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NEWSBRIEFSPOETS’ SOCIETYThe Aguman Buklud Kapampangancelebrated its 15th anniversary lastNovember 28 by holding a cultural show atHoly Angel University. Dhong Turla, PholBatac, Felix Garcia, Jaspe Dula, TotoyBato, Renie Salor and other officers andmembers of the organization took turnsreciting poems and singing traditionalKapampangan songs. Highlight of the showwas the crowning of laurel leaves on twonew poets laureate, Amado Gigante ofAngeles City and Francisco Guinto ofMacabebe. Angeles City Councilor VickyVega Cabigting, faculty and studentsattended the affair.

PIESTANG TUGAKThe City of San Fernando recently held atthe Hilaga (former Paskuhan Village) thefirst-of-its-kind frog festival celebratingKapampangans’ penchant for amphibiancuisine. The activity was organized by citytourism officer Ivan Anthony Henares.The Center participated by giving a lectureon Kapampangan culture and history andlending cultural performers like rondalla,choir and marching band.

UNDAS EXHIBIT A photo exhibit entitled Kematen was thefeatured attraction at the Center forKapampangan Studies gallery for the month

of November. Museum curator Alex Castroexplained that early Kapampangans hadtheir wakes, funeral processions and burialsphotographed to record their departed lovedones’ final moments with them. Thesepictures, in turn, reveal a lot about ourancestors’ way of life and belief systems.

MALAYA LOLAS DOCU

The Center for Kapampangan Studies, thewomen’s organization KAISA-KA, andInfomax Cable TV will co-sponsor theproduction of a video documentary on theplight of the Malaya Lolas of Mapaniqui,Candaba, victims of mass rape during WorldWar II. The project is being supervised bySonia Soto, KAISA-KA president, based ona project proposal by Tonette Orejas ofInfomax. The Malaya Lolas were abductedand then raped by Japanese soldiers afterwitnessing the massacre of their menfolk.With only 70 members remaining, they areasking the Japanese Government for apublic apology.

VIRGEN DE LOSREMEDIOS POSTALCOVER

A first-of-its-kindcommemorativecover featuringthe Baliti imageof Virgen de losR e m e d i o s ,Patroness of Pampanga, was recentlylaunched in cancellation ceremonies heldat the Center for Kapampangan Studies.Archbishop Paciano B. Aniceto, DD,Asst. Postmaster-General DiomedioVillanueva, PhilPost Region III DirectorAmelia Cunanan graced the affair. Theproject is a brainchild of Jorge HensonCuyugan, President of the Philippine StampCollectors Society.

Kapampangan poet Amado Gigante (seated) gets his gold laurel crown as the latest poet laureate of Pampanga; Dhong Turla (right), president of theAguman Buklud Kapampangan delivers his exhortation to fellow poets

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RECENTRECENTRECENTRECENTRECENTVISITVISITVISITVISITVISITORSORSORSORSORS

AUGUSTLuis Lorenzo, Secretaryof AgricultureRep. Oscar Moreno,Misamis OrientalYeng Guiao, Board MemberClayton Olalia, former Pamp.Vice GovernorJay Sonza, TV/radio personalityElwood Perez, filmdirectorMayor Babes Evangelista,CandabaLeopoldo Valdes, Jr.Frankie Villanueva

SEPTEMBERRicardo Trota JoseRep. Jesli Lapus, 3rd District TarlacDr. Ronald Post, USEmbassyTony Perez, SpiritQuestDr. Jaime VeneracionRamon Zaragoza,antique collectorCouncilor Louie Reyes,Angeles CityKathleen CrittendenDom Martin de Jesus H. Gomez,OSBArcht. Augusto VillalonBishop Leopoldo Tumulak, DDFr. Gabriel CasalFr. Roy RosalesWillie Layug, sculptorFr. Gaspar Sigaya, OP, Manaoag MuseumRegalado Trota Jose

OCTOBER, NOVEMBER Bayani Fernando,MMDA ChairmanBishop Raul Q. Martinez, AntiqueEfrain Soto, Sapni nang CrissotVictoriano Dungca,intl. airline consultantMalu Rivera, PLDT MakatiFaculty, Siena College Taytay, RizalDr. Linda Andaya,Univ. of PangasinanDr. Catalina Felicitas,Pangasinan State Univ.Dr. Juanita Anoc,Pangasinan State Univ.Marino Repalda, DagupanCityMsgr. Jose Barrion, Pakil, LagunaNoel Lopez Catacutan, AAP

B. FERNANDO

J. SONZA

RICO JOSE

R. ZARAGOZA

O. MORENO

L. LORENZO

Center co-producesArtiSta.Rita CD

ArtiSta. Rita, thesensational singing group from Sta.Rita, Pampanga, in cooperation withthe Center for KapampanganStudies, recently launched acompact disc of 11 traditional andfour contemporary Kapampangansongs. The group’s director, AndyAlviz, said that the CD aims to makeKapampangan songs accessible totoday’s sophisticated listeners. Lushorchestration and soaring vocalshave given folk songs, rarely sungand often taken for granted, a newrefreshing spin. The popinspirational song, KapampanganKu, composed by Alviz, featuresvocals by well-known Kapampanganartists Nanette Inventor, JeffArcilla, Michael de Mesa andMon David.

The ArtiSta. Rita CD is a worthy follow-up to the groundbreaking CD Pamalsintaqng Milabas, produced three years ago by the Sapni nang Crissot, and an alternative tothe spate of pirated Kapampangan CDs flooding the sidewalks today. Last December22, a formal launching was held at Villa Epifania in Sta. Rita, attended by such luminariesas Prof. Randy David, film director Marilou Diaz Abaya, Levi Laus, Rep. OscarRodriguez and others. HAU President Bernadette Nepomuceno delivered a message,while Alviz thanked the University for its support. The project’s musical directors areRecy Pineda, Randy del Rosario, Gie Lansang and Hancel Lapid.

The CDs can be purchased at the Center for Kapampangan Studies and othermajor outlets. For orders, call (045) 888-8691, or email rptmt@yahoo.com or text at0918 941 8599.

Kapampangan Research JournalThe maiden issue of Alaya: Kapampangan

Research Journal has been released by the Center.Edited by Prof. Lino Dizon, the journal featuresarticles on the Historical Data Papers (HDP),saniculas biscuit, the Philippine Revolution inPampanga, former towns of Tarlac, the Pampangafurniture industry and the resett lementphenomenon in Bacolor. Aside from Prof. Dizon,the contributors include Dr. John Alan Larkin,Dr. Niels Beerepoot, Dr. Jean-ChristopheGaillard, Fray Francis Musni, OSA and ErlitaMendoza.

Reviews of books published by the Centerfor Kapampangan Studies are also included in theissue; reviewers include Nick Joaquin, Dr. JaimeVeneracion, Fr. Jose Arcilla, SJ, Fr. JohnSchumacher, SJ and Dr. Randolf David. Thereis also a write-up on the First InternationalConference on Kapampangan Studies held at HolyAngel University two years ago.

The editorial board of the refereed journalis composed of Dr. Dante Canlas, Dr. Eusebio Dizon, Dr. Emmanuel Ramos, Dr.Rodolfo Tamayo, Jr., Dr. Randolf David, Dr. Jean-Christophe Gaillard and Dr.John Larkin. For queries, please contact (045) 888-8691 loc. 1311, or email atrptmt@yahoo.com.

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THE Catholic Bishops’ Conference of thePhilippines (CBCP), through its PermanentCommittee for the Cultural Heritage of theChurch, called on the faithful to protect theirold churches against burglars, antiquesmugglers and destruction by natural andmanmade causes.

At the recent Third BiennialNational Convention of Church CulturalHeritage Workers hosted by the Archdioceseof San Fernando, Pampanga and held atHoly Angel University in Angeles City,Bishop Leopoldo S. Tumulak, DD ofTagbilaran, who chairs the said CBCPcommittee, appealed to more than 100delegates from the country ’s 70archdioceses and dioceses to be theguardians of the Church’s cultural patrimony.

The convention tackled issues suchas church renovations, antique trafficking,role of clergy and laity in managing churchproperty, and the perennial debate ofapostolate versus aesthetics. The speakersurged dioceses and parishes all over thecountry to set up their own museums,libraries and archives not only as haven forchurch artifacts but as instruments ofevangelization.

National Convention of Church Heritage Workers

Among the speakers wereArchitect Augusto Villalon, Prof.Regalado Trota Jose, Dom. BernardoMa. Perez, OSB, Atty. Rose Angeles andFaustino Ramos of the PNP. TheKapampangan lecturers were Fr. PabloDavid, Prof. Lino Dizon and Fray FrancisMusni, OSA.

The convention’s guest speaker,Archbishop Francesco Marchisano,President of the Pontifical Commission forthe Cultural Heritage of the Church, failedto come as he was elevated to Cardinal byPope John Paul II right on the convention’sopening day.

Archbishop Paciano B. Aniceto,DD of San Fernando, welcomed thedelegates and announced the creation ofan archdiocesan commission on churchheritage which will, among other tasks,provide technical assistance to parishesundertaking church renovations. Heappointed the Director of the Center forKapampangan Studies as first member ofthe commission.

The delegates toured Bacolorchurch, which was half-buried by lahar in1995; the Betis church, which was recently

declared a national treasure; Sasmuanchurch, now undergoing renovation; Lubaochurch, recently renovated; Minalin church,which contains centuries-old murals; theArchdiocesan Museum; and Sto. Tomaschurch, also recently renovated. Thedelegates were warmly welcomed by parishpriests and parish pastoral councils.

“Protect the churches!”“Protect the churches!”

Convention delegates marvel at the restored retablo inside Bacolor church; below, animated discussions at the conven-tion venue in HAU as well as inside the Betis church

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Tarlaqueños, Pampangansco-publish book

Prof. Lino Dizon’s Mr. White: A Thomasite History of TarlacProvince 1901-1913, co-published by the Center for Tarlaqueño

Studies and the Center for Kapampangan Studies, was recentlylaunched at Holy Angel University. Dr. Ronald J. Post, Counselorfor Public Affairs of the US Embassy, and Rep. Jesli A. Lapus ofTarlac’s Third District led guests who included scholars, governmentleaders and academics from Tarlac and Pampanga. Dr. Ricardo TrotaJose, chair of the UP History Department, read his book review, whileFr. Raul de los Santos, parish priest of Magalang, read the reviewof Fr. John Schumacher, SJ. HAU President Bernadette M.Nepomuceno delivered the welcome remarks.

At DepEd convocationCenter urges schools not to penalizestudents who speak KapampanganElementary and high school students whospeak their native language should not bemade to pay a fee as a punishment, RobertTantingco, Director of the Center forKapampangan Studies, said in his speechbefore 5000 public school teachers and ad-ministrators celebrating Pampanga Day.

He said schools should instead en-courage their students to learn as many lan-guages as they can to equip them for a worldthat is becoming multi-lingual. He also urgedschools to include Kapampangan Studies intheir syllabi, and to start local museums bycollecting documents and artifacts from theircommunity.

Tantingco distributed copies of a

declamation piece entitled “I am aKapampangan” as well as CDs of a 12-minute audio-visual presentation on the his-tory and culture of Kapampangans.

The convocation was sponsored bythe Department of Education Region III Di-vision of Pampanga, headed by Superinten-dent Rosalinda G. Luna, CESO IV. Gov. LitoLapid also came to greet the jampacked au-dience at the Bren Z. Guiao Convention Cen-ter.

Tantingco also called on teachersto lead their students in a campaign to learnmore about Kapampangan history and cul-ture. “To be better Filipinos, we have to begood Kapampangans first,” he said.

Intercultural show

TraditionalJapanese dancer

performs atthe Center

Einojoh Senju of the Hanayagi Schoolof Dance recently performed traditionalJapanese dances at the Center forKapampangan Studies.

Einojoh Senju heads the SenjuRyu or the Senju School of ClassicalJapanese Dance, and is the founder ofthe Senju Buyodan or Senju ClassicalJapanese Dance Group whose aim is tomake elegant classical Japanese dancemore appealing to a wider audience.The group’s most recent performancewas at the Lawiswis, a cultural showsponsored by the City of Manila.

On hand to annotate andtranslate the proceedings wereKapampangan historian Siuala dingMeangubie, Nakano Takuya (iaido, ka-rate, musician, architectural designer) andLt. Commander Fukuda Takashi (WWIIhistorian, iaido instructor, Phil. Coast Guardand Air Force).

Kaye Mayrina Lingad, Public Re-lations Officer of the Center forKapampangan Studies, organized andemceed the show in cooperation with theMunicipality of Mabalacat.

Tarlac Rep. Jesli A. Lapus and Dr. Ronald J. Post at the book launching

Mr.White

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Translation of Huseng Batute’s GloriaKapampangans, Tagalogs launch book

The book Gloria: Roman Leoncio’s Kapampangan Translation ofHuseng Batute’s Verse Novel, Lost and Found, published by HolyAngel University and co-edited by Ambassador Virgilio Reyes,Jr. and the Center for Kapampangan Studies, was launched lastOctober 23 at the Department of Foreign Affairs.

The guest speaker, the late Secretary of Foreign AffairsBlas Ople, cited the cultural convergences among Tagalogs andKapampangans, while President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, in amessage read by her daughter Luli Arroyo, congratulated theTagalog-Kapampangan team that produced the book.

The Center mounted an exhibit at DFA showing theintertwining cultures and histories of the two ethno-linguistic tribes.This theme was also reflected in the program which featuredcrissotan and balagtasan, performed respectively by students ofDel Carmen Elementary School and veteran poets from Pampanga.

The book contains the original Tagalog narrative poem ofJose Corazon de Jesus (a.k.a. Huseng Batute) and theKapampangan translation by Leoncio, an obscure poet from Guaguain the 1920s. Annotations were made by Dr. Albina PeczonFernandez, Prof. Lino Dizon, National Artist Virgilio Almarioand Dr. Lourdes Vidal. Reviews were contributed by NationalArtist Nick Joaquin (in Philippine Graphic), Lito Zulueta (inthe Philippine Daily Inquirer) and Dr. Bienvenido Lumbera(who read it during the program).

Top: Dr. Bienvenido Lumbera as book reviewer; Ms. LuliArroyo read the message of her mother President GloriaMacapagal ArroyoLeft: The late DFA Secretary Blas Ople, Ms. Arroyo,Ambassador Virgilio Reyes Jr., HAU President BernadetteNepomuceno and Senator Rodolfo BiazonBelow: Kapampangan poets perform crissotan

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9999999999KAPAMPANGANSWHO MATTEREDSome well known, others not atall, these are some of theKapampangans who expressedthe great themes of their timesand who made an impact on theworld around them, and on thegenerations beyond theirs,representing the best, sometimesthe worst, qualities in us all.

IN HISTORY, AND WHY

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1. MalangsikBecause he and his kinorganized pre-colonialKapampangan society

Prince Balagtas was the Tagalog-Kapampangan sovereign of theMadjapahit Empire who came to Luzonfrom Malang, east central Java, in 1380to start a dynasty. He married a Borneanprincess, Panginoan; they had threechildren: Malangsik (who married firstcousin Mandik), Dapat-magmanuk(who married Monmon) andMakayabongdili. Malangsik ruled theKapampangan region in the late 1400sand early 1500s. His sister-in-law,Monmon, is said to have foundedBakulud (before landlord GuillermoManabat organized it into the puebloBacolor with the help of Spaniards in1574); Malangsik’s descendantKapitangan and his wife Bayindafounded Apalit. When the Spaniardscame in 1571, they found several heavilypopulated settlements with organizedsocieties, such as Kandaue (Candaba),Purak (Porac), Macabebe, Baba (Lubao),Pinpin (Sta. Ana), Betis, Uaua (Guagua)and Balayan ning Pambuit (Arayat).Indeed, Malangsik and his kin can becredited for having organizedKapampangan society starting in the 14th

century.

Reference: The Province of Pampanga and itsTowns (A.D. 1300-1962) by Mariano A. Henson.Angeles City; also Luther Parker Collection.

2. PansonumBecause his last willdefined the vastKapampangan region

Christened Francisco MalangBalagtas, Pansonum was a directdescendant of the Madjapahit rulers ofLuzon, Malangsik being his father andPrince Balagtas his grandfather. Helived in Tambugao in Calumpit, Bulacanshortly after the arrival of the Spaniards.He died on March 21, 1589 at the SanCarlos mission in Pangasinan, leavingbehind a will that described in greatdetail the Kapampangan territory (whichhe claimed was his property) thatextended all the way to Ituy (CagayanVal ley) and present-day Carmen,Rosales, San Quintin, Umingan andBalungao in Pangasinan (formerly ofNueva Ecija, which in turn was formerlyof Pampanga); Baler in Tayabas (laterAurora); Tarlac, Bataan and portions ofZambales and Bulacan. The present-daydescendants of Pansonum’s great claninclude Kapampangans and Tagalogswith the surnames Musngi, Dumandan,Lumanlan, Madlangbayan, Salalila,Gatbonton, Gatmaitan, Gatdula,Capulong, Soliman, Lakandula andMacapagal.

Reference: The Province of Pampanga andits Towns (A.D. 1300-1962) by Mariano A.Henson. Angeles City; also Luther ParkerCollection.

3. Pande PiraBecause his works shapedancient Kapampanganwarfare and agriculture

Pande (Panday in Tagalog, meaning“smith”) Pira (Pilac, “si lver”), aKapampangan from Capalangan, Apalit,made cannons, farm implements andother weapons for local chieftains likeTarik Soliman. His products, such askampit (knife), palang (bolo for clearingthicket), panabud (bolo for choppingwood), sudsud (plowshare), talibung(scabbard), sundang (dagger) and lepia(moldboard), were of such superiorquality that he was recruited as officialcannon-maker of Spain for the colony.When he died in 1576, Spanish officialswrote their King that “no one amongus can take his place.” But his artspread to places like Taal and Balisongin Batangas; Meycauayan, Bulacan;Orion, Bataan; Calasiao, Pangasinan;Santa, Ilocos Sur; Cabagan, Isabela—places where the craft has survivedeven to this day.Reference: The Province of Pampanga andits Towns (A.D. 1300-1962) by Mariano A.Henson. Angeles City.

Taram is the Kapampangan termfor the adjective sharp and the noun blade,examples of which are sundang, palang,tulipas, sisip, bangkuku, sibat, palatio,talibung, etc.; mangatapang, on the otherhand, may be associated with visionariesand fighters for freedom because itconnotes bravery. Indeed,

by Joel Pabustan Mallari

Prehistoric Kapampangansand their weapons of war

Kapampangans were known not only fortheir ingenuity in making weaponry but alsofor their military prowess, and for this reasonthey were much feared among prehistorictribes and much sought after by colonizersrecruiting augmentation troops.

In 1571, the original battle ofBangkusay on the north of Pasig and near

Tundun (now Tondo) led by Tarik Sulimanof Macabebe challenged the invadingSpaniards. Later, Spanish master-of-campMartin de Goiti encountered strongresistance from the belligerentKapampangans of Betis when theypenetrated the interior of the province. TheSpaniards, according to chroniclers, weresurprised to encounter strong fortificationsand advanced weaponry in the settlementsalong the Pampanga River. After pacifyingthem, the Spaniards, thousands of milesaway from Spain and strapped of cash andequipment, began to depend onKapampangans for their fine craftsmanshipin household, industrial and military

Pre-colonial cannon called lantaka, left,and the Spanish-made cannon, right

(Discovering Philippine Art in Spain)

implements, as well as for their brave

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soldiering.Archaeological and ethnographic

evidences reveal that expert potters,weavers and ironsmiths in Pampangaplayed a role in defining social classes. Thelegendary Pande Pira of Apalit wasrecruited to equip the walled city ofIntramuros; he set up a foundry forcannons and other artillery for thedefense of Menila (now Manila),founded at the same time as Pampanga.He invented the lantaka, a small cannonthat could be rotated or maneuvered atany desired angle and direction duringbattle. He was also asked by theAdelantado (Legazpi) to manufacturelantakas for galleons and warships as theSpaniards prepared to conquer more landsin the archipelago and throughoutSoutheast Asia. (Prior to this, Pande Pirasurprised Rajah Suliman when he madea cannon using a mold of clay and wax.)

Today, metal smith and potteryindustries are standard fare in barangaysCapalangan, Casinala and San Vicente, allin Apalit town, as well as in barangaysSapa and San Matias in nearby Sto. Tomastown and barangay Gatbuca in Calumpit,Bulacan. In prehistoric times,Kapampangans in these areas probablyhad specialized craftsmen likemangkukuran (potters), magpande (metalsmith), lalala (weavers) and others whocatered to the needs of the timaua andthe datu. They defended theircommunities against pirates and invadersby building forts and palisades usinghardwood from the rich dipterocarp forestsin the province. Chroniclers mentionMacabebes bringing in logs from Pampanga

to fortify Intramuros againstChinese pirate Lim Ah Hong andlater against the Dutch and British

invasions. The timber must havecome from indigenous species of

apalit, bulaun, betis, balacat, dau,calantas, balibagu, tarlak, etc.thriving in the foothills of MountPinatubo in Porac, Angeles,

Mabalacat, Bamban and Capas; thelogs may have been transportedthrough Abacan River, Sacobia Riverand Pasig-Potrero River down to BetisRiver (now Guagua-Pasak River) andPampanga River and into the bay inMacabebe (part of which later becameMasantol), which is now known asPampanga Bay, part of Manila Bay.

The active trade networkthroughout the pre-SpanishKapampangan Region is partly provenwith the discovery of an ancientsettlement high up in the hills ofPorac. Archaeological excavations in1930, 1959, 1960 and in the 1990sunearthed the remains of anextensive community dating back tothe 14th-16th centuries, or a fewdecades before the Spaniards arrivedin 1571. A cemetery of 300 gravesindicates it was a large settlement,quite unusual for its location. Alsodiscovered were chinaware sherds,postholes and metalimplements, 15 pieces ofwhich were metal bladesused for agricultural and

ceremonial activities, butsome resembled sundang and

talibung (scabbard and dagger) and spear

points. In Lubao, by the way, pieces ofblack-and-white decorated jars datingback to Sung (AD 960-1279) and Ming(AD 1279-1368) Periods were found.Other archaeological sites inCandaba, Guagua and Mexico allapparently indicate patterns of pre-Spanish settlements.

