices, ciboria, pyxes, monstrance, vestments, etc.] and the church furnishings. They razed and destroyed all the planted fields along with all the houses, so much so that there was no place to live or any plantations left to survive on.

“In this year and through the month of May, the Moros destroyed the Pueblo of Biliran in this jurisdiction and burned its church. They captured many inhabitants and took away the vestments and sacred vessels. Stubbornly they stayed and tarried there, creating thousands of hostilities, by which reason the natives all the more were scattered in all their deprivation …

“… (T)he Moros have caused this ‘miscarriage’ [i.e. devastation] on the twenty-six of May in this year of ‘54 [1754] in the pueblo of Biliran on the Island of Panamao, in the jurisdiction of Leyte. They razed this town and all the visitas [outlying settlements with chapels visited by a non-resident priest] and took along with them the precious jewels [i.e., sacred vessels, etc.] and ornaments of the church and all those of the priest. They took with them a portion of captives but with some fortune there escaped the Capitan [mayor] and the fiscal [treasurer] of the same pueblo. They also burned all the houses and destroyed the towns of this region and especially those of Biliran, Caybiran, Mapuyo and Maripipi.”


Legend and superstition

The next phase of Biliran history related to my paper first appeared as a legend and superstition that confronted and confounded the initial batch of American Franciscan missionaries that served the towns of the present Biliran Province from 1957 to 1982. (The eight towns that they covered – seven towns on Biliran Island and the island-town of Maripipi - were constituted as a sub-province in 1959, and which became a province in 1992.)

The late Fr. Cantius J. Kobak, OFM, who was assigned at the Christ the King College in Calbayog, Samar, throughout the 1960s, wrote that among the elderly folks in Biliran Island and in many parts of Leyte and Samar, there was a certain Padre Gaspar, a hero and legendary figure who still lived in their hearts and memories.10

He said that in the towns of Kawayan, Naval, Caibiran, and Culaba and in the barrios of Biliran Island, people were deeply devoted to this Padre Gaspar. Many stories, legends and narratives have been told about this figure, so much so that it was difficult to determine whether he was a real historical person or a simple legend and mythical figure. People still attributed all sorts of extra-ordinary feats to Padre Gaspar, and could point to springs of unusually sweet-tasting waters struck out of rocks by the miraculous cane of this man a long, long time ago.

Some of the American Franciscan parish priests working on Biliran Island informed Fr. Kobak that people still came to their convents to offer stipends for Catholic masses to be said for the repose of the soul of their Padre Gaspar. Still others prayed to him and begged for favors and sought his intercession. Indeed, it seemed that for many elderly people, even on the mainland of Leyte, Padre Gaspar was not only a myth but a great ancient reality.

On the underside, in Naval town, old people talked about an unnamed priest who had served their forebears but who pronounced a maldicion (curse) that nobody from this town shall ever become a priest. Anyone who would dare to defy this curse would risk death, insanity or personal failure. This writer, who had heard the tale as a hometown boy, later theorized that this priest was Padre Gaspar.11

The American Franciscans dismissed this maldicion folklore as superstition and insisted on recruiting bright young boys from Naval for high school or college studies on scholarship at the Franciscan seminaries in Calbayog, Samar, and Novaliches, Quezon City. Virtually all of more than 30 recruits from the town through the years succumbed to peer, parental and/or societal pressure and pulled out of their seminary studies. It did not help that one brilliant local boy went crazy in the seminary.


The historical person

Sometime in the mid-1970s, while scouring the catalogue index files in the Philippine National Archives for documents about the history of Leyte and Samar, Fr. Kobak chanced upon a document pertaining to Padre Gaspar. It was a government document published in Manila on October 10, 1765, appointing Don Gaspar Ignacio de Guevara as curate of the San Juan Nepomuceno Parish in Biliran.12

Fr. Kobak was the first to establish Padre Gaspar’s historical existence among the modern scholars. In the course of his research on Leyte-Samar history from manuscript materials and microfilms acquired from the Franciscan Archives in Spain, he also came across scanty information and references to Padre Gaspar, who was referred to as the “deluded Cura de Biliran.” He generously shared his findings and materials with the American scholar, Bruce Cruikshank, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on Samar and highlighted the historical role and influence of Padre Gaspar on that island.13