When Tarik Suliman faced theSpanish ships in Bangkusay in 1571,he had with him not only his valorand his hotheaded audacity, but alsothe products of best Kapampangantechnology at the time—lantaka,sundang, talibung, sibat, bangkukuand all sorts of palang, which myIngkung Larion described as “Dengpalang a ren, ila pin deng taram dareng mangatapang!”

References: The Philippine Islands Vol. XLby E.H. Blair and J.A. Robertson;Kapampangan Prehistory: Focus on theSystematic Archaeological Excavation atPorac, Pampanga by Amalia de la Torre,paper presented at the First InternationalConference on Kapampangan Studies at HolyAngel University; The Metal Age in thePhilippines: An ArchaeometallurgicalInvestigation by Dr. Eusebio Dizon ;Chiefdoms in Archaeological andEthnohistorical Perspective by TimothyEarle; “Philippine Archaeology Up To 1950” inPhilippine Journal of Science by AlfredoEvangelista; Artifacts: An Introduction toEarly Materials and Technology by HenryHodges; The Pampangans by John Larkin;Candaba Artifacts: Implication andInference to Kapampangan

Prehistory(Unpublished) by Joel Mallari;First Conclusions of the April 2002Archaeological Excavations in Porac,Pampanga by Dr. Victor Paz; CraftSpecialization,Refuse, Disposal and theCreation of Spatial ArchaeologicalRecords in Prehispanic Mesomerica byR. Santley and R. Kneebone; notes inKapampangan Timeline by Siuala ding

Meangubie; notes by Sevilla Yaga Sumala.

Hundreds, maybe thousands, of yearsbefore the Spaniards came, the central plainin Luzon island was already populated withKapampangans and Tagalogs, as well aswith dark-skinned Aetas who lived mostlyin the forests of the surrounding mountains.The pre-Hispanic Kapampangans were land-tillers and seafarers who traded with Chinaand sailed to neighboring kingdoms. They

Because he refused to kowtow to white men;because he was smart enough to discern the Bible-quoting invaders’ true motives; because he daredto stop the tidal wave of colonialism sweeping thecontinent in the 16th century; because hechallenged an entire Spanish armada to preserveand defend civilization as he knew it; and becausehe was the first Filipino to show that the nation’sfreedom was worth dying for

were partly anito-worshippers, partlyMuslim converts. “Their houses arefilled with wooden and stone idols…for they had no temples,” wrote aSpanish chronicler in 1590 (Blair &Robertson, XXXIV, p. 378), whileanother reported that “(Pampanga)had two rivers, one called Bitis andthe other Lubao, along whose banks

By Robby Tantingco

Acrylic painting by Joel Mallari

4. TARIK SOLIMAN

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dwell three thousand five hundred Moros.”(Blair & Robertson, IV, p. 80). (Islam hadoverthrown the Hindu Madjapahit Empire in1478 and reached the archipelago shortlythereafter.)

Tarik Soliman (or Sulaiman) was aKapampangan datu (chieftain) in 1571, mostlikely from a barangay in Macabebe nowknown as Sagrada, Masantol, locatedat the mouth of the Pampanga River.As datu, Tarik Sol iman heldexecutive, judicial and militarypowers, determining planting andharvesting dates, trying cases notinvolving himself (otherwise agroup of datus from neighboringvillages tried him), and ruling overthe timawa (freemen) and the slaves(those who had failed tosettle debts).Apparently, thePampanga of TarikSoliman was a fullyfunctioning civilizationbecause every man,woman and child couldread and write, and it hada government system, anagricultural system thatproduced food in surplus,a trading network withother Southeast Asiankingdoms, a classstructure, religion, laws,taxes and festivals.

It was into thisquiet, developing world ofTarik Sol iman that aSpanish armada fromCebu gate-crashed onesummer day in 1571.The sight of huge, fullyarmed ships sailing pastthe tiny caracoas setthe natives into panic.The Tagalog tribal chieftains in Manila,Rajah Matanda and his nephew,Rajah Soliman (despite initialmisgivings), as well as the king ofTondo, Lakan Dula, welcomed theEuropean visitors led by MiguelLopez de Legazpi, who assuredthem that he had come mainly “toteach them the true law of the one,all-powerful God, creator of heavenand earth.” After he made themswear allegiance to the King ofSpain, Legazpi quickly dropped allniceties and ordered his hosts tobuild a large house for him to livein during his stay, a chapel for thefriar, and 150 medium-sized housesfor the rest of the Spanish soldiers.

When the Kapampanganssaw this, they derided their Tagalogneighbors for sleeping with theenemy. More than 200 warriorson 40 caracoas sailed fromPampanga, “the most warlike and

brave nation,” led by “a brave youth” whowas “the bravest on the island”—TarikSoliman (often confused with Rajah Solimanof Manila, who later succeeded his uncleRajah Matanda; the name Tarik Soliman isjust for purposes of differentiating him fromthese two rajahs since the records do notmention his name). An early Spanishchronicler wrote: “They entered the townof Tondo through an estuary they calledBancusay without being seen by the

Spaniards, where they stayed for a fewdays discussing with Lakan Dula the

best way to start the battle.”Legazpi sent two emissaries toTondo to win Tarik Soliman overto their side. Tarik, wrote theSpanish chronicler, “replied

excitedly that neither he nor his followerswanted to see (Legazpi) nor have his

friendship, nor that of theCastillians…. Having saidthis, he stood up andwith audacity andferocity unsheathed hissword. Brandishing it,

he said, ‘May the sunstrike me in twain, and may

I fall in disgrace before thewomen for them to hate me,if I ever became for a momentfriend to the Castillians.’ (H)eleft and without going downthe stairs, to show his bravery,jumped out a window to thestreet then went directly to hiscaracoa. He told theSpaniards to inform theircaptain that he was waitingat the mouth of the estuary,where he had entered, tofight. After saying this, hebegan sail ing, amidhurrahs, to the place hementioned.”

In response,Legazpi sent 80Spaniards to Bancusay

led by his master-of-camp, Martin de Goiti.“Ahead of them,” wrote the chronicler,“was the caracoa of the Moor leader(Tarik Soliman)” who “courageouslyfired some shots (and) foughtanimatedly and without showingany weakness or disarray, until hedied from a rifle shot by one of oursoldiers. With his death… theybegan to fade away. They quicklyscattered and fled.”More than 300 Kapampangansdied in that Battle of Bancusay onMay 24, 1571, and the Spaniards

proceeded to conquer the rest of the“widely spread province,” meetingresistance only in Betis, “the mostfortified throughout the island ofLuzon.” Thus, the prehistoricKapampangan Nation became LaPampanga, Spain’s first province inLuzon, on December 11,1571.

Reference: Conquistas de las Islas Filipinas1565-1615 by Gaspar de San Agustin, OSA.Manila: San Agustin Museum.

Helmet made of sea-hedgehog,torso armor made of carabaohorn plates, used by Morowarriors (Discovering Philippine Art inSpain)

Only a few years after theSpaniards first arrived in Luzon, manyof them were already complaining aboutthe mosquitoes, diseases, constantthreat from pirates and savage natives,and low morale.

In his memo to the King ofSpain in 1588, Jesuit missionary AlonsoSanchez lamented the sorry state ofthe colony. It was so far from Spain,he said, that the only Spaniards whocared and dared to go to the Philippineswere impoverished and unprincipledadventurers, and the officials appointedto govern it were out to enrichthemselves instead of looking after thecolony’s welfare. The colony, he said,had been cut up into encomiendasowned by private citizens, and little wasleft for the general treasury, andtherefore for public welfare andservices.

Still, the Jesuit argued thatSpain should not give up the colonybecause the monarchy was committedto serve four groups of people there,namely:

1. The Spanish citizensalready residing in the colony; Sanchezsaid these Spaniards had the right tooccupy the island because it wasconsidered neither a private propertynor public domain since the natives hadno concept of such; if the property wasprivate, the Spaniards had the right toacquire it by barter or purchase and tobuild houses and settlements onproperty thus acquired, to fortify anddefend it, and to wage war againstrulers of such property who preventedthem from exercising this right and, ifvictorious, to take the lawful rewardsof victory; furthermore, the Pope hadauthorized Spain to evangelize heathensby establishing permanent, autonomousSpanish settlements;

2. The natives who hadembraced Spanish rule and Christianfaith; they had the right to have prieststo strengthen their faith continuouslyand a right to have governors andtroops to ensure their safety and welfareagainst those who would take awaytheir newfound faith;

3. The natives who hadbeen conquered but not yet converted,who needed to be restrained andeventual ly converted since theirconstant co-mingling with the newlyconverted natives might weaken thelatter’s faith;

4. The natives who hadnot been conquered and converted,

To colonize ornot to colonize:Even Spain hadsecond thoughtsWhat right did theEuropeans have togatecrash intoa free Asian nation?

Legazpi

De Goiti

11

who needed to be subjugated as well asconverted to permit the preaching of thefaith in their territory.

Actually, there were Spaniardswho believed it was possible toevangelize without colonizing; to them,natives were fully functioning humanbeings with all the rights inherent inhuman nature, and that all aggressionwas unjust and the use of force wasnever justified.

And then there were Spaniardswho believed that natives were naturallyan inferior race for whom it wasnecessary to use force, because theywere barbarians brutalized by a savageway of life who possessed no moral orspiritual sensibilities and who recognizedonly physical force as the arbiter ofthings. Thus, missionaries had the rightto military escorts whose task was notto intimidate natives or seize theirpossessions, but merely to commandtheir respect for the missionaries, tocreate the conditions where the faithcould be freely taught and freelyreceived—since moral suasion alone didnot work with primitive, savage people.

After hearing the pros andcons, King Philip II (after whom RuyLopez de Villalobos named the colony)decided to: build fortifications aroundManila, raise the salary of soldiers,rationalize the tax system, halt thepacification voyages outside the colony,send 100 Spanish farmer settlers torevitalize agriculture in the colony, makethe galleon trade a monopoly of colonistsin the Philippines, put up hospitals, freeslaves and abolish slavery for good,exempt natives from tithes and givethem the option to pay in currency or ingoods of equal value, whichever theypreferred. These royal decrees hintedat the statesmanship of the Spanish Kingwhich could bode well for Indios in thecolony that bore his name.

Unfortunately, most of themwere never carried out in a colony thatwas 5000 leagues away.Reference: The Jesuits in the Philippines 1581-1768 by Horacio de la Costa, SJ. Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard University Press.

Tarik Soliman’s suspicions about thesweet-talking Europeans were confirmedwhen a prominent Kapampangan fromCandaba, Don Juan Manila, sent Spanishofficials a complaint letter in 1586 (barely15 years after Tarik’s death), in whichhe described Spaniards as “arrogant andhaughty… (who) seize rice, pigs andeverything else, unreasonably. Andwhen we beg them not to, they take uswith them to Manila, they beat us upand worse, they insult us. They paynothing for what they take from us….(T)hey take our women, and send us tolook for women, to ravish them and ifwe do not… they insult us and beat usup, calling us sodomites, drunkards andother such painful names. We workincessantly and are not allowed to rest.”He also complained that taxes werebeing collected from even the aged, thehandicapped and the dead. Juan Manilaand a Nicolas Mananguete led anuprising among members of theprincipalia (native ruling class) whichended tragically when Spanish officialsconspired with Indios to entrap JuanManila through disguise, not unlike whatthe Macabebes were made to do withEmilio Aguinaldo centuries later.Source: “Don Juan Manila: The First KapampanganRebel?” by Marc D. Nepomuceno, K MagazineIssue 7. Angeles City.

5. FranciscoPalaot and theEarly Macabebes

After putting up initial resistance, theearly Kapampangans decided to help theSpaniards bui ld Intramuros andvolunteer for military service. TheSpaniards began exploring andconquering lands in the archipelago andSoutheast Asia, tagging alongKapampangan soldiers from Macabebeto augment their lean army. As early as1574, Kapampangan recruits had foughtside by side with Spaniards in repellingChinese pirate Limahong . OneKapampangan captain won distinctionfor himself in these expeditions. Hisname was Francisco Palaot. He stoodside by side with Bravo de Acuña, wholed a voyage to the Moluccas in 1606.Earlier, in 1591, Kapampangans joineda contingent of 80 Spanish soldiers ledby Luis Perez das Mariñas, son of thegovernor general, to an exploration ofthe jungles of Tuy (now Nueva Vizcaya).In 1596, Kapampangans sailed toMindanao in a pacification drive led byRodriguez de Figueroa. In 1638, theywent to Jolo under Gov. Gen. SebastianHurtado de Corcuera. In the yearsto come, Macabebes would always bedepended upon to massacre the Chinesein 1603 and again in 1640, ward offDutch invaders in 1646, retaliate againstthe British Navy in 1764, and tragically,defeat the revolts of fellow Filipinos andin one instance even of their fellowKapampangans. Palaot and these earlysoldiers of fortune had unwittinglystarted an alliance with the SpanishEmpire which would define not only therelationship between Kapampangansand their colonizers in the next 300 yearsbut also the reputation ofKapampangans among their fellowFilipinos.Reference: The Pampangans by John A. Larkin.Los Angeles: University of California Press; TheProvince of Pampanga and its Towns (A.D.1300-1962) by Mariano A. Henson. Angeles City.

6. Juan ManilaBecause he was among the firstto revolt against Spanish abuses

Because they started the 300-year alliance between Spainand the Kapampangans

1593 map of Asia by Cornelis de Jode

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O nApril 19,1586, theS p a n i s hofficials inManila metto take stockof thesituation inthe newc o l o n y ,which, inthose earlyyears did notyet have theo p u l e n c ethat thegalleon tradewould bring afew decadeslater. Thecity wasnothing morethan a clusterof a hundredt h a t c h e dh o u s e ssurroundedby mosquito-i n f e s t e dmarshes; the city walls had notyet been constructed. Acrossthe river, Chinese merchants andartisans lived in their dirtyparian.

The meeting was adebate on the merits ofmaintaining the colony underthese harsh conditions. Somewanted to abandon the islandsaltogether, while otherswondered if they should ask theKing of Spain to grant incentivesand privileges to colonists.

Before it adjourned,they decided to send a letter toKing Philip II, and the personthey chose to travel across theglobe to deliver the letter wasthe Jesuit priest AlonsoSanchez. On May 6, 1586,Sanchez made the voyage toAcapulco on the ship San Martin.With him was the precious letterand another hot property: a ten-year-old Kapampangan boynamed Martin Sancho who hadamazed everyone with his abilityto speak fluent Spanish andrecite the entire catechism. Notonly was he a proof thatevangelization was working inthe colony, Alonso could also usehim to attract the King’s

7. MARTIN SANCHOBecause he became a child prodigy ata time when natives were treated assavages and barbarians; because henot only came within spitting distancewith the King of Spain (something evenRizal never dreamed of), but alsoengaged him in an IQ quiz and probablymade his royal jaw drop; because heshed off his glory days and retired to aquiet life of prayer to become the firstFilipino JesuitBy Robby Tantingco

attention and convince themonarch that the natives couldbe worthy, even spectacular,bearer of Christian virtue anderudition. Born in 1576, barelyfive years after the Spaniardsfirst came to Pampanga, MartinSancho was living proof that thisparticular colony was anextremely fertile ground for theseeds of their mission, whichwere already taking root andbearing fruit faster than Spaincould send additionalmissionaries.

Their ship encounteredmany storms as it crossed thePacific Ocean. It reached Mexicoeight months later, in January1587. The group left Acapulcoon May 18, 1587 and sailedacross the Atlantic Ocean forseven months. On December15, 1587, Alonso Sanchez andMartin Sancho were usheredinto the court of King Philip II.The boy was introduced and asthe King and members of thecourt leaned forward, MartinSancho recited prayers, articlesof faith, Church rules, doctrines

and the restof thecatechism inp e r f e c tS p a n i s h .The ten-y e a r - o l dbrown nativef r o mPa m p a n g aconfidentlype r fo rmedbefore them o s tp o w e r f u lman on earthin theh i g h e s tforum anyc o l o n i a lFilipino couldhope toreach. KingPhilip askeda fewquestions tofurther testhim; MartinS a n c h oa n s w e r e d

them all without faltering. Whenthe boy was ushered out of thehal l amidst thunderousapplause, Alonso Sanchezstepped forward to present hiscase for the Phi lippines,confident that the King’sfavorable response had beenensured by the Kapampanganboy’s performance. Martin Sancho stayed in Spainthen moved to the Jesuitnovitiate in Rome when he was17 years old. He became thefirst Filipino to be admitted tothe Society of Jesus. Martinstayed in the province of Toledoand went to college in Murciaand then proceeded to Mexicoin 1599. In 1601, he returnedto the Philippines with a groupof Jesuit missionaries headed byGregorio Lopez. He hadcontracted tuberculosis while hewas in Europe, where Jesuithouses remained unheatedduring winter. Barely a monthafter he set foot on his nativeland, the talented Martin Sanchodied. He was only 25.Reference: The Jesuits in thePhilippines 1581-1768 by Horacio dela Costa, SJ. Cambridge, Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press; Laying theFoundations: KapampanganPioneers in the Philippine Church1592-2000 by Luciano P.R. Santiago.Angeles City: Holy Angel University Press.

Oil painting by Herminigildo Pineda

13

1584In 1583, the Spaniards forciblyrecruited Kapampangan mento work in the Cordil leramountains where gold hadbeen recently discovered.They labored for months, thusmissing the planting season.As a result, famine broke outin Pampanga the followingyear. Kapampangans soughtthe help of their kins in Borneoand together they drew up aplan to massacre the Spaniardsin the colony, which at thattime numbered only a fewhundred. The plot was

E a r l y K a p a m p a n g a n u p r i s i n g sbetrayed, and manyKapampangans were executed.

1585The next year, Kapampangansteamed up with Tagalogs inprotest against the encomiendasystem, under which nativesmust pay a tribute for what theirprivate land yielded. It was theencomendero’s abuses that riledthe natives. For example, headsof families who were unable topay the exact amount werepublicly flogged, sometimescrucified. If the men did notshow up to pay, theencomendero seized their wife

or children. ManyKapampangans had remainedunmarried to escape thisscourge; some even killed theirchildren in advance.

1645Soon after a devastatingearthquake in the town ofGapan, Nueva Ecija (formerlypart of Pampanga), aKapampangan leader led anuprising in which the nativesseized arms, sought the help ofZambals, and torched thechurches in nearby towns,exhorting the people tomassacre the Spaniards and

their priests. Admiral Rodrigode Mesa , a localencomendero, came with a fewothers to negotiate peace; theywere killed instead by therebels who fled to themountains afterwards. Acombined contingent ofSpanish soldiers and Macabebevolunteers quelled therebellion; the Augustiniansthen sent the respected andwel l- loved Fray Juan deAbarca, OSA who succeededin pacifying the natives.Reference: Literature of thePampangos by Rosalina Icban-Castro.Manila: University of the East Press.

The early Kapampangans must have taken their new religionquite seriously, because they made churches much larger thantheir own houses, and donated more lands to the priests thanwas necessary. Rich families considered it a great honor to beable to support a seminarian, and the greatest honor to have afamily member attain the noblest profession of all. They fundedcapellanias (chaplaincies) from the earnings of large tracts ofland. The very first Filipino to do this, in 1592, was Don DiegoGuinto of Bacolor, who donated a capellania to the Augustiniansserving Pampanga at the time. His example set off similarsacrifices among the Kapampangan principalia, as well as amongSpaniards in the Philippines (the first of whom was Don Gabrielde la Cruz, dean of the Manila Cathedral Chapter, who in 1601formed a capellania in favor of the Archdiocese of Manila). Inthe 1600s alone, the Augustinians received 134 capellanias, 70per cent of which came from Kapampangans.Reference: Laying the Foundations: KapampanganPioneers in the Philippine Church 1592-2000 by Luciano P.R. Santiago.Angeles City: Holy Angel University Press.

Colonial local governments were run by cabezas de barangay(barrio heads), who essentially were the datus of pre-Hispanicsociety; among themselves they elected the gobernadorcillo(known today as town mayor), and the gobernadorcillos of differenttowns elected one of themselves as alcalde mayor (known todayas the provincial governor). The Kapampangan family with themost number of elected gobernadorcillos was the Salonga familyof Macabebe, and their first gobernadorcillo was Juan Salonga,elected in 1617. Between 1615 and 1765 (150 years), the Salongasheld the office 17 different times, thus starting a tradition inMacabebe (and the rest of Pampanga) of family dynasties. TheSonsong family had 14 terms, the Zabalas 12, the Tolentinos 10,the Dueñas family 9 terms, the Dimasangcays 8, the Centenos 7,the Yabuts 6, the Balingits and the Punsalangs both 5 terms, andthe Darays, the Punus and the Sumangs 4 terms each. In otherwords, only 13 families held the annually elected office 105 times,or two-thirds of the entire total.Reference: The Pampangans by John A. Larkin. Los Angeles: University ofCalifornia Press.

8. Diego Guinto 9. Juan Salonga

Arayat church;pious nativelady; mestizo

cleric (Kasaysayan,Luther Parker

Collection)

Because he started the tradition of familydynasties in Kapampangan politics

Because his generosity spawned a wholegeneration of native clergy

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For being accepted into theprestigious and exclusive RoyalMonastery of Santa Clara in1632 despite the prohibitionagainst native applicants,Martha de San Bernardo, aladina (Spanish-speakingnative) from Pampanga, hadthe monastery’s foundress,Madre Doña Jeronima de laAsuncion, to thank for.