Padre Gaspar Ignacio de Guevara

Padre Gaspar Ignacio de Guevara was a Secular priest who was born in Paranas, Samar.14 He was presumably a Spanish mestizo whose mother was a native of Samar. His second name, Ignacio (from San Ignacio de Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus?), suggests that he was baptized and grew up under the influence of the Jesuit missionaries, who served the islands of Samar and Leyte from 1595 until their expulsion from the Philippines in 1768.15

The removal of Biliran pueblo from the coverage of the Jesuit missions and the assignment of a Secular priest here was probably an experiment of the Diocese of Cebu in the secularization of the church, which had been developing in the Philippines since the time of Governor-General Simon de Anda. This would result in a Royal Decree in 1774 that ordered the secularization of the Philippine Church.16

It appears that Padre Gaspar was very much aware of the devastating 1754 Moro raids when he accepted the parish assignment in Biliran pueblo in 1765. Among his first acts was apparently the transfer of the poblacion from Barangay Caraycaray in the present Naval town southeast towards the then forested foothills of the present Biliran town, between the present Barangay Canila and Barangay Hugpa, about eight kilometers northeast of the town center.

The poblacion transfer was presumably resisted by the residents of Barangay Caraycaray, who harbored bitterness towards Padre Gaspar afterwards. The old site was thereafter known as Binungtuan (i.e., “towned,” the past tense of bungto, the Bisayan word for town in verb form.)17 A similar relocation event inspired by a Fransciscan missionary in Dapdap, Samar, in 1882 resulted in local tension that required province-level intervention to pacify.18

The new settlement was called Albacea, the Spanish word for “executor of the testament.” Here Padre Gaspar set up a sanctuary, enthroned himself in the “chair of Peter” with the royal throne in Biliran Island, and styled himself as the “first among the priests of the world.”19

From his sanctuary, Padre Gaspar spread his doctrines, granted indulgences, spread news of miracles in the Leyte-Samar region, recruited and sent out disciples to incite revolts, conferred sacred orders, gave out offices, legislated, and threatened those who opposed him. Together with an “alcalde mayor” of Biliran that he appointed, he also fought against the Franciscan friars in Samar and the Augustinians in Leyte. He ordained sub-deacons, and attracted a great number of followers, especially among the women. He was also cordially treated and sheltered by the Alcalde Mayor [governor] of Samar [which included Leyte until 1777], who also worked with him.20

Padre Gaspar preached that whoever came to him for confession would do so only once; he/she need never come back for all will be forgiven before the next confession was done. He also preached that the sacraments administered by the Franciscans and the Augustinians were not valid.21

Padre Gaspar’s influence was reportedly strong in the pueblos of Guiuan, Basey, Villaruel (sic, Villareal), Calbiga, Paranas, Gandara, Catubig, Sulat, and Borongan on Samar Island. Since his influence was also felt in the other pueblos of Catarman, Umauas, Laoang, and Capul, this indicates that this priest virtually exerted influence throughout the island.22 Near Borongan, a woman disciple of Padre Gaspar set-up a sanctuary and large groups of people would travel there in procession with lighted candles.23 Similar sanctuaries and rituals probably existed in other pueblos.

In Leyte, Padre Gaspar also exerted influence in many pueblos.24 Here an Augustinian friar reported in 1770 that children from six to 12 years would run away upon seeing priests from their order. He would learn later that this behavior was attributed to the babaylanes (women worship leaders who were presumably Padre Gaspar’s disciples), who had announced in all the towns that the new priests with white habits (i.e., the Augustinians) had orders to maim the boys and send them to Europe, to be used as fishing bait or to fatten the tigers of the King of Spain.25

Padre Gaspar clearly represented a threat to the Franciscan priests in Samar and the Augustinian priests in Leyte. He was captured and killed by Moro raiders sometime in 1774. The Franciscans in Samar believed that if the Moros had not caught him, “there would not today [1775] be a Christian left” on Samar and Leyte.26


Folklore and place-Names

Extant folklore and place-names in Biliran Province provide other details and nuances that would point to Padre Gaspar’s career as a revolutionary, though heretic priest.

There still exists in the folk mind the tale of a “city” in the mountain of Panamao and of mythical boats from Isla de Panamao that exported cargoes of cacao seeds to Manila.27 Padre Gaspar’s mountain settlement, with its lights presumably visible at night from the northern Leyte geography for nearly a decade, could qualify for this mythical city, which presumably increased in glow and scope with later retelling. And the boats that exported cacao seeds and other goods from Panamao to Manila might have been the island’s direct link to the national economy at that time.

It appears that Padre Gaspar in Albacea experimented with commune society living, with him as the executor of his version of the Divine testament. He might have imbibed the commune idea from the Jesuits in Samar, before they were expelled from the Philippines in 1768. Around that era, Jesuits in South America conducted a similar Utopian experiment among the Guarani Indians in the mountains of Paraguay. The Jesuit experience with the Guarani Indians was the theme of the critically-acclaimed feature movie, “The Mission,” which was released in 1986.28

The “Biliran Commune” apparently involved the movement of a large number of people who came in and out as groups. Place-names in southern Biliran provide theoretical hints of the movements, locations and group identities of these people.

The natives of Biliran referred to Albacea as Manogsok 29 (most of them do not know the meaning of Albacea). The latter name denotes the act of planting crops using a sharpened stick or pole to dig holes in the ground, into which the seeds of rice, corn, or other crops are dropped. It seems farming with the use of primitive methods was a main activity in the commune. The place-name also suggests that the use of the carabao for agriculture was not yet common at that time.

The present Barangay Pinangomhan (lit., farmed area) might have been the general farming area of the members of the Biliran Commune. A little south between the now cogon-grown Albacea area and Pinangomhan is the present Barangay Canila. Canila is the Spanish for cinnamon, a precious spice during Magellan’s time. The tree is commonly known as kaningag in Bisayan and is valued for its medicinal effect. The area presumably abounded in canila trees, which bark might have been collected as a trade item or used as medicine by commune members who were tambalans (traditional medicine men).

The present Barangay Busali, a coastal village some five kilometers northwest of the present poblacion and about nine kilometers southwest of Albacea, appears to have been the main entry point for people who wanted to join the commune. Sali is a Bisayan word for “to join,” and busali looks like a variant of musali, for “will join.” In Bisayan phonetics, the “m” sound could be heard as a “b” sound, and vice-versa.

The present Barangay Sangalang, which is read as “sangga lang” (lit., partners only), originally seems to have been a colony of mercenary people who acted as the “standing army” of the commune. As partners with possible share of the trading bounty, they probably served as Padre Gaspar’s bodyguards and coercive force in harassing the Franciscans in Samar and the Augustinians in Leyte, and in containing the independent threat from the Moro raiders that prowled the Visayan seas.

The present Barangay Balaquid (lit., obstacle), a coastal village located some eight kilometers east of the present poblacion and four kilometers east of Sangalang, might have served as a checkpoint for the commune. It might have been manned by mercenaries based in Sangalang.

Between Sangalang and Balaquid is Barangay Julita. This coastal village might have been the special colony of women disciples of Padre Gaspar, led by somebody named Julita, who was probably ordained as high priestess. These women were probably the ones referred to as babaylanes by an aggrieved Augustinian priest in Leyte. The present town of Julita in central Leyte was probably the hometown of this high priestess and might have been named so in her memory.

It seems a colony of gay men, probably babaylanes themselves, also tried and failed to join the Biliran Commune. Instead, they probably settled in a coastal village now known as Barangay Asug in Caibiran town, some 15 kilometers east of Balaquid, the commune’s checkpoint. Asug is the old Bisayan word for the effeminate male. Still, the settlers of Asug might have received Padre Gaspar’s blessing and then claimed that the nearby Tumalistis Falls was the source of the “sweetest water in the world.”30