Madre Jeronima, froma noble family in Spain, hadarrived in Manila in 1621 to setup the monastery, the firstnunnery in the Philippines aswell as in Asia. Although nativewomen had a reputation forspirituality, as evidenced by thenumber of women mystics (likeClara Caliman and Isabel ofButuan, Maria Guinita ofPangasinan, Cecilia Tangol ofBataan, Melchora la Beata ofAbucay, etc.), the church andcivil authorities did not allowtheir admission into the newmonastery. Madre Jeronimatried to build a separatemonastery for them inPandacan but again, theofficials rejected the idea. Theturning point occurred whenthe foundress died in 1630 andthe nuns petit ioned theArchdiocese to init iate abeatification process. Over a

10. MARTHA DE SAN BERNARDOBecause she dared to join a monastery that banned native women;because she moved an entire congregation of Spanish nuns to rally her cause;because she became the first Filipino nun under the most extraordinarycircumstances; and because she blazed the trail for countless other brave andselfless Filipino women

At least 11 towns of Pampangahad existed long before theSpaniards arrived in 1571; theonly thing left for thecolonizers to do was renamethem or reorganize them intopueblos with the church at thecenter, instead of the pre-Spanish Period set-up wherehouses lined the rivers. Therest of the towns werebelatedly founded asSpaniards and Indios alikepushed the frontiers by cuttingdown forests, building new

roads and driving Aetas andZambals farther up themountains.

ANGELESDon Angel

Pantaleon de Miranda ,capitan of San Fernando,together with his wife Rosaliade Jesus, cleared thenorthernmost barrio of SanFernando in 1796 and named itKuliat, after a vine. The couplesettled there in 1811, introducedthe first muscovado sugar mill,erected the first distillery and

established the first primaryschool in 1822, and donated 35hectares of their own land to thechurch. The parish priest of SanFernando bitterly opposed DonAngel’s petition to set up a newparish; on May 12, 1812, thenew parish was created, and onDecember 8, 1829, the creationof the municipality of Angelesfollowed after Don Angel paidwith his own money theequivalent amount of taxes tobe collected from 160 settlers.He renamed the town Angeles

Pampanga towns and their Foundersafter the titular patron saintsof the town, Los SantosAngeles Custodios (HolyGuardian Angels). Its firstgobernadorcillo was Ciriacode Miranda, the founder’sson. The following year, 1830,Angeles held its first La Navalfiesta, to honor Our Lady of theRosary, whose intercession ledSpanish victory against Dutchinvaders in 1646 and whoseimage was the one brought toKuliat during the forestclearing. Don Angel Pantaleon

hundred witnesses, including 15Kapampangans, came forwardto testify in the investigation,which caused quite a stirthroughout the region. Thenuns were moved by the popularsupport for the cause of theirfoundress’ beatification that theymade an exception for the firstqualified native to apply: theKapampangan Martha de SanBernardo.

skinned figure at the monastery,Martha stood out for her virtues.However, the FranciscanProvincial, who supervised themonastery, disapproved of anIndio woman becoming aFranciscan nun. A Franciscanchronicler wrote: “She was soinfluential a woman and somoral and virtuous that all theconvent urgently requested thatthat she be conferred thenovitiate habit.” The nuns’petition fell on deaf ears.

Undaunted in theirconviction that Marthadeserved to be a member of thePoor Clares, the nuns conspiredto go around the officialprohibition by sending Marthaalong with her Spanish batch-mates to their new monasteryin the Portuguese colony ofMacao where the restrictions ofthe mother house in Manila didnot apply. Hearing this, theFranciscan Provincial allowedher to receive the holy habit—but only on a boat in the middleof the sea, where she wasbeyond the reach of Spanishlaws and prejudices and wherethe officials who allowed itcould always claim noknowledge or jurisdiction.

Sor Martha de SanBernardo stayed in Macao untilshe died. She had a chance toreturn to the Philippines withher fellow Poor Clares but shechose to stay behind to avoidrevival of interest in herexceptional case.

In 1684, MotherIgnacia del Espiritu Santofounded the first congregationfor native women. It hasendured to this day as theCongregation of the Religiousof the Virgin Mary (RVM).

Source: Laying the Foundations:Kapampangan Pioneers in thePhilippine Church 1592-2000 byLuciano P.R. Santiago. Angeles City:Holy Angel University Press.Pencil/watercolor painting by Joel Mallari

The only brown-

15

de Miranda died on June 21,1835 at age 70.

APALITMalangsic and his

cousins Taui andPampalong founded Sulipanand Capalangan, the oldestvillages in Apalit, but thefoundation of the town itself,which was named after a localtree (a narra variety living onthe banks of the river), iscredited to eitherCapitangan and his wifeLady Bayinda (whosenames appear in the Balagtas

later in the 1500s.ARAYATThe pre-Spanish Period

name of Arayat was Balayanning Pambuit, an ancientsettlement originally located inbarrio Palinglang (the presentpoblacion used to be a jungleinhabited by Aetas). The townwas renamed Dayat, whichmeans irrigated farmlands, whilethe mountain was originallycalled Bunduk Alaya (whichmeans eastern mountain).

BACOLORLady Monmon, wife

of Malangsik’s brother Dapat-

Magmanoc, founded the pre-Hispanic Bacolor, then calledBakulud from the wordmakabakulud, meaning uplandsurrounded by lowland(cababan or baba lubao inancient Kapampangan). In1576, a local landlord,Guillermo Manabat, with thehelp of the Spaniards, foundedthe pueblo and dedicated thechurch to his namesake, SanGuillermo Ermitaño, whose feastis celebrated on February 10(the other great feast of Bacoloris La Naval in November).

of the present-day church.BETISVitis (Betis),

according to Spanishchroniclers in the 1500s, wasa prosperous settlement withmore than 7000 inhabitantswhen the colonizers chancedupon it as they made their wayinto the interior of theprovince. They were mostlyMoros who put up a braveresistance before beingpacified. The name of thetown came from betis, a largetree that grew in the vicinityof the church’s present site. InWill) or to Agustin Mangaya Manabat was buried in the site

Like Sor Martha de San Bernardo before her, Madalena de la Concepcion was anoblewoman from Pampanga but unlike Sor Martha, she was admitted to the monasteryof the Poor Clares without a hitch. She received their habit on February 9, 1636 andprofessed the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience the following year. Sor Madalena’sbiographer wrote that as a nun, she “persevered for 49 years in such an exemplaryway and in the strict observance of the Rule; in all those years, no deficiency whatsoeverwas noted in her compliance with the policies of the convent, ever excelling withdiligence in the performance of the most humble and difficult tasks in the communityand always abhorring positions of honor. With this example of humility and regularobservance, she persevered until her death on April 5, 1685.”Reference: Laying the Foundations: Kapampangan Pioneers in the Philippine Church 1592-2000by Luciano P.R. Santiago. Angeles City: Holy Angel University Press.

Thirty-year-old Juan de Guerra, aKapampangan seaman from Betis, was inthe wrong place at the wrong time that dayin Macao in 1640, when the Portuguese citysent an all-layman delegation to Japan toimprove diplomatic relations. He was oneof two Filipinos among the 70 crewmenaccompanying four Macao diplomats; nofriar was allowed on the trip to show theanti-Christian Japanese officials that theyhad no covert mission to evangelize. (Japanhad recently outlawed Christianity in theempire, executing Japanese Christians aswell as foreigners who had come to re-introduce the religion. One of those killedthree years earlier was Lorenzo Ruiz ofManila.) As soon as the delegation reachedJapan, they were thrown in jail on chargesof conspiracy to propagate the outlawedreligion. After they refused to renouncethe Faith in exchange for freedom andrepatriation, they were marched off to the“red mountain” in Nagasaki for execution.Sixty-one, including Juan de Guerra, werebeheaded while 13 were sent back to Macaowith the warning: “If King Philip himself orindeed the Christian God, or the greatBuddha, violates our laws against alienreligions, he too will lose his head!” It isthe detailed eyewitness account of these 13survivors that served as basis for a 1698book on the martyrdom by Fray JosephSicardo of Madrid, and will serve asevidence in possible beatification andcanonization of the martyrs in the future.News of Juan de Guerra’s and his Filipinocompanion’s martyrdom was greeted withgreat ecclesiastical celebration in Manila.Reference: Laying the Foundations:Kapampangan Pioneers in the Philippine Church1592-2000 by Luciano P.R. Santiago. Angeles City:Holy Angel University Press.

12. Juan de Guerra

A 17th century depiction of the beheading of 61 martyrs in Nagasaki.One of the dark-skinned figures is the Kapampangan seaman Juan deGuerra. (A Embaixada Martir by Benjamin Videira Pires, SJ)

Because he was the secondFilipino martyr, afterSaint Lorenzo Ruiz

11. Madalena de la ConcepcionBecause she was a living saint during her time

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January 1904, Betis wasdowngraded to a merebarangay of Guagua.

CANDABAThe town’s pre-

Hispanic name was Candaue,an area near the presentcemetery, which theSpaniards later spel ledCandave, Candava and finallyCandaba. Its oldest barrio,Mandasic (now Mandasig),was founded by Mandik,wife of Malangsik. Anothervillage in Candaba was latercalled Little Castilla by thefirst Spanish settlers on

account of its antiquity andperhaps beauty.FLORIDABLANCA

Floridablanca wasfounded between January 5 and31,1879 by 39 settlers headedby surveyor Ramon Orozco;earlier, the barrios Caumpaui,Santul and Carmen weretransferred from the older townof Lubao to a site cal ledManggang Punglud, where achurch had been erected. Thetown was not named after aflower, but after Jose Moñino,Count of Floridablanca in Spain,a popular Spanish political figure

who is said to have visited theplace in the early 1800s.

GUAGUAAlthough ancient,

Guagua was not a prosperoussettlement like Betis, Bacolor,Lubao or Macabebe, probablybecause it was prone to frequentflooding. Its original name wasUaua, meaning the mouth of ariver. Although this Hindu-Malayan word was usedthroughout the country (e.g.,Wawa River in Agusan andBarrio Wawa in Batangas,Cavite, Mindoro and Bataan), itwas only in Pampanga where its

spel l ing was hispanized,probably to differentiate itfrom the Kapampangan wordfor saliva.

LUBAOOriginal ly Baba

Lubao, meaning lowland(opposite of bakulud, meaningupland), Lubao was aprosperous pre-Spanish periodsettlement that early Spanishchroniclers also called Baras(Sp. barras, sandbars). Eventoday, some Kapampangansstill refer to the town as Baba(just as they continue to referto Bacolor as Bakulud). The

Andres de la Cruz was only 10 when he leftthe country in 1668 with three fellowKapampangans to start a mission in theMarianas, then called the Ladrones, whichwas the farthest outpost of the diocese ofCebu. The group of 17 was headed byDiego Luis de San Vitores, and with themwas Pedro Calungsod (later the secondFilipino to be beatified), another youth who,like Andres, was chosen for his spiritual aswell as physical strength. Two years intothe mission, Andres de la Cruz was assignedwith nine other boys to the Island ofBuenavista de Tinian to restore peacebetween two warring tribes. One of thetribes resented their intervention, and in oneattack on the Christian camp, Andres hadno choice but to slay the chieftain. He andthe rest of the boys survived the incidentand lived on to continue their work asmissionaries in the Pacific island.Reference: Laying the Foundations:Kapampangan Pioneers in the Philippine Church1592-2000 by Luciano P.R. Santiago. Angeles City:Holy Angel University Press.

14. Andres de la CruzBecause, barely 12 years old, hewas tasked with the man-sizedjob of brokering peace betweensavage tribes

Dionisia Mitas Talangpaz de SantaMaria and her younger sister, CeciliaRossa Talangpaz de Jesus of Calumpit,Bulacan were half-Kapampangans. Theirpaternal grandmother, Doña JuanaMallari and maternal grandfather, DonAgustin Sonsong de Pamintuan (aleader in the Kapampangan Revolt of 1660)were from Macabebe. The Talangpazsisters gave up the good life to stay in ahumble nipa hut in Bilibid Viejo prayingcontinuously and doing penance andneedlework. After six years the AugustinianRecollect friars in the convent of the SanSebastian church invested them with thereligious habit and gave them a small housein the convent’s garden. Other nativewomen began applying to join theTalangpaz sisters and soon the house wasconverted into the Beaterio de SanSebastian de Calumpang. As the numberof applicants grew, the Recollect friars whoscreened them began to have doubts about

13. The Talangpaz Sisterst h equality oft h eapplicantsand theiro w nability tos u s t a i nt h ebeaterio.T h ebelea-g u e r e df r i a r sd e c i d e dnot onlyto stopt h escreeningbut torecall thes i s t e r s ’rel igioush a b i t s

and expel them from the convent garden.The Talangpaz sisters returned to their nipahut where they continued their spiritualduties. Prophetically they told theirconfessor: “It is clear that God and the MostHoly Virgin have deigned to test us andpurify our souls in the crucible of sorrows.But we are so determined in our endeavorthat we find more courage to suffer eachday. We are like mustard seeds which havebeen pressed and nearly crushed. Fromthese shall emerge a sapling which… shallgrow into a big tree under whose shade thebirds will build their nests and sing theircanticles to God.” Amazingly, the Recollectfriars had a sudden change of heart andnot only ordered the sisters back but alsobuilt a larger beaterio in the same spot inthe convent garden and assured them ofcontinuous support. Cecilia and DionisiaTalangpaz died in 1731 and 1732,respectively, but the beaterio endured,surviving the British Occupation (1752-64),

Because, against all odds, they started what wouldeventually become a worldwide congregation

the Revolution (1896-1898) and thePhilippine-American War (1899-1902), aswell as the earthquakes of 1863 and 1880and the Second World War (1941-1945).Today the beaterio is known as theCongregation of the Augustinian RecollectSisters, the oldest non-contemplativereligious community for women in theAugustinian Recollect Order throughout theworld. It is credited for the establishmentof the Colegio de Sta. Rita in Manila in 1907.In 1999, the cause for the Talangpaz sisters’beatification was formally started.Reference: Laying the Foundations:Kapampangan Pioneers in the Philippine Church1592-2000 by Luciano P.R. Santiago. Angeles City:Holy Angel University Press.

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first printing press in thecountry was set up in the townby the Augustinian friars.

MABALACATNamed after the

balacat tree, the first settlersin the town were Aetas. Itfunctioned as a mere barrio ofBamban until 1712, when thefirst mayor, an Aeta namedGarangan, was appointed bythe Spaniards. Mabalacat isthe only Pampanga town notevangelized by theAugustinian friars. Like thesouthern towns of Tarlac,Mabalacat was a Recollect

parish. In fact, the town’sfoundation is credited to the firstmissionary there, Fray Andresde San Fulgencio, OAR, afamous theologian and spiritualadviser to the saintly TalangpazSisters.

MACABEBEMacabebe and

Pampanga both meanriverbanks, although sometownspeople insist that the towngot its name from clams (cabibi).Its oldest barrio, Bebe, originallyBebay, was founded by Mandic,wife of Malangsik (since 1878,however, this barrio had been a

part of Masantol). Macabebewas already a thrivingcommunity long before theSpaniards came, probablyoccupying the entire coastalsection of the province, fromwhich came Tarik Soliman andthe early Kapampanganwarriors.

MAGALANGAn original settlement

named Magalang was locatedfarther north, in Macapsa; dueto its proximity to Cuayan andMaisac Rivers which frequentlyflooded it, the people transferredto San Bartolome, which turned

out to have worse floodingcaused by the Parua River(now Sacobia-Bamban River).Magalang’s principales,namely the Suing, Cortez,Pineda and Luciano families,decided to divide the town intotwo: some families movednorth of the river to a placedcalled Sto. Niño, which theyrenamed Concepcion; theother families remained in SanBartolome and retained thename Magalang. OnSeptember 22, 1858, floodstransformed Magalang into alake. The town was

15. Nicolas de FigueroaBecause he suffered agruesome death one dayahead of Blessed PedroCalungsod’s martyrdom

Nicolas de Figueroa of Bacolor was alsoone of the four Kapampangans in themission to the Ladrones Islands in 1668.Like Pedro Calungsod and Andres dela Cruz, he was a boyish catechist whowas eager to baptize the babies andchildren of the islanders. On April 1, 1672,while searching for a Mexican fellowmissionary who turned out to have beenmurdered, Nicolas and three companionswere ambushed by 20 ferocious islanders.Though outnumbered, Nicolas’ group putup a fight; Nicolas killed the gang’s leaderand chopped off his head to scare awaythe rest. Nicolas and his two survivingcompanions fled in separate directions;he ended up in a village where he waswelcomed and then suddenly seized byan islander, dragged to the cliff andthrown off the edge. Below otherislanders mercilessly attacked him withlances. The following morning, it wasSan Vitores’ and Calungsod’s turn to beexecuted. Later on the same day, one ofthe survivors in Nicolas’ group took refugein the same village and suffered the samefate as Nicolas’ while the last companionlived to tell their story to a tribunal whichconducted the first beatification inquiryin Guam in 1673. News of their deathsreached Manila on May 3, 1672; churchbells rang all over and congregations sangTe Deum to celebrate their martyrdom.

Reference: Laying the Foundations:Kapampangan Pioneers in the PhilippineChurch 1592-2000 by Luciano P.R. Santiago.Angeles City: Holy Angel University Press.

16. PHELIPPE SONSONGBecause he gave up more than what could beexpected of one man in one lifetime: he gave up acareer as a privileged Macabebe soldier; he gave uphis family to enter the religious life; he gave up alife of comfort to work as domestic helper andcarpenter for the Jesuits; he gave up his country towork in the missions in the Pacific; and finally hegave up his life for his faith

Augustin had earlier subdued a smalleruprising among Kapampangans in 1645 in

Gapan, Nueva Ecija (then part ofPampanga).

Phelippe was one of theMacabebe soldiers so

valued by theSpanish royal army

for their militaryskills. He hadfought side byside with theSpaniards inthe revolt ofthe Chinesein 1639.H o w e v e r ,when theKapampanganRevolt brokeout in 1660, he

sided with hiskin and turned

against theSpaniards. After

experiencing defeat,he became a devotee

to Our Lady of MountCarmel, wearing the

brown scapular around hisneck for the rest of his life. He thus starteda family tradition that was passed downthe generations, including the Talangpazsisters, who were Phelippe Sonsong’sdescendants.

Born May 1, 1611, Phelippe Sonsongbelonged to a family of politicians andsoldiers in Macabebe who servedin the Spanish colonialgovernment. His father,Don RamonSonsong, wasgobernador ofMacabebe twice,in 1630 and1632, and hisb r o t h e r ,A u g u s t i nSonsong, wasthe caveza debarangay ofC a p u t a t a n ,Macabebe in1633 and latercaptain of acompany ofM a c a b e b esoldiers in theroyal infantry,which guarded thecity of Manila (for hisloyalty he was conferredthe highest military title thata native officer could aspirefor, that of maestre de campo).Augustin’s son and Phelippe’s nephew,Augustin Pamintuan de Sonsong, wasFrancisco Maniago ’s emissary toPangasinan and Ilocos during theKapampangan revolt of 1660. The older

Sketch by Joel Mallari

18

transferred once again, thistime to its present site, farthersouth. San Bartolome, the oldMagalang site, came to beknown as Balen Melacuan(abandoned town) and is nowa mere barrio of Concepcion;Magalang’s present site is inTalimundoc or San Pedro,which is why the completename of the town is San Pedrode Magalang (although itspatron saint remains to be SanBartolome, whose feast day isAugust 24). The town wasformally establ ished onDecember 24, 1863 with 22-

year-old Pablo Luciano yDavid as first gobernadorcillo.Some scholars theorize that thefirst settlers of Magalang weremigrants from a vil lage inIndonesia called Magelang,which was also located at thefoot of a volcano that resembledMount Arayat. In Bergaño’sdictionary, magalang was anancient Kapampangan word forabundance.

MASANTOLThe town got its name

from the fruit tree, eitherbecause there was aproliferation of santol trees in

the area, or because the townwas where santol fruits wereheavi ly bartered(Kapampangans being fond ofsinigang dish). Masantol,originally a part of the ancientMacabebe town, was founded asa separate town and renamedSan Miguel on May 1, 1878,composed of the formerMacabebe barrios of Bebe,Bulakus, Kaingin and Nigi; itsproponents were ManuelFajardo, Gregorio Bautistaand Juan Lacap. For a while itcame to be known as San Miguel

reverted to the original name.MEXICOThe pre-Spanish

Period name of the town wasMasiku, meaning abundanceof water (the town had vastirrigated farmlands); otherscholars claim it got its namefrom chico fruits, or from thedescription makasiku,meaning river elbowing ortown elbowing neighboringtowns. Least likely is that thetown was named after Mexicoin Central America, althoughthe Spaniards resorted tospelling the town’s name thatMasantol, until popular usage

After being widowedin 1667 at age 56, Phelippe leftall his properties to his sonJeronimo (who later served asMacabebe gobernadorcillo foran unprecedented 10 terms)and entered the religious lifeamong the Jesuits, whom heserved as a domestic helperand carpenter despite his noblebackground. He was amongthe four Kapampangans whoaccompanied Diego SanVitores and PedroCalungsod in the mission toLadrones Islands.

Tragedy occurred onJuly 23, 1684 when hostileislanders attacked andattempted to behead him.Phelippe, then already 73 yearsold, sustained severe head andneck injuries, but survived. Hesuffered continuously from hisopen wounds until his death sixmonths later, on January 11,1685. He died while prayingon his knees. He was buriedstill wearing his now bloodiedscapular. A Spanish Jesuitwrote in 1686 that PhelippeSonsong’s “solid virtues werean example to his countrymenand who, being a noble amonghis own people, is now, webelieve, from his blameless life,a most notable citizen of therealm of Heaven.” AnotherJesuit from the mission wrote:“We have also learned of thedeath of the saintly Philippine,Felipe Sonson….”Reference: “Felipe Sonson: 17th CenturyFilipino Jesuit Missionary to Marianas”by Fr. John N. Schumacher, SJ inLandas IX. Quezon City: Ateneo deManila School of Theology; Laying theFoundations: KapampanganPioneers in the Philippine Church1592-2000 by Luciano P.R. Santiago.Angeles City: Holy Angel UniversityPress.