Monuments

With the transfer of the poblacion from its old site in Barangay Caraycaray to Albacea, it was easy to presume that the required structures for the pueblo – e.g., the watch tower, the church, and the tribunal (government house) – were also constructed in Albacea. However, this writer’s recent visit to the Nasunugan Ruins on a coastal hill just outside the present Biliran poblacion, with its vantage views of both the Carigara Bay to the east and Biliran Channel to the west, refuted the old belief.31

The ruins comprise of a half-hectare complex of vegetation-covered crumbling structures and enclosed terraces, all made of coral stone blocks, and with two towers, one of which had been repaired as a tourist attraction. The “Biliran Fortress” was presumably built by Padre Gaspar’s followers as administrative and trading center as well as armed defensive structure for the Biliran Commune. The church, probably made of wood, was perhaps the only required pueblo structure erected in Albacea.

The architecture of the fortress structures is original. They have been not been patterned after Jesuit- or Franciscan-designed Spanish churches and watch towers found all over Leyte and Samar. Only the proximity of the cemetery to the fortress suggests a possible Jesuit influence.


Padre Gaspar’s capture and death

The Moro raiders finally chanced upon Padre Gaspar sometime in early 1774. They probably captured him in the vicinity of Barangay Pinamihagan (lit., place of abduction) in the present Culaba town, perhaps along with Don Juan Miguel del Castillo, the “alcalde-mayor of Catbalogan, Samar.” Castillo was eventually ransomed from his Muslim captors through negotiations conducted by Fr. Miguel Ricco de Jesus, a Franciscan who had been repeatedly harassed by Padre Gaspar’s followers in Samar.32

After Padre Gaspar’s capture, his followers in the commune presumably panicked. They apparently burned the commune structures in Albacea as well as the coastal hilltop fortress and fled away. The burned areas were later known as Nasunugan (i.e., burned). With the later transfer of the poblacion west of the burned fortress, Albacea became in turn another Binungtuan (towned).

With no central figure to negotiate with, the Muslim captors of Padre Gaspar probably sent feelers for his ransom to the residents of the old poblacion in Barangay Caraycaray. The overture was probably rebuffed by the same embittered people that the priest had offended years earlier with the poblacion transfer to Albacea. In return for the snub, Padre Gaspar apparently pronounced his famous maldicion on them. This is the probable speculation that could link the myth or superstition with historical fact.

The Spanish documents are silent about this, but recorded folklore mentioned that the Muslim captors brought Padre Gaspar to Sipol (lit., knife), presumably Tagasipol Islet between Kawayan and Maripipi. This islet was probably a base of Moro raiders during those years. Near here, they drowned the priest to death by tying a large rock to his body and throwing him to the sea, an act probably accompanied by jeering and mocking.33

Padre Gaspar probably died on the third Sunday of February 1774. This date is presently observed as Padre Gaspar’s feast day in the upland barangays of Biliran town, and the affair is celebrated at the shrine erected in his honor in the present Barangay Hugpa.34 The word hugpa is not found in the 1711 and 1914 Bisayan dictionaries. A modern dictionary included the word, and its meaning is “wild beast’s lair.”35

The 1903 U.S. Census listed the villages of Busali, Sangalang, Julita, Balaquid, Asug and Pinamihagan.36 But it did not include Albacea, Canila and Pinangomhan. Instead there was a village named Moog (lit., a place of pilgrimage). Thus, though the commune area might have become forested again and settled by wild animals, the sacred memory of Padre Gaspar lingered on and reappeared later in the new place-names.


The Impact and Legacy of the Biliran Religious Revolt

During the Jesuit missionary years in Leyte and Samar, Spanish documents showed that religious worship was essentially an all-male affair performed by the priest and his sacristanes (acolytes).37 Padre Gaspar’s radical innovations apparently put women at par with the priests in performing religious ceremonies, and not just as ordinary worship participants. Since then, women had exercised virtual monopoly as ritual leaders in performing novena prayers for the dead and for other religious purposes in the rural areas of Leyte and Samar.

The rebellions in Samar in the 1880s against both government and religious authorities 38 seemed to be echoes of Padre Gaspar’s revolt and were most likely instigated by men and women whose forebears probably had extensive practice in belligerence and dissent through their affiliation in the Biliran Commune.

During the Philippine-American War, after the Filipino revolutionaries under Gen. Vicente Lukban in Samar surrendered to the US military authorities, the Pulahan rank-and-file among them refused to give up the resistance and fled in the direction of Biliran in 1902.39 They had probably evoked the memory of the commune years, when the island was still popularly known as Isla de Panamao. But instead of proceeding to the commune base south of the island, they went north to the vicinity of Mt. Panamao, where the American-officered Philippine Constabulary captured or massacred them in droves.

The Pulahanes later established a base in the forest between the Ormoc-Burauen-Jaro triangle and fought the Pulahan Wars from 1902 to 1907 against the Americans in Leyte. The social organization of the Pulahanes in Leyte had a strong resemblance to the organization of the Biliran Commune more than a century earlier.40

During World War II, the Pulahanes activated again in the interior of Samar, with their locus of activities in the hinterlands of Paranas, Samar, the hometown of Padre Gaspar. One of their key leaders was a woman. In the main, the Pulahanes were cordial to the Japanese and served as guides for Japanese patrols searching for guerrillas. They were probably still smarting from their forebears’ traumatic experiences at the hands of the Americans during a different war.41

A society of tambalans (traditional medicine men) who practiced their profession in the villages around Mt. Panamao broke up into two different cults sometime in the 1960s.42 After they had separated, each group claimed they had in their possession Padre Gaspar’s miraculous cane. Whatever is the truth behind their separation, the fact remains that the legacy of Padre Gaspar was a common denominator among them.

The cult associated with the late Corito Lambunao, described to have Rizalista features and rituals, has their headquarters in Barangay Bool, Culaba, and has a communal abode called the “Round House” in the forest on the eastern side of the nearby Mt. Matin-ao.

The cult associated with the late Loreto Montives, which included the late Moises Ecleo, had their headquarters in Barangay Balacson, Kawayan. This cult evolved and incorporated the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association (PBMA) in 1965.43 The PBMA is now based at Dinagat Island in Surigao del Norte, the home of the Ecleos, but Barangay Balacson remains a place of pilgrimage for PBMA members. The town of Loreto in Dinagat Island might have been named in honor of Montives.


REFERENCE NOTES

1 Alcina, Fr. Francisco Ignacio, SJ. Historia de las islas y indios de Bisayas … 1668. The name of Biliran Island was still Isla de Panamao in the Alcina manuscripts. Books 1 and 2 of Part I of these manuscripts have been translated, edited and annotated by Fr. Cantius J. Kobak, OFM, and Fr. Lucio Gutierrez, OP, and published as books under the title History of the Bisayan People of the Philippine Islands (Manila: University of Santo Tomas Publishing House). Volume I was published in 2002, Volume II in 2004. The extant manuscripts for Part II were translated and annotated by Fr. Kobak and Fr. Pablo Fernandez, OP, and serialized in many issues of Philippiniana Sacra from 1978 to 1982.

2 Chirino, Fr. Pedro. SJ. Relacion de las Islas Filipinas. Rome: 1604. See Chapter 76 for the account on the mission to Panamao.

3 http://www.geocities.com/rolborr/panambil.html.

4 Borrinaga, Rolando O. “Lost meanings in Biliran,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, Oct. 5, 2002, p. 18.

5 Chico, Eduardo A. A Short History of Naval. (Unpublished 1957 manuscript at the Leyte-Samar Museum Library, Divine Word University, Tacloban City, 44 pages), p. 33. The year of Biliran pueblo’s creation, 1712, without a date, was mentioned by Felipe Redondo y Sendino in Breve Reseña de … Diocesis de Cebu … (Manila: Colegio de Santo Tomas, 1886), who cited his source as Cavada. Chico’s date, September 10, 1712, must have been sourced from Historia Geografica, Geologica y Estadistica by Agustin de la Cavada y Mendez de Vigo (Manila: Ramirez y Giraudier, 1876).

6 Lumapak, Menardo L. A Historical Research on Biliran. (Unpublished 1957 manuscript at the Leyte-Samar Museum Library, Divine Word University, Tacloban City, 60 pages), p. 12.