One of the ironies of the origins of the Filipino clergy as well as the Philippine beaterioswas the fact that these could be partly traced to a popular uprising. In October 1660, the Pampangossuccessfully took arms against Spanish exploitation in their prominent province. The revolt spreadlike wildfire to the Pangasinan and Ilocos regions. Although the conquistadors praised thePampangos as the “Castilians of the Indios,” they failed to compensate them for their multifariousservices such as supplying rice to the capital, cutting timber in the forests and building andmanning ships for the Mexican trade. The gallant Master-of-Camp Don Francisco Maniago andhis brother, Cristobal led the rank and file. Setting up a provisional government, they wereassisted by other principales such as Baluyot of Guagua, who served as the secretary, DonJuan Panlasigui and Don Augustin Pamintuan who was designated “ambassador” toPangasinan and Ilocos. Pamintuan’s uncle, Don Phelipe Sonsong was also apparently involvedthough not as a headman. 1

The Pangasinan rebels were incited in December 1660 by Don Andres Malong ofBinalatongan who was also a master-of-camp and minor encomendero. Malong’s mother, DoñaBeata de Sto. Domingo was evidently a Dominican tertiary as indicated by her name. Malong’s

forces reached as far north as the town of Bolinao then situated in theprovince of Zambales, where they burned down the parish church. In

January 1661, Don Pedro Almazan and his son also declared theIlocos province a royal realm under their sway. 2

The cause of the Pampangos weakened considerably whenthe Governor General Sabiniano Manrique de Lara personallysolicited the alliance of the most influential Pampango of histime, Don Juán Macapagal, great-grandson of Lakandulaand chief of the strategic town of Arayat. The governor nowpromoted him a Maestre de Campo like Maniago and Malong.Standing out among the governor’s troops was a dashingyoung Captain Don Simon de Fuentes who also servedas the notary. 3

Realizing the futility of the struggle at this point andto prevent further bloodshed, Maniago appealed foramnesty through the intercession of an Augustinian priest.However, the other Pampango leaders, notably Maniago’sbrother (Cristobal), Balúyot, Panlasigui and Pamintuanrejected the peace overtures and continued theresistance. The rebels elected Don Nicolás Manuit toreplace Maniago and chose Pamintúan as his deputy. In

Popular Rebellion and Religious Vocation(1660-1719) Or, how even the worst of times in Pampanga inspired the best in men and womenBy Dr. Luciano P.R. Santiago

Augustinian friar(100 Events that Shaped the Philippines)

19

way (x and s in Latin arephonetically the same). OnDecember 8, 1800, thedemarcation between Mexicoand San Fernando towns wasset; its proponents were nativeprincipales Joseph DiegoManalang and NicolasManuel Pimping.

MINALINThe town, formerly

located in Macabebe, wascalled Sta. Maria in honor ofthe wives of the town’s fourfounders, namely, Mendiola,Nucum, Lopez and Intal,who had negotiated a piece of

land from a datu. When it wastime for the Augustinianmissionaries to build a church inSta. Maria, the people of anothersettlement called Burol (hillyplace) argued that the church bebuilt in their place instead of thelow-lying Sta. Maria. In 1683,nature resolved the debatewhen a big flood inundated Sta.Maria and carried the logsintended for the construction ofthe church downstream, right onthe riverbanks in Burol. Theresidents interpreted it as aheavenly sign, built the churchon the spot and named the place

Minalis, meaning “moved to.”One of the succeedinggobernadorcil los, DiegoTolentino, misspelled it asMinalin and the error stuck.

PORACAndres Mañaquil

and other pioneer sett lers(Quiandan, Lundan andDumandan, nephew of PrinceBalagtas) founded the town onthe slopes of the Batiauanmountain. The Augustiniansarrived in 1594; they organizedthe Aetas of the variousrancherias; three years later, themission abandoned the place

due either to lack of priests orto fear of the Zambalheadhunters. In succeedingyears, it was administeredfrom the larger parish ofBacolor and later, from Lubao.On September 16, 1867, dueto drought-like conditions onthe hills, the town transferredto its present site calledCapatagan (plain), near a rivercalled Porag, from which thetown borrowed its name. Theriver, on the other hand, gotits name from kurag or purag,a rattan plant growing nearthe river.

a few months, the rebellion was completely crushed by superior arms. 133 of its leaders, including Maniago, who had been promisedamnesty, were rounded up and executed in a brutal manner.4 The spectacular executions did not go unprotested by the conscience of the Spanish community: Licenciado Don ManuelSuárez de Oliveira, the senior magistrate of the Royal Audiencia. He published a treatise condemning the retributive judgment of themilitary court, considering the causes of the rebellion. But his was a lone voice in the Spanish colonial wilderness. In an earliercontroversy in 1636, his house and other properties were confiscated when he took the side of Governor Corcuera who lost in hisjurisdictional clash with Archbishop Guerrero. 5

Despite his fierce participation in the uprising, Pamintúan, together with his uncle, Don Phelipe Sonsong, was remarkablyspared in the holocaust perhaps because of his personal merits and their ancestors’ solid military service. The two survivors, as well asthe offspring of the tragic leaders of the rebellion refused to let their excruciating experience break their spirits. They realized that theCatholic Faith, for all the shortcomings of its ministers and representatives, had nevertheless taken firm root in their land. In fact, atcrucial points of the unrest, the ambivalent rebels even implored the friars to hear their confessions and celebrate masses for theirintentions. Henceforth, the descendants of their chiefs resolved to sublimate their energy in education, and when the time came, in thespecial service of God.6 Thus, the first Indio priest ordained by Archbishop Camacho when he launched the Filipino clergy (1698) was Bachiller DonFrancisco Balúyot of Guagua. At least three others with the surnames Maniago, Balúyot-Panlasigui and another Balúyot, also belongedto the first group of native priests. The Baluyots loomed as the first Filipino priestly clan. The sequestered house of the fearlessmagistrate Suárez de Oliveira was transformed into the first native seminary, that of San Clemente (1705), precursor of the presentSan Carlos Seminary. The survivor Sonsong joined the Jesuit mission to the Marianas in 1668 where he suffered martyrdom in 1685.Even Governor Manrique de Lara ended his days as a monk in a monastery in Madrid. 7

The rebellion in Pangasinan interrupted but did not discourage the efforts of the pastor of Bolinao, Fray Juan de la Madre deDios Blancas, OAR, in organizing the first Philippine beaterio, which he had just begun a year earlier (1659). The widow and sister of

Captain Simón de Fuentes became the foundresses of the Beaterio de Santa Catalina de Sena (1696). The Talangpazsisters, granddaughters of Pamintúan and great-grandnieces of Sonsong, established the

Beaterio de San Sebastián de Calumpang (1719). 8

9 Casimiro Diaz, OSA. Conquistas de las Islas Filipinas (1616-94). (Valladolid: Graviria, 1890) pp. 568-590 & inBR 38: 139-215; AGI. “Carta del Gob. Sabiniano Manrique de Lara al Rey.” Madrid, 20 Jullio

1661. Fil. 9 doc. 77, pp. 20- 35v; Luciano PR Santiago. The Hidden Light. The FirstFilipino Priests. (QC: New Day, 1987) pp. 27-30; Stars of Peace. The Talangpaz

Sisters. (Manila: ARS, 2001) pp. 50-52.10 Ibid.11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.13 Ibid.; BR 26: 73-86; 36: 134-5; 38: 56, 130,

160 & 210-11; 45: 172, 202 & 203; 47: 28,73 & 213.14 Santiago. Hidden Light & Stars ofPeace.15 Ibid.; Schumacher. “Early FilipinoJesuits” & “Felipe Sonson;” AGI.“Carta del Gob. Manrique de Lara.”16 Pedro de San Francisco, OAR.Historia General. (Zaragoza, 1756)pp. 481-2; Francisco Sadaba, OAR.Catalogo de los Religiosos AgustinosRecoletos. (Madrid: Asi lo deHuerfanos del Corazon de Jesus,1906). pp. 97-98; Santiago. HiddenLight & Stars of Peace.

.

Jesuitfriar

Franciscan friar

Dominicanfriar

20

AGO

SAN FERNANDOThe town was carved

out of the much older townsof Mexico and Bacolor. It wasfounded in 1754 and namedafter its patron saint, theSpanish king Fernando III,Rey (King) de Castilla y Leon.

SAN LUISOriginal ly named

Cabagsak (from bagsakankabag, plenty of fruit bats), itwas renamed San NicolasCabagsac in honor of its firstparish priest, Fray Nicolas deOrduño, OSA. Much later itwas renamed San Luis, after a

certain Doña Luisa, wife of thetown’s legal counsel whosuccessfully defended it againsta land claim by the neighboringtown of Pinpin (Sta. Ana) in1761.

SAN SIMONThe town was founded

by Mariano del Pilar de losReyes either in 1766 or 1771;thus, the town’s original namewas Virgen del Pilar, after OurLady of the Pillar, whose feastday is October 12. After theBritish Occupation in 1762-64,during which the SpanishGovernor General Simon de

Anda transferred the capital ofthe Phi lippines to Bacolor,Pampanga, the town wasrenamed in his honor.

SANTA ANAThe name of this

ancient settlement was Pinpin,most likely after an importantperson during the time ofMalangsik. It was renamed Sta.Ana by the Augustinians, inhonor of the mother of theBlessed Virgin.

SANTA RITAThe town’s original

name was Santa Rita de Lele,because it was located on the

side of the greater town ofBacolor. It is likely that partsof the town had been carvedout of Porac.

SANTO TOMASThe old name of Sto.

Tomas was Bal iuag;Augustinians renamed it inhonor of the Apostle. Thetown came to be known asSto. Tomas Baliuag, then Sto.Tomas Minalin (its matrix until1792), then Sto. Tomas de SanFernando (which absorbed thetown from 1905 to 1951).

SASMUANThe town was

By October, 1660, the loyal Kapampangans had hadenough. The wood-cutters burned their huts in the forests ofMalasinglo and Bocoboco, swearing “by the light of the fierce flames,their intention” to fight for freedom and justice. They were led byDon Francisco Maniago of Mexico, Pampanga, formerly a master-of-camp in the Spanish army. Playing deaf to pleas by the wood-cutters’ Dominican chaplain, Fray Pedro Camacho, the mutineerspitched their tents in Bacolor, barricaded the rivers to halt commercebetween Manila and Pampanga, and sent word to their compatriotsin Pangasinan and Ilocos to urge them to join their fight. Maniagoappointed Don Augustin Pamintuan of Macabebe as his emissaryto these provinces.

It was the revolt that sent shock waves across the colony,the one that the Spaniards had feared the most because it was ledby the same Kapampangans they had trained in combat, andbecause, with the participation of Pangasinan and Ilocos, itthreatened to become a nationwide conflagration. For the first

In the early days of colonization, when the Spaniardswere severely undermanned and had no one to maintain orderand collect taxes, the once-belligerent Kapampangans ironicallybecame the colonizers’ new best friends. This was because thenative chieftains and the Spaniards struck a convenient alliancein which the chieftains retained their positions in the village inexchange for performing the task of collecting taxes for theSpaniards. These local leaders and landowners eventually evolvedinto the principalia, the privileged ones who were exempted fromtaxes, enjoyed the title of Don and controlled local governmentpositions that were more hereditary than elective. The peasants,meanwhile, were only too willing to be sent by their datus toSpanish shipyards, armies and galleons in exchange for land totill. To them, serving Spaniards was synonymous to serving theirlocal chieftains. For a while the arrangement worked.

But the colonial government was never in a financialposition to pay a just wage to laborers it drafted or a just pricefor the goods it bought. Gov. Gen. Hurtado de Corcuera (1635-44) introduced the system of vandala, or compulsory sale of nativeproducts, particularly rice, to the Spanish government , whichpaid in promissory notes that were never redeemed. By 1660the government had owed Pampanga farmers the then huge sumof P200,000.00, since most of the rice consumed in Manila camefrom this province. Worse, Kapampangan men were repeatedlyhauled off to distant mountains and forced to cut timber for theshipyards in Cavite; the conscription sometimes lasted eightstraight months, leaving the farmlands in Pampanga untilled.

Because he led the KapampanganRevolt of 1660 which nearly sparkedthe Philippine Revolution 200 yearsahead of schedule; because he wasprobably the first Filipino to have aconcept of nation; because when therebellion withered under thebrilliance of Governor Manrique deLara’s genius, he had enough sensenot to bring down the whole provincewith himBy Robby Tantingco

Acrylic painting by Joel Mallari

17. FRANCISCO MANIAGO

21

formerly called Sasmoan (fromsasmo, to assemble) becauseit was where Kapampangansoldiers assembled prior toattacking Chinese insurgents inupstream Guagua. The namesomehow was mispronouncedSesmoan and when theSpaniards wrote it down, theymisspelled it as Sexmoan (xand s in Latin are phoneticallythe same) and the namestuck—that is, until 1987, whenRep. Emy Lingad correctedthe colonial faux pas.

Reference: The Pampangans byJohn A. Larkin. Los Angeles: University

of California Press; A Brief Historyof the Town of Angeles by MarianoA. Henson. San Fernando: IngKatiwala Press.

time, a local revolt was on the verge of becoming a multi-region,even a national, revolution.

But the rebels were not prepared for someone likeGovernor Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara, who turned outto be a master of cunning and bluff.

The alcalde mayor (provincial chief) of Pampanga, DonJuan Gomez de Payva, had informed the Governor of theuprising on the same night of the mutiny. Don Sabiniano firstasked Fray Camacho and the other friars in Sexmoan and Bauato pacify the rebels. Next he decided to go into enemy territory,despite being undermanned. Accompanied by 11 boats and 300men, three generals, two admirals and four pieces of artillery, theGovernor sailed from Manila Bay into Pampanga River, pullingout the barricades along the way but cautioning his soldiers againstfiring at the enemies who were watching them from the riverbanks.

His arrival in Macabebe caught the natives by surprise;they feigned loyalty even as they hid their weapons. Sensingthis, Don Sabiniano played along. He stayed in the house oflocal leader Don Francisco Salonga although the convent wasoffered to him; he patronizingly ordered all women out of sightso that his soldiers would behave. His stay had created anawkward delay in the plans of the Macabebe natives, who hadbeen preparing to leave and join the mutineers.

The presence of the Spanish governor and his army insideMacabebe was freaking out the townspeople, who were caughtbetween their loyalty to the Kapampangan rebels and their duty totheir important guests, and whose homecourt advantage had beenneutralized by the Spaniards’ show of force. The rebels in theneighboring towns were also puzzled by the presence of the Spanishfleet. In Apalit, for example, mutiny leaders hurriedly retrievedthe letters Augustin Pamintuan was supposed to deliver toPangasinan and Ilocos, fearing interception or worse, defection.“All were afraid at the so close proximity of the governor,” wroteFray Casimiro Diaz, OSA, “imagining that they already had uponthem the entire Spanish power.”

Don Sabiniano had another ace up his sleeve: Don JuanMacapagal, a chieftain in the strategic town of Arayat, possiblepassageway for augmentation troops from Pangasinan. TheGovernor invited Macapagal to Macabebe, where he promisedrewards, including transferring his family to a safe haven in Manila,if he pledged loyalty to Spain. Don Sabiniano also made him master-of-camp of pro-government Kapampangans, and ordered theconstruction of a fort in Arayat.

Hearing this, Maniago sent someone to convinceMacapagal to change his mind; Macapagal instead had the emissarykilled. This, and the transfer of Macapagal’s family to Manila, wherethey were feted and treated like heroes and put under the custody

of the alcalde-mayor of Tondo no less, began to demoralize therebels.

It was obvious that while Francisco Maniago had thenumbers, General Sabiniano Manrique de Lara had the brains. Allthe friars in Pampanga took his cue and began convincing theirparishioners in earnest to give up the fight.

Maniago saw the handwriting on the wall when his ownofficers left their posts one by one to save their skin. He dispatchedFray Andres de Salazar with a letter to Don Sabiniano, offering tolay down their arms if the government paid its debts. The Governor,aware that the royal treasury was almost empty, offered to payP14,000 instead of the P200,000 the government owed theKapampangans. He sent his secretary and two generals to establishpeace and publish the general amnesty. When the writ of amnestywas drawn up, a Kapampangan amanuensis (transcriber), a certainBaluyot of Guagua, repeated the words to them in the vernacularbut when he got to the part that read “In the name of his Majesty,I grant pardon, for the sake of avoiding all bloodshed,” he alteredit to mean the exact opposite, catching the Spaniards by surprise.

Early Kapampangans were made to cut trees, work inshipyards...

... and build churches (100 Events That Shaped the Philippines)

22

Then he slipped out of the conference roomand repeated the false statement to thecrowd, and all hell broke loose. The angrymutineers stormed the conference hall,detained the Spanish officials and chose a newleader, Don Nicolas Manuit, whosummoned everyone to prepare for battle.The friars tried to tell everyone that a mistakehad been made, and surprisingly, theKapampangans did calm down, but now it wasDon Sabiniano who had had enough; heordered his troops to attack.

Afraid of the Governor’s wrath, therebels released his secretary and sent himback to Don Sabiniano with peace offerings.Even the friars shuttled back and forth to mediate, promising towork for the rebels’ amnesty and to convince the King to rewardthe governor. Don Sabiniano demanded that his two generals bereleased with their weapons, furnishings and clothing intact,“without a thread missing,” and warning that should any of thesearticles be missing, only an exchange of fire would settle theissue. (At this point the question must be raised on whether theKapampangan amanuensis had purposely altered theamnesty order to sabotage the negotiations or hadsincerely misread it, or Don Sabiniano, ever cunning,had planted an altered statement to sabotage thepeace that he never really was interested in, as hissubsequent actions hint at.)

The rebels promptly released the twogenerals; emboldened, Don Sabiniano ordered theprovincial alcalde-mayor to surrender the mutinyleaders to him the next day. Fray Diaz wrote: “Those who werepresent looked at one another in surprise, wondering that thegovernor should not know the condition in which the chiefs stillwere, united and armed in so great a number that their submissionwas not to be expected at a mere summons.”

But at one hour past midnight, the rebel chiefs did arrive,together with their people, all on 80 boats, in Macabebe. TheGovernor, unsure why they had come at such an hour and in sobig a number, postponed meeting with them until daybreak. Once

again, the rebels and Don Sabiniano werecaught in a mutual guessing game, and onceagain, the Governor outwitted them. First helet all of them enter his presence, and orderedhis soldiers to disarm even as he allowed therebels to bring in their weapons. Having wontheir confidence, he next asked the leaders tomake their followers go away. Fray Diaz wrotethat “the multitude gladly took theirdeparture.”

Alone with the rebel leaders, theGovernor began scolding them. He could notpay them the amount they were asking for,he said, because “in war all the wealth thatone had intended to increase is destroyed.Who has ever grown rich through war? And

who has not lost in war that which in peace he held secure? (Thewealth) vanishes through the very means by which it is secured.You make an arrogant demand upon the king, when you know thathe cannot pay you. Ignorance may serve other provinces as anexcuse, but not you, whom our continual intercourse with you hasrendered more intelligent! Let me remind you of the way in whichyou lived; your huts were the tall trees, like bird’s nests!” He wenton and on, showing them computations of government

expenditures, asking them to pity underpaidSpanish soldiers, pity the King of Spain himself“who taxes himself in enormous sums for yoursafety and defense alone,” and finally threateningthem with “I would grieve much if we came toblows, since if fighting began I could not restrainthe soldiers from compelling me, against mywishes, to behold your entire ruin. The ashes ofyour villages must be mingled with those of yourbodies.” Still, he ended his performance with “I

have forgiven you for what is past; and beware that you do notrepeat your faithless ingratitude.”

The hapless natives took the barrage without a word, and“the affairs of the province were immediately put in order.”Kapampangans agreed to continue cutting timber for thegovernment but to be allowed to return to the province to attendto their domestic activities. Don Sabiniano left Macabebe andreturned to Manila with Francisco Maniago, under the pretext thathe would give him a job in the office of the master-of-camp ofKapampangan soldiers in the Spanish army.

Only a few days later, Don Andres Malong ofBinalatongan (now San Carlos City, Pangasinan), partly inspired byFrancisco Maniago’s revolt and partly fueled by his ambition to beking of Pangasinan, started his own rebellion. He sent thousandsof troops to invade Pampanga, Cagayan and Ilocos, leaving only afew behind to defend him. In the end, the Spaniards had hadenough of rebellions and they executed all the leaders, includingFrancisco Maniago, who was shot in his hometown Mexico, togetherwith brother Cristobal Maniago, while the rest of Kapampanganleaders, including the amanuensis, Baluyot of Guagua, were hanged.Another wave of discontent swept the province as a result, but theAugustinian friars, as usual, managed to calm down the hotheads.Reference: Blair and Robertson Vol. XXXVIII; The Aquinos of Tarlac by NickJoaquin. Manila: Cacho Hermanos; The Literature of the Pampangos by RosalinaIcban-Castro. Manila: University of the East Press.

It was the revolt that theSpaniards had feared themost because it was led bythe same Kapampangansthey had trained in combatand because, withPangasinan and Ilocosgetting involved, it had thepotential of becoming anationwide conflagration

“You make anarrogant demand onthe King when youknow that he cannotpay you!”

Fort Santiago

23

One of the most publicized happenings in the history of Pampanga during the seventeenth century is the timber cutters’ revolt, led by DonFrancisco Maniago (or Mañago). The story of this event, as told in Spanish chronicles, stresses how this rebellion was suppressed by a show ofcolonial armed force and through negotiations between the rebels and the clever Governor General Sabiniano Manrique de Lara (1653-63), assistedby friars from some Pampanga parishes. What the record does not emphasize is the strategic role played by several Pampangos in preventingviolence and settling the local grievances that produced the heightened tensions in the first place.1

This rebellion, or more likely mutiny or strike, occurred in late 1660 and early 1661 and centered on a protest against the excessive demandsof Spanish authorities. The cash-strapped government had collected rice to feed its garrisons, for which it had not paid the Pampangos, and it hadoverworked them felling trees to build galleons for the Manila – Acapulco run. The Capampangan, who had been undertaking corvée labor in theforests for eight strenuous months, burned down their huts and refused to do any further work. This strike alarmed the Spanish exceedingly.