7 The Map of Biliran, circa 1770, was scanned from an old Franciscan map of Leyte-Samar region already under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Cebu. It was developed from a microfilm provided to the late Fr. Cantius J. Kobak, OFM, from the Franciscan’s Archives in Pastrana, Spain. It was apparently copied from a map made by the Jesuits before they were expelled from the region and the country in 1768.

8 Dery, Luis Camara. The Kris in Philippine History: A Study of the Impact of Moro Anti-Colonial Resistance, 1571-1896. Manila: By the Author, 1997, p. 25. The document that Dery referred to is found in the Philippine National Archives: Cedulario, 1734, Expediente 26, fol. 182-184: “Junta General de la Hacienda sobre representacion que hicieron los naturales que poblan la isla de Biliran perteniciente a la jurisdiccion de Leyte haber poblado dicha isla tiempo de 50 años. – Manila, 14 de Mayo 1735.”

9 Mexico. Archivo General de la Nacion. Documentos del Ramo de Filipinas existentes en el Archivo General de la Nacion de la Republica Mexicana. Año de 1755. Relacion de las Irrupciones que han hecho los Moros en las Provincias e Yslas de este Continente, desde el tiempo en que ultimamente se dio parte a Su Magestad hasta el presente, y desde el Yngreso del Gobierno del M. Y. Sr. Don Pedro Manuel de Arandia y Santestevan, Presidente Gobernador y Capitan General de estas Yslas. Manila, Mayo 24 de 1755. (The transcription of this document is found in Appendix 16 of Dr. Dery’s book, see Note No. 8. The English translation of the cited texts was done by the late Fr. Cantius J. Kobak, OFM.)

10 Kobak, Fr. Cantius J., OFM, “Don Gaspar de Guevara of Biliran Island, Leyte: A Legendary Figure or a Historical Personality?” Leyte-Samar Studies XIII:2 (1979), pp. 150-153. In Biliran town, the belief system around Padre Gaspar that Fr. Kobak described persists to this day. Padre Gaspar is worshipped as a co-equal “patron saint” in some barangays of Biliran town, and a fiesta in his honor is celebrated every third Sunday of February. Pilgrims trek on Mondays to his shrine in the foothills some eight kilometers from the poblacion.

11 Borrinaga, Rolando O., et. al., “Beginnings of Naval, Biliran Island: A Revisionist Account,” Kinaadman XIV:2 (1992), pp. 129-140. This writer was born and grew up in Naval town. He has a repository of puzzling local myths and folklore which historicity he is continually researching on.

12 See Kobak, Note No. 10. The Spanish text in the index file was as follows: “Presentacion para el curato de San Juan Nepomuceno de Biliran hecho en el Bachelor Don Gaspar Ignacio de Guevara. Manila, 10 de Octubre de 1765.”

13 Cruikshank, Bruce. Samar: 1768-1898. Manila: Historical Conservation Society, 1985.

14 Ibid., p. 43.

15 De la Costa, Fr. Horacio, SJ. The Jesuits in the Philippines: 1581-1768. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961.

16 Joaquin, Nick. A Question of Heroes. Pasig City: Anvil, 2005 (First published in 1977 by the Filipinas Foundation, Inc.), p. 7.

17 See Borrinaga, Note No. 11, p. 131.

18 See Cruikshank, Note No. 13, pp. 169-186.

19 See Kobak, Note No. 10, pp. 151-152.

20 Ibid. The name of the Alcalde Mayor of Samar was Don Estanislao Fermeyer. He was easy on Padre Gaspar and sheltered him and worked with him.

21 Ibid.

22 See Cruikshank, Note No. 13, pp. 43, 57.

23 See Kobak, Note. No. 10, p. 151.

24 See Cruikshank, Note No. 13, p. 43.

25 Borrinaga, Rolando O. and Fr. Cantius J. Kobak, OFM. The Colonial Odyssey of Leyte (1521-1914). In process of publication. This is the English translation of the general history chapters of the book Reseña de la Provincia de Leyte by Manuel Artigas y Cuerva (Manila: 1914). The section on the Augustinians in the 1770s is found in Chapter 3 of the manuscript.