What made the mutiny so perilous in the minds of the Spaniards was the reputation for valor and skill of the Pampangos who had beentrained and employed as mercenaries by the colonial government. Furthermore, the Spaniards feared that the superior reputation of the people ofPampanga might encourage more distant ethnic groups, for example those in Pangasinan and Ilocos, to go out in rebellion as well. As Casimiro Diazput it, the Pampangos were “the most warlike and prominent people [of the Philippines], and near to Manila.”2 If the rebellion spread widely enough,it might threaten colonial rule in the archipelago. The fact that a good share of the colonial army was then engaged in protecting Ternate from the Dutchadded to the danger. Moreover, the treasury was bare, due to the failure of the silver payment from Mexico to arrive in time. Thus, Governor Manriquede Lara had every reason to settle peacefully this protest in Pampanga.

The governor marshaled two to three hundred troops and transported them and four cannons in eleven boats to Macabebe where theycamped out while he began negotiations. Interestingly, Manrique de Lara took up residence in the home of Don Francisco Salonga rather than that ofthe local parish priest, because the former residence was “the best in the village.”3 Even then the Capampangan were providing their famoushospitality to outsiders! The presence of the governor and his troops started to reduce some of the tension and discouraged violence among the menof Macabebe, known for their martial skills.

Eventually, after one botched attempt at negotiations almost led to conflict, the issues between the government and the aggrievedCapampangan were resolved. A show of force by both sides and the persuasion of the local Augustinian Friars facilitated the settlement. The onefailed effort was attributed to an error in translation on the part of a Capampangan scribe and it was soon cleared up. The most cited account of theaffair by Casimiro Diaz accentuates the machinations of Manrique de Lara and the Spanish clergy in quelling what they considered to be a dangerousrevolt. Finally peaceful relations were reestablished, and, by 1662, loyal troops from Pampanga played a leading role in the suppression of a putativeuprising by the Philippine Chinese.4

There is enough internal evidence in the Diaz account, however, to suggest that the Capampangan had a more prominent role in theoutcome of the mutiny. To begin with, there was Francisco Maniago. Why was a maestro de campo with the title “Don” leading a group of polistawoodcutters? Perhaps he owned a share of the Spanish debt for the rice shipped to Manila, in which case the settlement that included an initialpayment of P14,000 against a whole debt of P200,000 was to his advantage. In any event, Maniago, although a leader of the strike, was awarded amilitary command in Manila for his service in the resolution in the dispute.

Don Juan Macapagal, an old soldier and village head from Arayat, assumed a more central part in restoring order. Descended from theLacandulas, Macapagal employed his considerable prestige and reputation to aid the Spaniards. His military career had begun in the late 1630s, andin January, 1661 Manrique de Lara made him maestro de campo of all Capampangan troops.5 According to Diaz, the honor conferred upon Macapagaldiscouraged the leaders of the mutiny; furthermore, Don Juan rejected the overtures of the strikers, killing their envoy. But he performed his mostimportant service by returning to strategically located Arayat. His presence there kept the strikers from establishing contact or an alliance with rebelsin volatile Pangasinan and Ilocos. Envoys from the mutineers in southern Pampanga would have had to follow the Pampanga River passing throughthis town to reach their northern counterparts. Macapagal blocked their way; thus, he prevented a wider conflict from erupting and discouragedviolence in lower Pampanga. As a reward for his contributions, he received higher rank and trusted military assignments in the colonial service.Eventually, he became one of the rare native Filipinos awarded an encomienda.6

Other Capampangan leaders likely acted to prevent the uprising from turning bloody, but they remain anonymous. Only three other namesare mentioned in Diaz’s rendition of the story, although little information is available about them or their role. Perhaps Don Francisco Salonga assistedin cooling tensions while serving as Manrique de Lara’s host in Macabebe. Don Nicholás Mañago took over leadership of the mutineers in the middleof the crisis, but his contributions to its resolution went unrecorded. Finally, Diaz identifies Don Agustín Pamintuan from Apalit as a rebel leader, butoffers nothing more about him. One can only speculate as to their motivation. Did any of these figures have an interest in the government debt to theCapampangan? Were they simply idealists?

Collectively, what role did the corvée lumberjacks play in reaching a final settlement? They did gain some relief from their work obligationsand may have asserted their rights in some unrecorded way. Perhaps further research in the archives would reveal more about their participation.

The timber cutters’ mutiny concerned specific grievances, and its resolution dealt with those issues. The strikers received time off fromcutting logs to take care of their agricultural and domestic needs, a down payment on the rice debt and a full pardon. Issues were handled peaceablyfor the most part, and both the Spaniards and the Capampangan saved face. The Pampangan leaders acted effectively and earned suitable rewardsfor their efforts in resolving the crisis. While this revolt did not signify the first blow in the struggle for independence, the people of Pampanga assertedtheir rights and received some satisfaction from their Spanish overlords. Meanwhile, the Spanish government in the Philippines had weathered acrisis when it was most vulnerable.

The Mutiny of 1660-61 in PampangaBy John A. Larkin

1 For an early account of this event see Casimiro Diaz, O.S.A, Conquistas de las Islas Filipinas[1720]. Valladolid, 1890. Also in Blair and Robertson [B&R], XXXVIII, pp. 139-161. Seealso: Ana Maria Prieto Lucena, Filipinas durante el gobierno de Manrique de Lara, 1653-1663, Sevilla, 1984, pp. 57-73.2 Ibid., p. 141.3 Ibid., p. 146.4 H. de la Costa, S.J. The Jesuits in the Philippines, 1581-1768. Cambridge, MA, 1967, p. 484.5 “Relación de servicios de Juan de Macapagal,”Manila, May 23, 1665, Archivo General de Indias, Indiferente 121.6 Nicholas P. Cushner, Spain in the Philippines: From Conquest to Revolution. Quezon City and Rutland, Vt., 1971, p. 107.

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No other Filipino had beengiven the singular honor ofleading the biggest Spanisharmy in the Philippines in FortSantiago for a day; it was theexclusive feat of FranciscoLaksamana when Governor-General SabinianoManrique de Lara appointedhim maestre-de-campo of thecapital’s honor guards in Juneof 1662. There is not muchbiographical data on thisvaliant Kapampangan soldierexcept that he was, accordingto a Jesuit account, a directdescendant of RajahLakandula.

He was given thisrare tribute after saving thewhole capital of Manila fromthe Chinese uprising earlierthat year. Said uprising wastriggered by the over-reactionof the Chinese (known then asSangleys) to rumors that theywould be massacred,prompting many of them toflee the Philippines in sampansand go to China and Formosa(Taiwan). Their anxiety wasfurther fanned by threatscoming from Kue-sing Because he organized 4000

Kapampangan volunteer soldiers to helpSpain crush the Chinese revolt;because he was the only Filipino whohad ever won the Spaniards’ confidenceso completely that they entrusted to himthe capital city’s royal army for a day—the first and only time it happened incolonial historyBy Lino L. Dizon

Spanish government’s appealfor support, FranciscoLaksamana and his 4,000-strong Kapampanganvolunteers’ brigade came tothe scene. On June 6, 1662,he relentlessly pounded onthe insurgents in theirencampment and, after twosuccessive assaults, capturedit and massacred the Chinese.Laksamana and his mentriumphantly returned toManila the next morningwithout any prisoner.

Thus the Governor-General entrusted to thisKapampangan Spain’s royalarmy at Fort Santiago for 24hours. It was the highestmilitary honor accorded to aFilipino throughout the 300-year Spanish rule, and thefirst and only time ithappened in the country’scolonial history. Although itwas significant more for itsceremonial value thananything else, at least for onenight the Spaniards in thePhilippines had a good night’ssleep.

(Koxinga), the Chineseconqueror of Formosa. With aletter brought personally byFray Victorio Ricci, aDominican who was investedwith the rank of a mandarin byKoxinga himself, the Chineseleader demanded that thePhilippines send him slaves sincethe colony was a tributary of hisempire. Filipinos and Spaniardsalike considered the demandoutrageous, so defensemeasures were taken in the city.Officials proposed a decree toexpel the local Chineseresidents.

The Chinesepreempted this proposal by

burning the arrabales of SantaCruz, Binondo and Quiapo onMay 25, 1662, killing manyFi l ipinos and Spaniards,including a Dominican priest,Fray Jose de Madrid, who wasthen escorting Fr. Ricci at theParian. But according to anothersource, what actually ignited theincident was the Spanishsentries firing upon a group ofunarmed Chinese, mistakingthem for insurgents. After theiruprising, the Chinese fled to themountains of Taytay andAntipolo, where they establishedtheir camp fortified with heavystones and stakes.

Responding to the

Acrylic painting by Joel Mallari

18. FRANCISCO LAKSAMANA

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At the start of the300-year Spanishregime in thePhilippines, theKing of Spaindivided thecolony amongthe missionaryreligious orders,each given aterritory toe v a n g e l i z e .Pampanga, forexample, wasassigned to theAugus t i n i ans .Because of theirsheer number,the religiousc l e r g y( c o l l e c t i v e l yknown as thefriars) ran thep a r i s h e sthroughout thea r c h i p e l a g o ,although theCouncil of Trenthad dictated thatparishes beadministered bys e c u l a r( d i o c e s a n )clergy, and thatthey in turn be

19.MIGUELJERONIMODE MORALES

20.FRANCISCOBALUYOT

Because they dared to reach the most unreachable star atthat time—the priesthood; because they overcameformidable obstacles imposed by race, station in life andhistorical circumstances; because as the first Filipinopriests, their pioneering spirit was a rebellion against theinferior status to which colonialism had consigned them

supervised by their respectivediocesan bishops. Pampanga,an Augustinian territory, fellunder the Archdiocese ofManila.

It was an explosivesituation. The friarsthreatened to resign en masseif the bishop insisted on whathe considered his right andduty to visit every year tocheck parish records. (In fact,the Jesuits and theAugustinians were removedfrom their parishes in 1768 and1771, respectively, and thecontroversial Archbishop ofManila, Basilio Sancho deSantas Justa y Rufinahastily ordained Indios toreplace the friars in theabandoned parishes.) Whilethere was pressure onseminaries to accept nativestudents, just in case the friarsmade good their threat, theordination of the first Filipinopriest took longer thannecessary because ofpassionate opposition.

Archbishop FelipePardo in 1677 wrote the Kingthat Filipinos had little inclinationfor theological studies, that eventhe adults behaved like childrenbecause of “evil customs, theirvices… sloth, effeminacy, levityof disposition.” Fray Gaspar deSan Agustin, OSA in 1720 alsoobjected to the ordination ofFilipinos: “Their pride will beaggravated with their elevationto so sublime a state; theiravarice with the increasedopportunity of preying onothers; their sloth with theirhaving to work no longer for aliving; and their vanity with theadulation that they wil lnecessarily seek… How muchbetter it is to be a reverendfather than to be a yeoman or asexton! What differencebetween paying tribute andbeing paid a stipend! Betweenbeing drafted to saw logs andbeing waited on hand and foot!Between rowing a galley andriding in one!...Imagine the airswith which such a one will

extend his hand to be kissed!…What reverence will indiosthemselves have for such apriest, when they see that he isof their color and race?”

In 1750, Juan JoseDelgado, SJ refuted thisdamaging description of Filipinoclergy, calling it “injurious tothese illustrious prelates towhom we owe so much respectand reverence.” He noted thatSpanish friars often humiliatedtheir Filipino assistant priests byordering them to say Mass andperform other duties in front ofthem, and chastising themwhen they committed mistakes.He further argued that manySpaniards, too, sought thepriesthood as a livelihood, andthat the first converts of theApostles were also natives oftheir own regions. Indios,already used to parish work,would do well as secular priests,whose duties were mostlyparish-based.

Meanwhile, colleges inManila, founded primarily for

“Spaniards ofgood birth,” werea l r e a d ya c c e p t i n gapplicants ofmixed parentageas early as 1599,and pure-blooded Filipinosbegan to beadmitted in theearly 1660s,although only asdomestics, i.e.,they performedduties inside theboarding schoolas Mass servers,butlers, waitersand porterswhile theystudied withtheir Spanishc l a s s m a t e s .They were notpaid; in fact, itwas they whopaid to be able todo these things.Some of themeven broughtalong theirslaves, whoserved themwhen they

returned to their quarters afterserving their Spanish masters!

More than otherIndios in the colony,Kapampangans were beingaccepted in schools in Manilaas a result of privileges won byKapampangan soldiers andchieftains who had helped theSpaniards ward off invadersand put down revolts. Richfamilies in Pampanga alsofounded capel lanias—agricultural or residential landswhose income was donated forthe support of a seminarian ora priest.

Miguel Jeronimode Morales was the firstFilipino to be ordained a priest.Born of noble parentage inBacolor on September 29,1620, feast day of St. Michaeland eve of the feast day ofSaint Jerome (hence, thename). He entered Colegio deSan Juan de Letran in 1632. In1654, the Archbishop of Manila,Miguel de Poblete (a Mexican),ordained him and a Chinese

Acrylic paintings by Joel Mallari, Bryan Tayag,Rickson Gueco, Christopher John Vilan

26

companion, Gregorio Lo(who later became the firstChinese bishop). Records onlyshow that he was assigned tothe diocese of Nueva Caceresas pastor of Payo,Catanduanes. (Other historians refute thisclaim, saying that no Indio wasordained prior to 1698.)Meanwhile, the newArchbishop of Manila, DiegoCamacho y Avila turned outto be a crusader for the long-overdue ordination of Filipinosecular clergy. On December20, 1698, he ordained the firstof what would turn out to be awave of new Filipino priests,Francisco Baluyot ofGuagua, who was singled outfrom among his batch ofseminarians for his academicperformance and spirituality.

Padre Baluyot’s firstassignment was the Diocese ofCebu but before embarking, he

returned to Guagua to celebrateMass for his townmates andfamily. Guagua, at that time,was second only to theprovincial capital, Bacolor,although it was probably older,busier and more populous, sinceit was beside a major river. TheSpanish chronicler, Fray Gasparde San Agustin, OSA, in his bookConquistas de las Islas Filipinas(Madrid, 1698), wrote thatGuagua’s church was “verybeautiful, made of stone andnearly as big as that of theconvent of Manila (San AgustinChurch in Intramuros),” and thatthe people of Guagua were “wellmannered, reputed to be nobleand courageous, and very goodChristians who revere theirpastor more than any othernatives of the towns ofPampanga. They are verydemonstrative during publicceremonies. Their Holy Weekprocessions can compare well

with those of the cities of Spainespecially in solemnity andadornment.”

Guagua and thesurrounding towns held a fiestato celebrate theaccomplishments of thehomecoming local boy. Themaxim “It takes a village”applied to the training of apriest so that when he returnedfor his first Mass, the entirecommunity went out to cheerhim as well as themselves.After Padre Baluyot deliveredhis first homily and heard hisfirst confessions of February20, 1699, he left to assume hispost in Cebu. Unfortunately,World War II destroyed theCebu diocesan archives so nodocument of his stay thereexists.

Padre Baluyot blazedthe trai l for otherKapampangans: many of hisbrothers and cousins became

priests; in fact, the Baluyotsbecame the country ’s firstpriestly clan, serving all the fourdioceses in the Philippines atthat time; his hometownGuagua (including Betis) isknown as the town that hasproduced the highest number ofpriests, even the first Filipinocardinal, Rufino Santos yJiao.

Padre Miguel Jeronimode Morales and Padre FranciscoBaluyot overcame discriminationand other historical obstaclesnot only to equal their colonizersin their own turf or beat them intheir own game but to become,as Prof. Randolf David putsit, “a purer receptacle of God’swisdom than the Spanish friar.”

Reference: Laying the Foundations:Kapampangan Pioneers in thePhilippine Church 1592-2000 byLuciano P.R. Santiago. Angeles City: HolyAngel University Press; The Jesuits inthe Philippines 1581-1768 by Horaciode la Costa, SJ. Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard University Press.

He was one of the earliestIndio graduates of theUniversity of Santo Tomas, in1692. On September 7, 1703,right after his ordination, hewas appointed parish priest ofSan Policarpio de Tabuco (nowCabuyao, Laguna). Thus hebecame the first native parishpriest. Meanwhile, the newArchbishop of Manila,Francisco de la Cuesta,suspicious that native priestsrecently ordained by hispredecessor ArchbishopCamacho were incompetentand unworthy, ordered hisvicar forane in Laguna toconduct a secret investigationon the first native parish priest.Without waiting for the resultsof this investigation, theArchbishop de la Cuesta wrote

21. Blas de Sta. RosaBecause this first Filipino parish priest proveda powerful Archbishop wrong

his controversial letter to theKing of Spain denouncing allnative priests in the colony.Four days later, the reportcame, and it heaped praiseson Padre Blas Sta. Rosa’sintegrity and diligence!

Padre Sta. Rosa diedin 1733, after bequeathing thethen magnificent amount ofP998 for the maintenance ofa church he had built, whichstill stands today. His parishis one of the few thatremained in the hands ofFi l ipino clergy unti l theSpaniards left the country in1898.

Reference: Laying theFoundations: KapampanganPioneers in the Philippine Church1592-2000 by Luciano P.R. Santiago.Angeles City: Holy Angel UniversityPress

Signature of B.D. Blas de Sta. Rosa

As an extension ofthe Seven Years’ War betweenEngland and Spain, a Britishfleet commandeered byGeneral William Draperattacked and occupied the ill-prepared city of Manila onSeptember 23, 1762. Oneweek later, the combined forceof 3000 Kapampangans and200 Spaniards made anattempt to recover the cityfrom British troops. TheKapampangan field marshal,Jose Manalastas of Candaba,entered the tent of GeneralDraper, dragged the Britishgeneral out of the tent andstabbed him in the chestbefore releasing him whenBritish reinforcements arrived.The Kapampangans’ ferocity

22. Jose ManalastasBecause his brave attack on Gen. WilliamDraper nearly ended the British Occupation

and courage amazed theBritish, wrote A.P. Thorton.“(They) repeated their assaultsand died like wild beasts,gnawing the bayonets.” Afterthat foiled attempt to retakeManila from the British,Archbishop Manuel Rojo,the acting governor general,surrendered. However, Gen.Simon de Anda y Salazarorganized a guerilla resistancemovement, fled to Pampangawhere he transferred the seatof government to Bacolor. Hisaide-de-camp, Santos de losAngeles, a Kapampangan, ledKapampangan soldiers taskedwith securing his stay inBacolor. When the SevenYears’ War ended on February10, 1764, the British left thePhilippines; one month later,

the new Spanishgovernor general,Francisco de laTorre arrived andtook over the reinsof government fromAnda in Bacolor. OnMarch 31, theSpanish troopsmarched back toManila. (Lino L.Dizon)

27

When the Universityof Santo Tomas reopened in1764 after the BritishOccupation of Manila, it wasready to offer degrees (leadingto licenciado or maestro titles)

23. Manuel Francisco Tubil

to more Indios than usual,especially to Kapampanganswhose town of Bacolor servedas the colony’s capital during thecrisis. Manuel Francisco Tubil,son of the gobernadorcillo of

Betis, was one of the firstenrollees. He graduatedBachelor of Arts in 1767 andBachelor of Sacred Theology in1770; he obtained his licentiate

on November 4, 1771and was ordainedconsecutively assubdeacon, deaconand priest onDecember 20, 21 and22 of the same year.He became a Doctor ofSacred Theology onMarch 15, 1772—thefirst Filipino doctor inany field. To achievethis, he had to defendthree theses each forl icentiate anddoctorate, in whichthe subjects weregiven after the Massand the candidate wasgiven only one hour to

prepare his arguments andconclusions in writing, to besubmitted to four facultypanelists who would debate withhim the next day in thejampacked university chapel.

But the pageantry ofthe conferment of thedoctorate was worth the stressof the oral defence. Itinvolved, on the first day, anacademic parade through thestreets of Manila, whereeveryone, except themusicians, rode a horse. Thenew doctor rode between theUniversity Rector and theCollege Dean. On the secondday, the ceremonies ofconferment were held at theSanto Domingo church in thepresence of the Governor-General himself. The newdoctor delivered an oration inLatin, and then was embracedfraternally by the rector, deanand all doctors present. It wasthe first time these snootySpanish academics were doingit to a brown-skinned graduate.

Dr. Tubil served theChurch for 34 years before hedied of stroke in his hometownon September 6, 1805.Reference: Laying the Foundations:Kapampangan Pioneers in thePhilippine Church 1592-2000 byLuciano P.R. Santiago. Angeles City:Holy Angel University Press

24.BalthazarBanta

25. JuanCarpio

appointed him to head theseminary. As President, Carpioworked closely with theseminary’s Director, a Spaniard,who concentrated on theseminary’s academic programwhile Carpio took care ofadministration and finance.

26. MarianoHenson yParas

Because he was the celebrated serial killer of Magalang in the1800s. After his ordination in 1809, he was assigned to Gapan,Lubao and Bacolor and finally Magalang, where he was afflictedwith severe psychosis, thinking that he could save his motherfrom being bewitched by murdering people. All in all, he killed57 hapless parishioners. He became ill in 1826, was arrestedand executed—the first Filipino priest to be executed (byhanging) by the Spanish Government, ahead of Frs. Gomez,Burgos and Zamora. His calligraphic illustrations such as theone above show his artistic genius.

27. Juan Severino Mallari

Because he broke down a racial barrier bybecoming the first Filipino doctor

Because he was the first Filipinoplebeian priest. He could notsend himself to the seminary sothe wealthy founders ofcapellania financed his studies.He was ordained in 1730. Hebecame a coadjutor of SanRoque parish in Cavite, wherehe served for more than 50years. His superiors describedBanta as “of venerable age, ofvirtuous life and conduct and ofwell-known competence.”

Because he was the first nativePresident of San CarlosSeminary, the training groundfor secular priests in theArchdiocese of Manila. Barely afew months after his ordinationin 1768, his administrative skillscaught the attention ofArchbishop Sancho, theadvocate of Filipino clergy, who

Because he was the first Filipinolayman who became a Doctor ofLaws. Born in Kuliat (nowAngeles), Henson (originallyspelled Engson) earned thedoctorate from the University ofSanto Tomas in 1824 (the firstFilipino to earn that degree wasBernardo Justiniano, who was apriest). Henson practiced in hisvil lage (instead of Manila),where he married Don AngelPantaleon de Miranda’s onlydaughter, Juana Ildefonsa. Oneof his children became theancestor of the Nepomucenos ofAngeles City and anotherbecame the great-greatgrandmother of Ninoy Aquino.