26 See Cruikshank, Note No. 13, p. 43.

27 Granali, Ben, “Isla de Panamao (Isle of Mystery and Magic), Women’s Journal, May 14, 1991, p. 14. Before the history of Biliran was sorted out and the findings published starting the late 1980s, the ordinary folk largely associated “Panamao” with the mountain northwest of the island, and not as the old name of the entire island. Thus, they believe the mythical “city” was on this mountain, and not south of the island.

28 “The Mission.” DVD movie. Also, “Jesuit Communism in Paraguay, 1600-1750,” http://www.acts2.com/thebibletruth/Jesuits_Communism_Paraguay.htm.

29 See Lumapak, Note No. 6, p. 13. The meanings of the Bisayan words in this section were taken from two old Bisayan-Spanish dictionaries that the writer has translated to English. The first is Vocabulario de la Lengua Bisaya by Fr. Mateo Sanchez, SJ (Manila: 1711). The second is Diccionario Español-Bisaya para las Provincias de Samar y Leyte by Fr. Antonio Sanchez de la Rosa and Fr. Antonio Valeriano Alcazar (Manila: Imp. y Lit. de Santos y Bernal, 1914).

30 Pres. Fidel Ramos surprised his audience during an official visit to Naval, Biliran in January 1995 by telling them that the Guinness Book of World Records listed Biliran as the source of the “sweetest tasting water in the world.” A later search in any Guinness book did not turn out the item. But this writer found the item in Philippines Handbook (2nd Edition) by Peter Harper and Laurie Fullerton (Chico, CA: Moon Publications, Inc., 1994). On page 515 it said: “Tumalistis Falls, said to have the sweetest water in the world ….”

31 Borrinaga, Rolando O. “Artifacts from Biliran’s past,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, June 25, 2005, p. A20.

32 Kobak, Fr. Cantius J., OFM, “An Account of the Ransom of Don Juan Miguel del Castillo, Alcalde Mayor of Catbalogan, Samar from the Hands of the Muslims by the Franciscans in 1774,” Leyte-Samar Studies XII:2 (1978), pp. 61-68. Fr. De Jesus started ransom negotiations at the end of February 1774 and reported his success on March 13, 1774. The harassment of Fr. de Jesus by Padre Gaspar’s followers is narrated in Chapter 1 of Cruikshank, see Note No. 13.

33 See Lumapak, Note No. 6, p. 28.

34 Personal communication with George Plecerda and Mayor Pablo Mejia III, municipal officials and natives of Biliran town.

35 Makabenta, Eduardo A. Binisaya-English English-Binisaya Dictionary. Quezon City: EMANDSONZ, 1979.

36 “The 1903 Census for Biliran,” in http://www.geocities.com/rolborr/1903census.html.

37 See Alcina, Note No. 1. Part II of the Alcina manuscripts provides a detailed history of the Jesuit missionary activities as of 1668.

38 See Cruikshank, Note No. 13, pp. 187-205.

39 Borrinaga, Rolando O. “Atrocities and Intemperances: Revolutionary Ferments in Biliran Province from 1899 to 1909,” in: Churchill, Bernardita R., et.al. (eds.), Resistance and Revolution: Philippine Archipelago in Arms (Manila: National Commission for Culture and the Arts, 2002), pp. 122-143.

40 Borrinaga, Rolando O. “Juan and Felipe Tamayo: Pulahan Leaders of Jaro, Leyte.” (Paper presented at the Philippine National Historical Society’s 19th National Conference on Local and National History, Leyte Normal University, Tacloban City, October 21-23, 1998.)

41 Arens, Fr. Richard, SVD, “The Early Pulahan Movement in Samar,” Leyte-Samar Studies XI:2 (1977), pp. 57-113.

42 Personal communications with Victor Santolorin, Tomas Santolorin, and Alberto M. Bago, local intellectuals in Naval, 1990.

43 Falcon, Floro R. “Religious Leadership in the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association, Inc.,” in: Mercado, Leonardo N. (ed.), Filipino Religious Psychology (Tacloban City: Divine Word University Publications, 1977), pp. 141-148, 192-207.





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