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28. Asuncion VenturaBecause she was the firstFilipino woman to establishan orphanage. In fact, theorphanage, Asilo de SanVicente de Paul, which shefounded in 1885 in a six-hectare lot in Looban, Paco,Manila, still exists today. SorAsuncion’s real name wasCristina Ventura Hocorma yBautista, of Bacolor.

29. Anselmo Jorge FajardoBecause he wrote the longest play in Philippine literature

29. Anselmo Jorge FajardoBecause he wrote the longest playin Philippine literature

31. Luisa Gonzaga de LeonBecause she liberated herself from theconstraints of her times, her family and hergender to do what no Filipino woman had donebefore: write a book

Doña Luisa Gonzaga de Leonwas the first Filipina, and firstKapampangan of any gender, toauthor a book. Born June 21,1805 in Bacolor, Doña LuisaGonzaga belonged to anillustrious family in Bacolor. Shemarried Don Francisco Paulade los Santos, a prominentpolitician at the time, with whomshe had three sons. She

translated the bookEjercicio Cotidiano (DailyDevotion), which was acompilation of prayersduring the Mass, prayersfor confession andcommunion, examinationof conscience, Way of theCross (translated fromTagalog by MacarioPangilinan for DeLeon’s book), the rosaryand a trisagium to theHoly Trinity. It had 308pages, with illustrationsof the different parts ofthe Mass. She hadalready written a prefaceand was about to publishit when she died on June1, 1843, at age 38. Thus,the book was publishedposthumously in 1844 or1845, and reprinted in1854 by the University of

30. Joaquin Arnedo CruzBecause he drew the line between the loftyilustrados and the mere principalia

The material and political support of the Kapampangan principaliato Spanish authorities was repaid in terms of privileges like accessto schools in Manila and in Europe. Thus did a few selectKapampangans acquire European ways and tastes even as a newterm, ilustrado, was used to describe the mega-rich, as opposed tothe simply rich. “Land, wealth, education and broad social contacts,”wrote Larkin, “differentiated the nineteenth-century ilustrado fromthe rest of the principalia.” The extremely wealthy sugar-planterfrom Sulipan in Apalit, Don Joaquin Arnedo Cruz, personified thisnew divide in the hierarchy of the 19th-century elite. His mansionon the banks of the Rio Grande was filled with European luxuries;in it he regularly hosted exquisite banquets and grand balls forsuch illustrious guests as the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia, sonof the Emperor himself, and the Prince of Cambodia. OtherKapampangan ilustrados were the Liongsons, the Jovens and theVenturas of Bacolor.Reference: The Pampangans by John A. Larkin. Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress.

Santo Tomas Press, and againin 1867, 1910 and 1967. The1854 edition had this subtitle:Iti amanu yang Castila bildugne quing amanungCapampangan nang DoñaLuisa Gonzaga de Leon, Indiaquing balayang Baculud.Reference: Laying theFoundations: KapampanganPioneers in the Philippine Church1592-2000 by Luciano P.R. Santiago.Angeles City: Holy Angel UniversityPress

Filip

ino

Her

itage

Heroica de la Conquista deGranada o Sea Vida de DonGonzalo de Cordoba is akumedya (comedia) in threevolumes with 31,000 lines on832 pages. The three volumesrepresent the three journeys inthe storyline, a fictional romancebetween Don Gonzalo, alsoknown as Gran Capitan (GreatCaptain), a general in the serviceof Queen Isabella I, and hisMoor princess Zulema .Although Padre Anselmo’s playhas a Spanish title and Spanishdirections, its dialogue is inKapampangan. It premiered inBacolor in February, 1831 andlasted seven consecutive days.

The viewers were so enamoredwith the play’s lyrical passagesthat they often entertainedthemselves by reciting passagesfrom it. A well known preacherin Spanish, Padre Anselmo wasalso elected as one of thePhilippine delegates to theSpanish Cortes in 1822-23, butdue to a shortage of publicfunds, he and the other Filipinodelegates remained in thecountry unable to fulfill theirmandate. He was the onlyknown priest playwright in theentire Spanish Period.

Reference: Literature of thePampangos by Rosalina Icban-Castro,Manila: University of the East Press.

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Agapito Conchu was a Chinese mestizo born in Guaguaon 18 August 1860. He went to Manila where he pursued aBachelor of Arts degree at the Ateneo de Manila. Whilestill a student, he moonlighted as a church organistat the Binondo Church and worked in the printingpress of Salvador Chofre as lithographer. Hesoon set up his own printing shop at Calle Realin Cavite in 1890. His studio, established nextto the pharmacy of Victoriano Luciano,was called Foto-Litografia Moderna de A.Conchu. Here, he printed colorful labels formedicines, cigars, perfumery andpharmaceutical products.

It was also at this time thatAgapito settled down with Isabel Basawith whom he had nine children. Tosupplement his income, he returned to hisfirst love, music. He taught piano tochildren of government officials and otherprominent families. When Agapito Escacio,the music teacher of the local elementaryschool passed away, Agapito Conchu took hisplace.

Agapito lent his talent to the socialevents of the town, organizing orchestras for bothyoung and old. He launched La Compaña del Trueno,a band which included Francisco Osorio (drums), VictorianoLuciano (bass, violin), Dr. Hugo Perez (fife, triangle), BasilioBorromeo (violin, piano, cantor). Agapito himself, aside from

32. Agapito Conchu the organ and the piano, played the violin. Julian Felipe becameits famed Conductor. On certain occasions, Agapito also sang atthe Church of Porta Vaga, and as if his services to the church werenot enough, assisted in painting the reredos of the Church of SanPedro. His main source of income, however, was his burgeoningprinting business. In 1892, during a regional exposition, Agapito’slithographic prints won for him a Silver Medal and a Certificate ofHonor. The winning works included paintings and artworks.

In the Revolution of 1896, Cavite and its townsactively participated in the revolt against Spain. A

plot was hatched by the principalias in the provincebut was thwarted when Victoriana Sayat of

Imus told Dña. Victorina de Crespo, wife ofthe military governor, of the suspicious movesof Severino Lapidario (jail warden),Alfonso de Ocampo (asst. warden) andLuis Aguado (connected with the arsenal).On 3 September 1896, Agapito was arrestedon the basis of the testimony of de Ocampo,who, under torture, named Agapito as oneof the cabecillas of the revolutionaryassociation of Cavite. Together with 12others (Victoriano Luciano, MaximoInocencio, Francisco Osorio, AntonioSan Agustin, Hugo Perez, Jose Lallana,

Eugenio Cabezas, Maximo Gregorio,Feliciano Cabuco along with Aguado, de

Ocampo and Lapidario), Agapito was arrestedand executed at the Plaza de Armas at the Cavite

arsenal on 12 September 1896. Thus one braveKapampangan joined the pantheon of noble heroes

collectively known today as the Trece Martires de Cavite.Reference: Mga Anak ng Tangway sa Rebolusyong Pilipino by Emmanuel FrancoCalairo.

Because he was one of the first martyrsof the RevolutionBy Alex R. Castro

Towards the end of the 19th century, the buildup of dissent exploded in a conflagration that led to the collapse ofSpanish rule in the Philippines (A Philippine Album, Jonathan Best)

30

The only Tarlac-born general ofthe Phil ippine Revolution,Francisco Makabulos hailed fromLa Paz town at the borderbetween Tarlac and Nueva Ecija.His Lubao-born father,Alejandro, a viajero and expertin arnis de mano, came to LaPaz by boat through the RioGrande de Pampanga and thenRio Chico. There he met andmarried Gregoria Soliman.

In his youth and evenlater in life, Francisco Makabuloswas a moro-moro aficionado,both as actor and as writer. Also,though without formalschooling, Francisco learned towrite and speak in Spanish fromhis mother, who taught him thecaton, the cartilla, as well as hisfirst set of prayers. This enabledhim to become an escribano deparroquia, cabeza del barangay,and deudor del Estados andwhich entitled him to be aprincipalia of La Paz. He gotmarried to a scion of a landedfamily of the town, DoñaDorotea Pascual.

It was in his position asa parish clerk (in 1894, he wasunder the famous Augustinianauthor, Fray BernandoMartinez) and as a town andbarrio official that he earned thetrust and respect of the peopleof La Paz and eventual lydeveloped followers of his own.It was in this capacity that helearned about the Katipunan.After joining it, he startedadvocating its tenets andfounding chapters in varioustowns of Tarlac and Nueva Ecija.

One of the firstrevolutionary acts of Makabuloswas the organization of a bolobrigade that took over themunicipal hall of La Paz onJanuary 24, 1897, during thetown fiesta celebration. This isnow known as the First Cry ofTarlac. It marked his coming outas a full-fledged revolutionary,affi l iating himself with thestruggle of General EmilioAguinaldo.

In June, 1897, inMt.Puray, Montalban, Morong(now Rizal), Gen. Aguinaldopromoted Makabulos as one ofthe brigadier-generals of theRevolution. Thereon, Makabulostook charge of the revolutionarystruggle of the whole Central

Luzon, setting up hisencampment in Sitio Kamansi,on the slope of Mt. Arayat. Ittook no less than the massiveSpanish force of GeneralRicardo Monet in Novemberof 1897 to eject him from hisSinukuan sanctuary.

Gen. Makabulos wasone of the signatories of theBiak-na-bato Constitution ofNovember 1897. However, in

Government, it had dominionover most of Central andNorthern Luzon provinces,including Pampanga which heplaced under Maximino Hizonwho became also a general ofthe Revolution. The Committeealso had its own constitution,promulgated a day later.

Gen. Aguinaldo’sreturn from Hong Kong in May,1898 signaled the resumptionof the revolutionary struggle.On July 10, 1898, aided by otherKapampangan revolutionaryleaders, Gen. Makabulosliberated Tarlac from threecenturies of Spanish colonialrule. Later he became the firstFil ipino governor of Tarlacprovince.

Ten days later afterexpelling the Spaniards fromTarlac, he went on to liberatethe province of Pangasinan, onJuly 22, 1898. He would betaking active role in variousactivities of the RevolutionaryGovernment, including theMalolos and Tarlac Congresses.

During the Filipino-American War, even after thefal l of the AguinaldoGovernment in Tarlac onNovember 10, 1899, Gen.Makabulos continued his fightfor the Philippine flag throughhis guerilla activities in themountains of western Tarlac.However, without arms andresources, he had no otherrecourse but to surrender toGen. Arthur McArthur inBayambang, Pangasinan inJune of 1900.

With his retirementfrom military affairs, Gen.Makabulos held some minorpositions in local politics andspent his time as a farmer. Itwas during this time that hewrote his comedias, includingFederico at Rosaura and aTagalog translation of the operaAida.

Makabulos died in LaPaz on Apri l 30, 1922, aforgotten hero. As PresidentAguinaldo lamented at thattime, “It is a pity that our livinggenerations seem to know solittle of the life and exploits ofthis heroic Tarlaqueño who hadserved well the libertarian causeof our nation with his fightingsword.”

defiance of the Pact of Biak-na-bato of December 14, 1897 inwhich his fellow revolutionarieswent on exile in Hong Kong, hecontinued the revolutionarystruggle. An evidence of thisdefiance was the creation of theComite Central Directivo Centroy Norte de Luzon, on April 17,1898, in Lomboy, La Paz.Referred to by historians as theMakabulos Provisional

Because this revolutionary generalliberated Tarlac and Pangasinan from300 years of colonial rule; becausehe continued the fight even whenAguinaldo had gone into exile andagain after Aguinaldo had abandonedthe province to the Americans;because his military exploits did notprevent him from writing plays andtranslating Aida; and because heretired as a farmer and died aforgotten heroBy Lino L. Dizon

Lino Dizon

33. FRANCISCO MAKABULOS

31

34. Servillano AquinoBecause he started the great Aquino clan’s tradition of patriotism

Was AndresBonifaciofrom

In barangays Sagrada andnearby Cambasi in Masantol,near the mouth of thePampanga River, residents claimthat their villages produced twoof the country ’s greatestfreedom-fighters: Tarik Soliman,the first in Luzon to resist theSpaniards at the start of their300-year colonization, andAndres Bonifacio, the Katipunanfounder who ignited therevolution that eventually endedthe Spanish regime. Bonifacio’sofficial birthplace, of course, isTondo, Manila but the localsinsist that his forebears musthave come from Masantol, whichis just an hour away by boat viaManila Bay. Another evidence:almost two-thirds of Cambasi’spopulation is surnamed eitherCastro or Bonifacio—which werethe surnames of AndresBonifacio’s mother and father,respectively.Source: Interview with Bajun Lacap, ViceMayor of Masantol

Maximino Hipolito Hizon of Mexico town was a teenager in search of meaningand mission in life in the 1890s, at a time when the country was in search ofheroes who would fight for its independence. It was a serendipitous momentin which the national need coincided with a personal need, and young Hizonwisely stepped forward to meet his appointment with destiny and to securehis place in history.

Born May 9, 1870 in Parian, Mexico, he left behind his days as aspoiled brat of the Pampanga principalia class to join the Katipunanin 1896; when the secret organization was discovered by the Spanishauthorities, he was captured and banished to Jolo, where he wasimprisoned for almost a year. Released after the signing of the Pactof Biak-na-Bato, he became the Comandante General of Pampangain the latter part of the Revolution and promoted to the rank ofBrigadier General during the Philippine-American war. He convenedand presided over the meeting of town representatives, held on June26, 1898 in San Fernando, to solicit support for the RevolutionaryGovernment of Emilio Aguinaldo. He was appointed delegate tothe Malolos Congress representing the province of Sorsogon One ofhis most difficult missions was to recapture Manila from the Americans.

In a fierce battle near La Loma in Caloocan on February 10,1899, he exhibited extraordinary courage and heroism; he and hismen occupied a block house but soon forced to retreat after runningout of ammunition. Along with 50 soldiers, he escaped to the Pinatubohills from where he staged guerilla attacks on Americans in Pampanga,Bataan, Tarlac, Pangasinan and Zambales; he was wounded in Dumandanand captured by the Americans while recuperating from his wounds in ahouse in San Jose Malino, Mexico. He was tried and sentenced for seditionand murder by the US military court and ordered deported to Guam alongwith Apolinario Mabini, Artemio Ricarte and Mariano Llanera. He died ofheart attack at high noon on September 1, 1901. His fellow exiles commendedhim for his steadfastness and patriotism; Gen. Ricarte even proposed anindependent Philippine Republic to be known as Rizaline Republic, with amilitary zone named Gen. Hizon District, composed of Pampanga, Tarlac andBataan.

He was a puny figure crossing swords with two global superpowers,but he became truly heroic after he refused to be waylaid by internalproblems and intrigues but instead gave his all to the larger cause ofliberating the country from two sets of colonizers, and also after herefused to surrender and collaborate with the enemy but insteadchose to be exiled. Hizon’s life could very well be used to inspire theyouth, especially those in need of self-redemption from errant ways.

Reference: Notes from Dr. Albina Peczon Fernandez, University of the Philippines

Albi

na P

eczo

n Fe

rnan

dez

35. MAXIMINO HIZONBecause he gave up his youth and the comfort of hisclass to join the fight for freedom; because intrigueswithin the revolutionary government did not stop himfrom carrying out his mission; because he was thegreatest Kapampangan revolutionary hero

Not many people know that theAquinos originated fromAngeles. Their patriarch, DonServillano Aquino was born inthis town on April 20, 1874.Apung Mianong transferred toTarlac when he became amunicipal presidente of Murciatown. In Concepcion, hefounded Buenavista, one of the

first Katipunan chapters in theprovince. In 1897, he becamea major under GeneralFrancisco Makabulos, anenactor of the Constitution ofBiak-na-Bato and a member ofthe entourage of PresidentEmilio Aguinaldo when he wasexiled in Hong Kong during thePact of Biak-na-Bato. When

war broke out between thePhil ippines and the UnitedStates, Aquino became one ofthe generals of theRevolutionary Army. In theTarlac Congress of 1899, he wasappointed to represent theprovince of Samar. He died inConcepcion, Tarlac on February3, 1959. (Lino L. Dizon)

Masantol?

32

NO

His rich parents were from Arayat but he was born in Binondo,Manila on December 1,1870. He studied at the Ateneo Municipaland the University of Santo Tomas, where he acquired a Bachelorof Arts degree. He pursued his studies in Spain and at theUniversity of Ghent in Belgium, where he distinguished himselfthrough his superior academic performance. He graduated with adegree in chemical engineering.  

While in Spain, he became an active member of thePropaganda Movement by working in theeditorial staff of La Solidaridad. A close friendof Jose Rizal, he was the one who broughtthe manuscript of the El Filibusterismo to theprinting press for publication. 

When the Revolution broke out in 1896,he and Feliciano Jocson journeyed to Kawit,Cavite, to seek a meeting with GeneralAguinaldo. Alejandrino volunteered toundertake the dangerous mission of procuringarms for the revolutionaries from China orJapan. When Aguinaldo accepted his offer,he proceeded to Hong Kong, where he helpedorganize the Revolutionary Council along withFelipe Agoncillo, Jose Basa and MarianoPonce. Much later, he became part of thegroup in the Hong Kong Committee, whichincluded Agoncillo and Galicano Apacible;the committee staunchly advocatedindependence, as opposed to the circle led byJose Basa and Doroteo Cortes, who werefor annexing the country to the United States.

 Initially, Alejandrino was able to dispatchto the revolutionaries in the Philippines onlydynamites and rifle pistons. Thus, in February1897, he left Hongkong for Japan, to tryacquiring more weapons and supplies. 

In 1898, he served in the Malolos Congress first convokedon September 15 by the revolutionary government. He became amember of two crucial committees to draft the Constitution. OnSeptember 26, he was given the position of director of agricultureand industry of the revolutionary administration. Later, PresidentAguinaldo designated him chief of the engineers of the army.

When the Philippine-American War erupted, he affiliated withGen. Antonio Luna and his troops. Subsequently, as chiefengineer, he directed the building of trenches in several areas,including Bulacan and Caloocan.

 He rose to the position of brigadier-general, and served asacting secretary of war. He was also appointed commandinggeneral of the military operations in Central Luzon (in place ofGen. Pantaleon Garcia), and military governor of Pampanga,replacing Gen. Maximino Hizon, earlier captured by theAmericans. By then the beleaguered government of Aguinaldohad been pushed back to Tarlac by pursuing American forces.

In September 1899, Alejandrino headed the three-mancommission tasked with releasing 13 American prisoners andnegotiating ceasefire with General Otis, the commanding general

of the American army in the Philippines.He was assisted by Lt. Col. RamonSoriano and Maj. Evaristo Ortiz. Later,he also conferred with Gen. ArthurMacArthur, who had replaced Otis aschief of the American forces. The twogenerals had a frank discussion about thebrutal, dehumanizing abuse of Filipinocivilians by American soldiers. Meanwhile,the revolutionary struggle was beingweakened by cowardly Filipinos whomAlejandrino had expelled for collaboratingwith the Americans. 

In May 1901, after much suffering and the tragic loss ofcountless comrades in the field, Gen. Alejandrino surrendered, inArayat, to General Frederick Funston. The American generalhad initially refused his offer to surrender and, instead, had himplaced under arrest, demanding that he present a certain AmericanNegro, named Fagan, who was wanted for desertion. Althoughhe resisted Funston’s demand, Alejandrino was released the nextday. 

In August 1901, he accepted from Gov. William H. Taft theposition of second city engineer of Manila, but discharged his dutiesfor not more than a year. He retired to lead a farmer’s life until1925, when he was designated senator for Sulu and Mindanao byGov. Gen. Leonard Wood. A member of the Partido DemocrataNacional, he was elected representative of Pampanga’s seconddistrict to the Constitutional Convention in 1934.

 Senator Alejandrino’s account of the Philippine Revolutionagainst Spain and the Philippine-American War, La Senda delSacrificio, tells of the noble revolutionaries and the lonely warsthat they fought in order to attain national freedom. SenatorAlejandrino died on June 1, 1951.Reference: Senate of the Philippines Homepage..

36. JOSE ALEJANDRINOBecause he helped Rizal publishEl Filibusterismo; because he was a heroof the Philippine Revolution of 1896 andthe Philippine-American War of 1898;because he was able to reinvent himselfto serve his people in a variety of waysand well into the next century

33

37. Isabelodel RosarioBecause his playing the violinmoments before being hangedwas a class act

Isabelo del Rosario y Tuazon was born July8, 1878 in San Fernando. He activelyparticipated in the Revolution as a captainof the Katipunan. After the revolution,he returned to his hometown with his wife,Emilia Abad Santos, sister of Jose andPedro Abad Santos, with whom he hadtwo children, Pastor and Agapito. Hiswords about the Americans (“Den, e lasasaup, sasakup la!”) became propheticwhen the true intentions of the occupyingforces became apparent. He consideredthe Americans worse colonizers than theSpaniards because they snatched awaythe Filipinos’ independence and deprivedthem any claim of victory over theSpaniards . He refused to lay down hisarms even after the Americans had offeredamnesty to revolutionaries; he wascaptured at Sapa Libutad in Mexico town,imprisoned in the town proper andsentenced to die by hanging. On the dayof his execution, April 12, 1901, the

American captors granted hislast wish to play the

violin. He playedDanza Habanera de

Filipina on his way tothe gallows in the plaza.After the last note, as

the Americansapproached to

retrieve his violin,Del Rosario

i n s t e a dsmashed it atthe foot of thegal lows andproudly walked

up to hisexecutioner. Hewas only 22.

Source: AngKabayanihan ni

Ka Pedro AbadSantos by Luis

M. Taruc;a d d i t i o n a l

notes byD a n

Dizon

Because two world superpowers needed them towin their wars; because they helped capture thePresident of the Philippines himself; because bydoing so, they ended their compatriots’ quest forindependence and sabotaged the birth of a nation;because they offer no apology and need noredemption for their role in historyDuring the Spanish Period, Kapampangans who allied themselves with the colonizerswere always referred to as Macabebes, whether or not they came from the town bythe bay. The Macabebes’ reputation as brave warriors and their notoriety ascollaborators have made this enigmatic tribe one of the most recognizable culturalicons in Pampanga.

After the departure of the Spaniards, when the revolutionary forces of Gen.Antonio Luna all but obliterated the Macabebes and their town from the map, theAmericans came to resurrect them and give them one last role to play in history. Agroup of 78 Macabebes, chosen for their ability to speak Tagalog, were recruited fora top-secret plan to capture the President of the Republic, Emilio Aguinaldo, whowas then hiding in Palanan, Isabela. Tagalog defectors from Aguinaldo’s camp, Lt.Col. Hilario Tal Placido and Pvt. Cecilio Segismundo, along with a Spanishdefector, Capt. Lazaro Segovia (who had earlier defected from the Spanish Army toAguinaldo’s camp—a defector twice over), briefed the Macabebe Scouts, led by 1st

Sgt. Pedro Bustos, his brother Sgt. Federico Bustos and Sgt. Bonifacio Dizon.(Some historians say the Macabebes never knew what the mission was; others saythey volunteered to do it to get back at Tagalogs, whom they considered their tribalenemies.)

On March 1, 1901, Col. Frederick Funston and four other American officersled the defectors and the Macabebe Scouts on board the US warship Vicksburg,where 20 of the Macabebes were issued the blue-gray riadillo uniform of Aguinaldo’srevolutionary army as well as rifles used by Aguinaldo’s soldiers. It slowly dawned onthem that the ruse involved them playing revolutionary soldiers taking their “prisoners,”Col. Funston and the four Americans, to Aguinaldo’s camp in Palanan. The Macabebestook their role so seriously that throughout the four-day, 90-mile trek through mountainsand forests, they spoke only in Tagalog and tied their American officers as they wouldprisoners when they came across even solitary farmers.

On March 23, 1901, Aguinaldo welcomed the party inside his hut where Col.Funston dropped the pretense and declared the arrest of Aguinaldo. Outside, theMacabebes exchanged gunfire with the surprised Tagalog troops, who later fled. Itwas a stunning capture that made news around the world. The Macabebes werelater absorbed into the Philippine Scouts; some even went to the United States foradvanced studies at West Point; the others fought valiantly in the Second World War,after which nothing more was heard from them.Reference: “How We Captured Aguinaldo” by Bonifacio Dizon (Manila Times, March 28, 1946)

The

Pam

pang

os

38. MACABEBE SCOUTS

34

Macabebe’s first claim to fame wasthe patriotic Tarik Soliman, probably thefirst Filipino from Luzon to resist theSpaniards and the first Filipino ever to diedoing it. After him, Macabebe becamesynonymous with the embarrassment ofracial profiling that Kapampangans suffereven to this day.

As soon as Tarik died in that fatefulBattle of Bangkusay, the account goes, hissupposedly warlike men jumped off theircaracoas and swam in different directions.As the Spaniards penetrated theKapampangan region, the only place wherethey encountered aggressive behavior wasBetis; the rest were no problem at all. Whenthe Spaniards established the capital inManila, it was the Kapampangans whosupplied them with logs, and when Chinesepirates and Dutch and British invadersattacked, and when Spaniards needed toconquer other islands and other countries,who else did they turn to but their everfaithful and rel iable friends, theKapampangans. In fact, Kapampanganscould be depended upon to crush therebellion of their fellow Filipinos and evenof their fellow Kapampangans. It was aKapampangan who betrayed the first knownKapampangan rebel Juan Manila by wayof disguise, and it was a Kapampangan whosabotaged the Kapampangan Revolt led byFrancisco Maniago. Kapampangans alsohelped end the minor Kapampangan revoltsin 1584 and 1645.

LOYALTY, DUPLICITY OR REBELLION?When the country finally got its act

together in the Revolution against Spain,the last Spanish forces took refuge in themost Spanish-friendly place in thearchipelago, the town of Macabebe; there,Aguinaldo’s revolutionary forces in hotpursuit of the retreating Spanish friars,officials and their families were confrontedby the Kapampangan-Spanish mestizo Col.Eugenio Blanco and hundreds ofMacabebe soldiers, who formed a line ofdefence around the Spaniards. TheSpaniards scampered on every availableboat on the river and sailed to the sea,leaving behind their trusted Macabebes andpromising to rescue them in the future.They never did; weeks later, Gen. AntonioLuna’s soldiers destroyed Macabebe townand massacred its residents.

The Macabebes resurfaced inhistory short ly afterward when theAmericans took over the colony. One day,Lt. Matthew Batson of the US 4th Cavalryrode into Macabebe town to recruitvolunteer soldiers. He only wanted enoughfor a battalion, but the Macabebe womencame forward, “eager to have their sons,husbands and sweethearts to go with him”that he could have enlisted an entireregiment. The Macabebes exacted theirvengeance against the revolutionarygovernment when they later joined a teamthat captured no less than President EmilioAguinaldo.

Dr. John Larkin writes that thereputation of Kapampangans for duplicity“is obviously undeserved. Like any othergroup in the Philippines, they were forcedto make some compromises with

colonialism.” He adds that the Macabebeswere just good soldiers doing a good job,calling it “a matter of vocation, not politics.”

Prof. Randolf David argues thatcolonial Kapampangans aimed for excellenceas an expression of their aspiration totranscend colonial subjugation, preferringto conform rather than rebel but onlybecause they knew they could do what theSpaniards did and were eager to prove it.Thus, Kapampangans became the firstFilipino priests because they did not thinkthe Spanish friar was superior to them, orthat the priesthood was an unattainableprofession reserved only for white men.Similarly, Kapampangans became greatsoldiers fighting alongside their mastersprecisely to show them they were as good,if not better. It gave them a great sense ofpride that they could be depended upon fortheir master’s very survival. It was a “wayof rebelling against the inferior status towhich colonialism has consigned him as anIndio,” says David. He adds that this concept“conforms exactly with Jose Rizal’s powerfuladmonition… that progress to authenticnationhood could only begin if we couldshow the world that we were capable of self-rule and did not deserve to be enslaved bya foreign power—because we are as goodas any other people in all the things by whichhuman achievement is measured: art,education, engineering, phi losophy,literature and even sports.” And indeed,even soldiering.Reference: “The Macabebe Scouts and their Reputation”by John Larkin in Singsing Magazine Vol. 1 No. 4;Randolf David’s Review of Laying the Foundations:Kapampangan Pioneers in the Philippine Church1592-2001 by Luciano Santiago.

35

39. PraxedesFajardo

40. NicolasaDayrit

41. MateaSioco

42. AdrianaHilario

43. ValentinVentura

44. TiburcioHilario

45. CeferinoJoven

46. MacarioArnedo

Because she played an activerole in preventing a schismbetween Gen. Antonio Luna andGen. Tomas Mascardo fromturning into an all-out war. Sheand other Bacolor women metGen. Luna, on his way to attackGen. Mascardo’s forces inGuagua. Luna was appeased,and the revolution did not breakapart. Nicolasa Dayrit yPamintuan was born September10, 1874 in San Fernando.

Because she was a majorfinancier of the Phil ippineRevolution in Pampanga. Shemarried the wealthy Jose Sioco,a widower who was actuallyafter her sister Maria, who hadbeen betrothed to another man.After her husband died, Mateamarried Juan Arnedo Cruz ofApalit.

Because she helped distributepropaganda materials duringthe Revolution. Having had noformal education, Adrianalearned by eavesdropping onher brother’s tutorial lessons.She is one of the fourKapampangan women of theRevolution.

Because he was an activemember of the PropagandaMovement in Spain. Belongingto the wealthy family inBacolor, Ventura financed theprinting of Jose Rizal’s novelEl Filibusterismo. His brotherBalbino was tortured for hisMasonic links; he was made towalk, with hands tied and infull public view, from Bacolorto San Fernando. He died soonafterward.

Because he and his brotherCecilio refused to testify againstRizal during his trial in Manila.When they were sti l l lawstudents, they witnessed themartyrdom of the Gomburzapriests which galvanized theirresolve to fight forindependence. Tiburcio wasexiled to Jolo while Cecilio toBalabac. After the Spaniardsleft, Tiburcio became Governorof Pampanga.

Because she was one of thefew women who risked theirlives in actively supporting thecause of the Phil ippineRevolution against Spain. BornJuly 21, 1874 in Bacolor,Praxedes Fajardo y Punoheaded the Pampanga chapterof the Philippine Red Cross.She died August 10, 1928.

Because he organized Bacolor’sfirst theatre company, CompaniaSabina, when he was Governorof Pampanga in 1901. Thissingular act sparked popularinterest in Kapampangan playsand attracted the likes of JuanCrisostomo Soto, FelixGalura, Mariano andCornelio Proceso PabalanByron and others, eventuallyleading to the Golden Age ofKapampangan Literature.

Because when he becameGovernor of Pampanga, hesupervised the transfer of theprovincial capital from Bacolor(hometown of his predecessorCeferino Joven who hadobjected to the transfer) to SanFernando. The crucial Manila-Dagupan Railroad crossed thenew capital but not the old; thetransfer has led to theelevation of San Fernando tothe status of regional, not justprovincial, center.

36

49. FranciscoLiongson

47. BraulioMendoza

48. DomingoPanlilio

Because he risked his life andhis family’s by sheltering Filipinor e v o l u t i o n a r i e s . W h e nCommodore Dewey sailed intoManila Bay and the beleagueredSpaniards got nastier, the Hilariobrothers returned to Bacolor,saw their house burning from adistance and sought refuge inMendoza’s house in barrio SanAntonio. Estelito Mendoza ishis progeny.

Because, like Mendoza, he wasone of the wealthy landownersin Bacolor who hid Filipinosoldiers at the height of theRevolution, thus putting his ownlife and that of his household inextreme danger. Tiburcio andCecilio Hilario also soughtrefuge in his house in barrioMaliwalu during the chaotic daysof the American takeover of thecolony.

Because he was one of the elitewho sent financial support toAguinaldo’s new republic afterthe defeat of the Spanish armyin 1898. Liongson was anaccomplished poet as well aspolitician. He became Governorof Pampanga in 1912 and waslater elected Senator of thecountry’s 3rd senatorial district,covering Pampanga, Bulacan,Tarlac and Nueva Ecija. He wasthe first Kapampangan senator.

The PhilippineRevolution &the Philippine-American Warin PampangaAfter Jose Rizal visited hisfriends in Tarlac, SanFernando and Bacolor a fewyears before the outbreak ofthe Revolution, their houseswere torched and some ofthem were deported. Itturned out that Rizal wasalready being shadowed byauthorities. Those who hadformed Masonic cells in theprovince also suffered thesame fate. When theRevolution did break out,some of Pampanga’s elitejoined first AndresBonifacio and later EmilioAguinaldo; most, however,remained uninvolved or loyalto Spain. For this loyalty, the

Gen. Aguinaldo arrives in San Fernando, Pampanga in 1898

Kasa

ysay

an

37

Spanish Governor ofPampanga Jose Canovaspetitioned Spain to grant theprovince the permanent titleMuy Heroica y Siempre Fiel, orMuy Noble y Muy Leal, or MuyEspañola.

After the defeat ofthe Spanish army by Filipinoand American forces, manywealthy Kapampanganssupported the government ofAguinaldo, organizingprovincial government onbehalf of the Republic andparticipating in the MalolosCongress. This nationalistictendency was becomingwidespread in the province.

And then, in April1899, the American forces

finally reached Pampanga, andKapampangans startedrearranging their allegiancesagain. Many members of theelite supported the newAmerican colonial government,some continued aiding the nowguerilla army of Aguinaldo’sRepublic, and the rest stayedneutral in the crossfire. Thosewho supported Aguinaldo wereeither exiled or ostracized, soonce more, they wentunderground.

Historian John A.Larkin points out that aroundthis time, one group ofKapampangans had expandedtheir concept of community to anation, concluding that“Pampanga belonged to a larger

entity, a nation that reachedbeyond the ethno-linguisticborders of any one area.”Sharing this vision were thegenerals Maximino Hizon,Jose Alejandrino, ServillanoAquino, FranciscoMakabulos; GovernorTiburcio Hilario; landholderFrancisco Liongson; writersAurelio Tolentino, ModestoJoaquin and Felix Galura;Ceferino Joven, Pedro AbadSantos and others.

Larkin says there wasanother vision of communityheld by another group ofKapampangans, led byplaywright Juan CrisostomoSoto whose body of worklaunched in Bacolor the Golden

Age of KapampanganLiterature. Because the townwas becoming the center ofintel lectual and culturalactivity in the region,prompting others to call it theAthens of Pampanga, Sotoand his followers chose topreserve the art and cultureof the place rather thanadhere to the vision of anational community. Althoughit was the more restrictedview, it was, at least to Sotoand others, more vivid andtantalizing as the province wasexperiencing growth andfrontier expansion.Source: “Pampanga Views theRevolution: Imagination and Memoryof a Time of Suffering and Sacrifice”by John A. Larkin in Alaya:

Because he wrote the country’sfirst vernacular zarzuela

50. Mariano Proceso Pabalan Byron

51. Felix Galura

He and his younger brother Cornelio, along with Soto, Galuraand the Tolentino brothers, Aurelio and Jacinto, were writerswho took up arms as Katipuneros during the Revolution. LikeSoto, the Pabalan brothers served under Gen. TomasMascardo; Mariano was one of the Bacolor townsfolk who threwburning coconut husks at the Spanish garrison and decimatedthe guardia civil there, thus sparking the revolution in theprovince. But he is best known for his play Ing Managpe, thefirst non-Spanish zarzuela written in the Philippines. The sonof a Kapampangan-Negrito father and a Portuguese mother,Pabalan Byron wrote religious books and pamphlets includingthe Pasion ning Guinu tang Jesucristu, Tuntunan qng Masampata Caniwan ning Taung Bininiagan and Historia SagradangCapampangan.

Felix Galura y Napao, whose pen name was Flauxgialer, was amongthe first to write zarzuelas in Bacolor. He also denounced cumidya(moro-moro) as a great stumbling block to the progress ofKapampangan literature. One June 4, 1898, at the Escuela deArtes y Oficios de Bacolor (now DHVCAT), Galura, together withAlvaro Panopio and Paulino Lirag, led the Voluntarios Localesde Bacolor in revolt against Spain. They burned the Casa Real(provincial capitol) and killed the pro-Spanish Cazadores andMacabebes. The event was the basis for Mariano Proceso PabalanByron’s play Apat Ya Ing Junio.

Turn of the Century

Because this poet led the uprising the startedthe Revolution in Pampanga

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By sheer volume and quality ofliterary output, the greatestKapampangan writer is JuanCrisostomo Soto y Caballa(1867-1918) of Bacolor. Hewrote 50 plays (including 3tragedies, 8 comedies and 20zarzuelas), more than 100poems and dozens of shortstories, essays and novels. Atthe end of the 300-yearSpanish rule, Kapampanganswatched Spanish zarzuelas lessand less; the breakthroughcame when Mariano ProcesoPabalan Byron , Soto’stownsmate, wrote the firstvernacular zarzuela ever, IngManagpe. Soto came up withhis own Kapampanganzarzuela, Paninap nang DonRoque, and later, his mostenduring work, Alang Dios!Written after the death of hisdaughter Maria LuzGenerosa (its music wassupplied by anothertownsmate, Pablo Palma).His other plays include Perla,

52. Juan Crisostomo SotoBecause he wrote outstanding worksin practically all literary genres

The proliferation of playwrights, actors, poets and painters inBacolor in the late 1800s was almost Elizabethan in proportion.The triumvirate of Juan Crisostomo Soto, Mariano ProcesoPabalan Byron and Felix Galura carried Kapampanganliterature to its golden age when they wrote and staged numerouszarzuelas. The patronage of the local population, the financialsupport of the town’s principalia and the presence of a theatre,the Teatro Sabina, were responsible for the quantity and qualityof literary output in Bacolor. The other writers from the townincluded Cornelio Pabalan Byron, Jose and EduardoGutierrez David, Padre Jorge Anselmo Fajardo, Isaac C.Gomez (who wrote over 20 plays including Sampagang Asahar),Zoilo Hilario, Modesto Joaquin and Edilberto Joven.

In the coastal towns of Guagua and Sasmuan, TeatroTrining fueled literary achievement. Jacinto Tolentino wrote,among others, Ing Mangaibugan, while his brother AurelioTolentino wrote Kapampangan, Spanish and Tagalog plays.Felino Simpao, a medical doctor, and Monico Mercado, arelative of Jose Rizal, were also prolific writers.

In the 1920s, another wave of Kapampangan writersswept the province: Urbano Macapagal (Diosdado’s father, whowrote the zarzuela Bayung Jerusalem)), Felix B. Bautista,Conrado Gwekoh and Zoilo Hilario, who was crowned poetlaureate by Crisostomo Soto in 1918, shortly before Soto’s death.Just before World War II, the following writers appeared: EmilioAguilar Cruz, Amando Dayrit, Fidel de Castro, Jose LunaCastro, Sol Gwekoh, Crispulo Icban Jr., DiosdadoMacapagal, Sergio Navarro, Silvestre Punzalan, BelarminoNavarro, Ramon Talavera, Jose Felicisimo Yonzon, Balbinoand Simeo Talao, Roman Reyes, Brigido Sibug, AgustinBustos-Zabala, Constancio Pineda and Amado Yuzon, whowas crowned poet laureate in a literary contest held during acarnival on capitol grounds. Their works were published regularlyin weekly periodicals and magazines like the bi-lingual El Imparcial-Ing E Mangabiran, Ing Balen, Ing Alipatpat, Ing Catala, IngCatimawan, Ing Kapampangan, Ing Bandila, Ding Capampanganand Campuput. When these publications closed down, the ranksof writers began to thin as well.

After World War II, Kapampangan writers persisteddespite substantial loss of patronage. They were DelfinQuiboloy, Rosa Yumul Ogsimer, Armando Baluyut, RosarioBaluyut, Aurea Balagtas, Serafin Lacson, Lino G. Dizon(who wrote the proletarian Pasyon ding Talapagobra), CanutoTolentino, Jose Sanchez, Cecilio Layug, QuerubinFernandez and the prolific Jose Gallardo. Today, competitionsthat select poets laureate have altogether stopped; the agingpoets content themselves with writing occasionally for schoolprograms and town fiestas.

LAND OF POETS ANDPLAYWRIGHTS

Zafiro’t Rubi, Ing Anac ningKatipunan, Julio, Agosto, andSigalut. Soto’s best knownnovel is the Gothic romanceLidia, while his short storiesinclude Ing SampagangAdelfa, Ing Katala, Celia,Margarita, KuwadrongMatuling, Perlas a Matuling,the comic Miss Phathupatsand Ing Virgen king Kakewan.He edited three newspapers,El Pueblo, El Imparcial and IngAlipatpat. Literary verbaljousts in Kapampangan, thecounterpart of the Tagalogbalagtasan, are calledcrissotan, named in hishonor, although he neverwrote one. Many of his worksmirrored his intenserevolutionary fervor; he wrotefor La Independencia andserved in Gen. TomasMascardo’s army as a majorof infantry.Reference: KapampanganLiterature: A Historical Surveyand Anthology by Edna ZapantaManlapaz. Quezon City: Ateneo deManila University Press.

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Born October 13, 1867 inSto.Cristo, Guagua,Aurelioreceived early education inSan Luis, Pampanga andthen in Malolos, Bulacan;later earned Bachelor of Artsdegree at the College of SanJuan de Letran. His lawstudies at the University ofSanto Tomas cut short byhis father ’s death, hereturned to Guagua wherehe took a teaching job in aprivate school. Five yearslater, he got a job in thecourt of first instance inTondo, where he metAndres Bonifacio andother patriots. Tolentinooffered his help in theprinting and distribution ofpropaganda materials; hewas one of originalmembers of the Katipunan.

He was imprisonedfor nine months when theRevolution broke out in1896; after his release, heserved in the Bicolcampaigns of Gen. VicenteLukban; he was one of thesignatories of theDeclaration ofIndependence at Kawit,Cavite on June 12, 1898.

When thePhilippine-American Warbroke out, PresidentAguinaldo taskedTolentino with recruiting andorganizing guerillas; he wasarrested and charged withconspiracy. After his release,he continued indulging hismilitant nationalism; hecontributed editorials,articles and sketches whichwere critical of the UnitedStates. He edited twonationalist papers, La Patriaand El Liberal and foundedhis own, Filipinas, which wasclosed down and causedanother jai l term forTolentino. Afterwards, he

Because he was imprisoned nine timesfor his seditious writing; because hetrampled on the Stars and Stripes in fullview of American soldiers; because hewas the country’s first nationalistdramatist; because he proved thatthe pen is indeed mightier than the sword

53. AURELIO TOLENTINO

the cast and crew. He wascharged with sedition,sentenced to two years injail and fined $2000. In1911 Gov. WilliamCameron Forbespardoned Tolentino.

Tolentino foundedKatimawan, a laborers’cooperative, and El ParnasoFilipino, a school for thepromotion of Tagalogliterature (Tolentinoadvocated Tagalog asnational language to helpspeed up national unity).He married NatividadHilario, a fel lowKapampangan, with whomhe had four children. Hedied July 5, 1915 and wasburied at the NorthCemetery. In 1921, hisbones were transferred tothe base of his monumentin downtown Guagua.

Tolentino had 67titles to his credit, some ofwhich he rewrote indifferent genres andlanguages. For example,his Spanish 3-act dramaCrimen Sobre Crimen wasredone into a 6-actKapampangan drama IngBuac nang Ester, whichbecame a two-volumeKapampangan novel IngBuac nang Ester, which hetranslated into the TagalogAng Buhok ni Ester. All inal l, Aurel io Tolentinoproduced 33 Tagalogworks, 21 Kapampanganand 13 Spanish. HisKapampangan worksinclude Daclat Kayanakan(1911), a book ofadmonitions to the youth(e.g., how to vote wisely,patronize Fi l ipinobusinesses, goodgrooming, politeconversation, etc.);Kasulatang Gintu (1914), a

edited the Spanish-language newspapers El Pueblo and ElImparcial and their Kapampangan counterparts, Ing Balen andIng E Mangabiran.

As a playwright, Tolentino wrote the Tagalog verse dramaKahapon, Ngayon at Bukas; during its presentation at TeatroLibertad in Manila on May 14, 1903, when an actor refused tohaul down the American flag and trample on it as the scriptrequired, Tolentino went on stage and did it himself; thejampacked theatre erupted in a riot and the Americans in theaudience promptly arrested Tolentino and several members of

narrative of pre-Hispanic Pampanga, which may be a politicalallegory (with characters like Bayung Aldo and Atlung Batuin);and Napun, Ngeni at Bukas (1913), an allegorical poem whichis not to be confused with the controversial Tagalog dramapublished in 1903, but is the Kapampangan translation of aTagalog update of the former.

Source: Aurelio Tolentino: Selected Writings ed. by Edna Zapanta Manlapaz.Quezon City: University of the Philippines Library.

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Philippine-American ties were at their most cordial in theearly 1900s. To mark this harmonious period, a nationalfair was proposed. That was how the Manila Carnivalwas born in 1908—two weeks of revelry, parades,exhibits, sports competitions and crowd-drawingshows, held in February, at the old WallaceField in Luneta.

Highlighting the Carnival was thecrowning of the Carnival Queen, whoseselection was based on ballots bought andcast in her favor through privatesubscription campaigns. As such,candidates often came from affluentbackgrounds, like Pura Villanueva ofMolo, Iloilo—the future Mrs. TeodoroKalaw—who holds the distinction ofbeing the first Carnival Queen of 1908.For many winners, the title was apassport to fame, fortune and socialprominence. 1920 Queen Trinidad deLeon of Bulacan eventually marriedManuel Roxas, while 1922’s VirginiaLlamas married her escort, Carlos P.Romulo. Maria Kalaw, 1931 Queen andPura’s daughter, went on to become asuccessful senator.

In 1926, the Mani la Carnivalcommittee decided to open another MissPhilippines Contest (won by Anita Noble ofBatangas), but the luster of the original Carnivalcrown never dimmed. That year, a Kapampanganbeauty reigned supreme: Queen Socorro I.

Socorro Henson, born 29 August 1907, was theeldest of 10 children of Jose Bartolome Henson of Angelesand Encarnacion Martinez Borcena, a Spanish mestiza fromManila. Socorro had a quiet kind of beauty and her complexion,as recalled by younger brother Col. Antonio Henson, was sotranslucent that you could see delicate traces of her veins. No

54. Monico MercadoBecause this ilustrado fought in the Revolutionand wrote lofty literature as well

It is said that Monico Mercadoy Del Rosario witnessed atclose range the execution ofRizal in Bagumbayan, consoled

Rizal’s sisters and wasthe first to translateRizal’s Mi Ultimo Adiosinto Kapampangan.Mercado’s and Rizal’sforebears werebrothers—one chose tostay in Laguna andfathered Rizal’s parent,while the other, MarianoMercado, resettled inSasmuan where hemarried Catalina

Don Monico, like manyother Kapampangan poets,fought during the Revolutionunder Gen. Tomas Mascardo.His most famous work is theverse novel Quetang Milabas, inwhich he vividly depicted thetraditional practices ofKapampangans, and the playsAnino ning Milabas and Iraya oSultan ning Tundu. When theAmericans came, he helped inthe pacification campaign. Hewas elected to the PhilippineAssembly twice. He served aslegal adviser (and vicepresident) to the Guagua

National Colleges. He died onJanuary 26, 1952.

During his birthanniversary on May 4, 1966,the people of Sasmuanhonored him by holding atown celebration and erectinga marker, which was unveiledby the Director of the NationalHistorical Commission Galo B.Ocampo and attended byPampanga GovernorFrancisco Nepomuceno.

Reference: Interview with LillianMercado Lising Borromeo of Mexico.

Limpin, with whom he had fourchildren including Romulo,Monico Mercado’s father.

55. Socorro HensonBecause she started the long tradition of Kapampangan pulchritudeBy Alex R. Castro

wonder then that at the age of 19, in a glittering Hindu-Arabicthemed pageant, Socorro was chosen Carnival

Queen of 1926, the first ever Pampangueña towin a national beauty title. Her neighbors

festooned the streets of Intramuros withcolored buntings to celebrate her victory.At her coronation, she was resplendentin a beaded sari gown with amagnificent crown topped by a foot-long panache. The stately queen,seated on a howdah, was borne bya real elephant in her ceremonialevening parade. Her King Consortwas Vicente Rufino. But anotherescort from her court caught hereye: Francisco Limjap yEscolar, of the influential andsocially affluent Limjap clan fromManila. Socorro and Franciscowere married on 26 January 1928.Marriage did not deter her fromcompleting her Home Economicsdegree at the Holy Ghost College.She bore four children: Francisco

Jr.,, Baby, Josefina and Ginny.The elder Francisco died on 8 October

1975. A few months later, on 26February 1976, Socorro, the last of the

original Carnival Queens, succumbed tocancer of the throat.

It can be said that long before the nationaltriumphs of Pampanga-born binibinis and mutyas

like Myrna Panlilio, Malou Apostol, Violeta Naluz,Melanie Marquez, Abbygale Arenas, Maricel Morales,

Marilen Maristela, Darlene Carbungco and Carla GayBalingit, there was one original beauty who thrilled and captivateda whole nation 75 years ago, leaving a legacy of Kapampanganpulchritude at its finest.

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HONORARY KAPAMPANGANS

Simon Flores was the toast of the art worldin Manila when he met Monsignor IgnacioPineda Tambungi, a canon ofthe Manila Cathedral andchaplain of the San Juan deDios Hospital. Msgr.Tambungi, a Kapampanganfrom Guagua, commissionedFlores to do design andpainting jobs for churches,cemeteries and mortuaryniches which led to a churchdecorating project in Guaguaand later in Sta. Rita, Mexico,Betis and Bacolor whereSimon Flores decided to settledown, in barrio San Vicente.He had also fal len in love with themonsignor’s sister, Simplicia, whom hemarried soon afterward.

Simon Flores Flores won the silver medal in thePhiladelphia Exposition of 1876. In 1891,he bested 52 contestants to garner thehighest honors in an art contest tocommemorate the tercentenary of the birth

of St. John of the Cross.Unlike artists of meanslike Felix ResurreccionHidalgo and Juan Lunawho could afford toexhibit in the greatgalleries in Rome, Parisand Madrid, Simon Flores’homegrown purist stylewas just as expressive,virtuous and dazzling.His works includeportraits of Andrea Dayrit,Quiazon Family, Msgr.Ignacio Tambungi and

various paintings in the Betis church. Hedied March 12, 1904 from a gangrenous bitewound inflicted by a crazed student.

Eugenio Blanco

By Alex R. CastroWith a degree from Chico (California)Normal College, Luther Parker came toMasantol in 1901 as one of the earliestThomasites. In 1904 he became aninstructor at the Bacolor Trade School andits principal from 1908 to 1910. Hepossessed no formal training as a historianor as an anthropologist, but he maintaineda genuine enthusiasm for Pampanga’s pastand its contemporary culture. Hisconnection with the trade school put him intouch with Bacolor’s leading literary andpolitical figures. He undertook a field reporton the Negritos of Pampanga and otherresearches for American scholaradministrators back home, which he alsocontributed to the col lections ofanthropologist H. Otley Beyer. Hecorresponded with the renowned librarianand document compiler James A.Robertson.

His part in the creation ofKapampangan studies derived from hisresearch between 1904 and 1910 into theearliest history of the towns of Pampanga.He set about to determine the foundationdates for all of the churches in the provinceand to compile lists of all the priests in the

Colorel Eugenio Blanco, a Spanishmestizo whose mother was a Kapampanganfrom Macabebe, was the commandingofficer of the Macabebe soldiers whodefended the retreating Spanish soldiers andtheir families, including Augustinian friars,against the revolutionary troops in hotpursuit. Col. Blanco had earlier defected tothe revolution after his brother’s murder inthe hands of the Guardia Civil, but returnedto the Spanish fold when Gen. Aguinaldo

turned down his request for safe passagefor Gen. Ricardo Monet ’s family forhumanitarian reasons. Under his command,the Macabebes warded off therevolutionaries until the last Spanish soldierhad sailed off to safety, but the price hepaid was high: the town was razed to theground and hundreds of Macabebesmassacred. Col. Blanco survived to live afull life among the post-revolution peopleof Macabebe.

Old folks still remember him asApung Tenyung or the koronel, his Castiliantemper, and his being an avid sabungero.One time he heard of a batikang panyabungfrom a faraway sabungan. He did not stopuntil he had the Ilonggung sabungerusummoned to his house where, right thereand then, he bought the prized cock.Another incident was when theneighborhood kids playing tatsing disturbedhis tudtud-ugtungaldo (siesta); he gavewritten notes to the culprits which reportedlysent shivers down their and their parents’spine. Nobody would dare say what thecontents were. But the happier memoriesof townsmates were about his patronageof brass-band music; as manager of theBandang Macabebe, Col. Blanco alwaysmade sure his band won in all competitions.

He owned a piece of land in barrioSan Isidro parallel to the town’s main road,which people called banding koronel orkoronel for short. It is whispered about asthe kutkutan (burial ground) for butangerosor troublemakers. When Col. Blanco died,the whole town went out to see his casketon a horse-driven caruaje paraded aroundtown until it was brought to Manila for burial.

Col. Blanco (right) and his brotherMacabebe Mayor Jose Blanco

Luther Parker

By Kragi B. Garcia

By John A. Larkin

LutherParker

Krag

i Gar

cia

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Fray Fernando Garcia, OSA came to thePhilippines in 1875; the Augustinian Orderassigned him to the newly created parishof Victoria, Tarlac and later transferred toSan Simon, Pampanga and then Macabebe,where the Revolution found him. He wasamong the Spanish friars who took the lastboat out before the revolutionaries burnedthe town and massacred the Macabebesloyal to Spain. However, a storm blew thefriars’ boat towards Hagonoy, Bulacan,where they were captured by Gen.Aguinaldo’s troops.

Fr. Garcia joined over a hundredfriar-prisoners from other religious orders

to the town. His epistle is probably the onlyaccount of the Revolution written inKapampangan, by a Spaniard at that.

Crowd ogles at Spanish friars held captive by the revolutionaries(Turn of the Century)

Fernando Garcia, OSABy Lino L. Dizon

Fr. P

olic

arpo

Her

nand

ez

parishes from 1572 to 1905. It was in thisfocus on all Pampanga towns that the ideaof Kapampangan studies had its origins. Heconceived the idea of each municipality inthe country compiling its own local history,and he took that scheme to Robertson, thenhead of the Philippine Library. Robertsonliked the project and convinced GovernorW. Cameron Forbes to issue an executiveorder enacting Parker’s plan. Parkercol lected a set from most towns ofPampanga, which he then deposited in the

Philippine Library (eventually they came torest, after World War II, in the UP mainlibrary). Among the compilers of townhistories brought together by Parker wereFelino Simpao of Guagua, ManuelGatbonton of Candaba and MarianoVicente Henson of Angeles, whosenephew, Mariano A. Henson, who latercomposed histories of Angeles andPampanga. In 1911, Parker transferred outof Pampanga, and his project of writingKapampangan local histories ended.

herded like cattle and made to walk fromtown to town all over Luzon, paraded likewar booty and used as hostages as theAmericans, recently victorious over Spain,pursued Aguinaldo’s army. During amoment of confusion high up in theMountain Province, he and other priestsescaped, took a boat to Manila and fled tothe safety of the San Agustin Convent inIntramuros until a deal was made amongthe key players of the Revolution, includingthe Vatican.

Fr. Garcia wrote his memoirs inKapampangan, addressed to hisparishioners in Macabebe, where he cameback as parish priest when peace returned

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Pedro Danganan ofSapangbato, Angeles achievednational fame as Apo Iro, “angmanggagamot ng Pampanga.”His parents, AlejandroDanganan and EusebiaSamonte, were from Angelesand Guagua, respectively.After her widowed mother tookhim on a pilgrimage to Antipolo,where the frail boy reportedlyput his arms around the Virgin’simage, Pedro’s healing powersbecame evident. His firstpatient was his own mother,whom he cured of paralysis.

57. PedroDangananBecause he was the country’s celebrated faith healer in pre-war years

56. Honorio VenturaBecause his philanthropy helped one studentbecome the President of the Republic

By Alex R. Castro Alex Castro

His public ministry in pre-waryears unnerved medicalpractitioners, and estampitasbearing his image sold likehotcakes.

Apo Iro’s penchantfor making suggestivecomments to women provedhis own undoing. He shockedwomen by asking thempointblank to marry him andbear his children. His followersabandoned him after he gotmarried. He retired to Guaguawhere he spent the rest of hisdays peddling vegetables.

By Fray Francis Musni, OSA

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“Enigmatic Elements in a Landscape”(left) by Salvador Dali(upper right); “Church of St. Aignan at Chartes” by MauriceUtrillo (lower right)

Today, nobody knows itswhereabouts, but in 1939,Vicente Alvarez Dizon’sAfter the Day’s Toil wasthe hottest painting in theworld. It had just wonfirst prize in theInternational Competitionon Contemporary Art heldat the Gallery of Scienceand Art at the Golden GateExposition in SanFrancisco, California. NewYork’s InternationalBusiness MachinesCorporation, a.k.a. IBM,sponsored the contestwhich drew entries from 79 countries. Among the entries wereEnigmatic Elements in a Landscape by the great Spanish surrealistSalvador Dali and Church of St. Aignan at Chartes by famousFrench impressionist Maurice Utrillo. Dali’s work only placedsecond to the Kapampangan painter’s entry.

Only weeks earlier, in another IBM-sponsored artcompetition held at the World Fair in New York, another Filipinopainter, Fernando Amorsolo, garnered first prize, proving Filipinoartists’ eminent position in the world even in those early years.Unfortunately, as Dizon observed, only very few of his countrymenunderstood and appreciated art.

He suggested that art appreciation be made apart of the curricula in public schools. “In thisway,” he wrote, “there will be awakened in theearly life of our youth, an aesthetic sense andappreciation for arts.” He wrote two books on

the subject matter, Living As An Art and Art Education andAppreciation, which was used as a textbook at the NationalTeachers College. He said, however, that aside from instruction,a cohesive museum system should be established in the countryso that local museums should not be mere storage of art worksbut dynamic exhibit areas so that people from all walks of lifecould understand and appreciate art. The public, especially thepoor, he said, needed “an institution, a civic center—a museumwhere they may go during Sundays or their free hours, insteadof going to gambling houses and dancing saloons.”

“After The Day’s Toil”

58. VICENTE ALVAREZ DIZONBecause, realizing the irony of a country ofmany art geniuses and no art aficionados,he pioneered the teaching of art appreciationin the Philippines; because his historicalcostume researches and paintingshelped preserve a cultural heritage;and because this Kapampangan painterbeat Salvador Dali and Maurice Utrilloin an international competition

Born in Malate in 1905, Dizon was, at 16, already a paidillustrator for prewar magazines like Graphic, Liwayway (where

he il lustrated the stories of LolaBasyang), Free Press, and Woman’sHome Journal. He won first prize inan art exhibition held at the ManilaCarnival of 1927; he graduated fromthe UP School of Fine Arts in 1928,where he was head caricaturist of thePhilippine Collegian. After graduation,he immersed himself in research onindigenous costumes. He executed 39watercolor paintings he collectivelyentitled Filipino Costumes 1500-1935.His work earned him the recognition ofhis peers, and a scholarship from YaleUniversity in Connecticut, where hegraduated with a degree Bachelor ofFine Arts after only one-and-a-halfyears (instead of the usual three). LordBarnby, President of the LondonUniversity, also offered him $10,000 forthe paintings, which he declined.

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59. Vicente ManansalaBecause his leadership and visionredefined Philippine artThis barber’s son was born inMacabebe on January 22, 1910but at age 4 the entire familyrelocated to Intramuros wherehe was tutored by RamonPeralta, TeodoroBuenaventura, PabloAmorsolo, FernandoAmorsolo, Fabian de laRosa and other masters. Heleft painting for a while to workas a mess boy aboard the linerSilver Palm, which was hisopportunity to see the world.He earned a diploma in arts at

Born August 17, 1889 in Bacolor, he attended the private schoolof Don Modesto Joaquin in Bacolor and completed segundaenseñanza in Liceo de Manila in 1906. He enrolled in the Escuelade Derecho, choosing the law course because he wanted todefend the cause of those who had less in life; he passed thebar at age 21, thus becoming the youngest practicing attorneyin the Philippines that year. He was appointed Justice of thePeace in Bacolor but resigned in protest against the unjustand rigid enforcement of quarantine regulations by Americansoldiers, especially among the poor. He was appointed DeputyProvincial Fiscal in 1913 and resigned in 1914. He decided he

could help his people byrunning for Congressinstead. He was electedRepresentative for the FirstDistrict of Pampanga in 1919but retired to private life in1922. In 1931, he returnedto public service and won asGovernor of Pampanga.Realizing he could do moreas governor, he ran againand was re-elected in 1934.He served as Senator from1947 to 1953.Reference: Encyclopedia of thePhilippines, Vol. XVII, ed. ByZoilo M. Galang. Manila: ExequielFloro.

60. Pablo Angeles DavidBecause all his life, he championedthe poor and the oppressed

While in Yale, he became the first Filipino elected to theschool’s exclusive fraternity of artists called Phi Alpha, the firstFilipino artist invited to become a member of the NationalGeographic Society of America in recognition of his historicalcostume paintings, and the first Filipino to become an associatemember of the American Museum of National History. He alsowon first prize in Major Bowes’ Amateur Hour program over NBCin Radio City by playing musical instruments.

When he returned to the Philippines, he taught at theNational Teachers College and at the Mapua Institute ofTechnology; he also was part of the committee tasked to reorganizethe UP School of Fine Arts in 1938.

Dizon introduced finger painting in the Philippines, whichhe propagated throughout the country through lectures anddemonstrations. He was also known for his “chalk talk” lecturescopied by many today, in which someone from the audience isasked to sketch any form or line on the blackboard and the artistwould transform it into a meaningful figure.

But After the Day’s Toil continues to be Dizon’s greatestlegacy. After the competition, the painting went on a world tourof IBM offices, including the one in Ermita, Manila, before goingon permanent display at the IBM Gallery of Fine Arts in New York.In 1968, IBM unloaded some of its art collections to American artgalleries. The Dizon painting went to Hirschl Adler Gallery in NewYork, which sold it to an anonymous collector. Dizon died October19,1947 in Angeles at age 42.

Reference: The Legacy of Vicente Alvarez Dizon by Ruben Defeo in PhilippineStar, February 5, 2001. Additional notes by Eric Dizon.

Jose Leoncio de Leon y Hizon, born September 12, 1867 in Bacolor,was a humble tenant who made his first step to success by puttingup a small-town bazaar, the El Indispensable, from savings. Itattracted Spaniards and prominent citizens who liked de Leon’spersonalized service to his customers (he sometimes walked severalmiles to replace a defective lamp purchased from his store). Thebazaar, and everything else he owned, was destroyed during theRevolution, and De Leon had to work in the farm to pay off debts.Although he could have easily filed for bankruptcy as the store’sloss was due to an act of war, De Leon honored all his debts.Thus, his credit standing in Pampanga and Manila becameunquestioned; even the reputable London firm Clayton andShuttleworth, for which he had become an agent, was impressed.In 1917, Americans from Hawaii built a sugar mill in Del Carmen,Pampanga; De Leon thought that if foreigners could do it, so couldhe. He convinced many Kapampangans to invest in a venture ledby him, among whom were Jose Escaler, Augusto Gonzalesand Manuel Urquico. In 1918, he founded the Pampanga SugarDevelopment Company (PASUDECO), which has become one ofthe largest sugar mills in the Philippines. De Leon became asuccessful businessman without formal education and politicalconnection. After his murder on July 12, 1939, unknown peoplestarted showing up at his wake—beneficiaries, it turned out, ofhis unpublicized philanthropy.Reference: “Historically Speaking” by Jose N. de Leon III in Philippine Star, July28, 1990.

Because he personified the best qualitiesof Kapampangan entrepreneurship

61. Jose Leoncio de Leon

UP in 1930. After World WarII, Manansala organized theThirteen Moderns, an artists’group that includedHernando Ocampo, CesarLegaspi, Alfredo Roces andAnita Magsaysay-Ho,whose styles challenged theprevailing emphasis on realismand ushered in modernism.He received fellowships whichenabled him to study abroad,and earned a slew of awards,including the ultimate NationalArtist Award in 1981, given

posthumously (he diedAugust 22 that year).His legacy ofmasterpieces includesthe statue of theCrucified Christ at the St.Andrew’s Church in Bel-Air, the mural entitled“Development forProgress” at theDevelopment Bank ofthe Philippines, variousmurals at theInternational RiceResearch Institute at LosBaños, and the Stationsof the Cross at the UPchapel. (Alex R. Castro)

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63. Zoilo HilarioBecause he revolutionized Kapampanganorthography

Jose Gutierrez David was one of the first 19 graduates of Pampanga High School in 1912;only a few months later, he married Concepcion Roque with whom he eventually hadseven children. Juggling his time between his young family, his job as a working studentand his law studies, he graduated at the top of his class and passed the bar in 1916. Helearned Spanish on his own, since most judges and lawyers at the time used only Spanish.He opened a tiny law office with one decrepit typewriter and slowly built his reputation;only two years later, he became an Auxiliary Justice of the Peace in San Fernando, waselected municipal councilor and continued to practice law for the next 20 years. He becameone of the framers of the 1935 Constitution (having chaired the committee on impeachment),and afterward was appointed district judge of the Court of First Instance by PresidentQuezon, Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals by President Roxas, Presiding Justiceof the Court of Appeals by President Magsaysay, Associate Justice of the Supreme Courtby President Garcia. Jose Gutierrez was also a prolific poet, playwright and stage actor;his best known poem is Tuqui Ca Baculud, a paean to his idyllic hometown, and his playsinclude Amanda, a one-act zarzuela; Migdusang e Micasala, a verse drama; and IngIndependencia, a three-act nationalistic play. Together with Crisostomo Soto, he editedthe Kapampangan magazine Ing Balen and the Kapampangan-Spanish newspaper IngE Mangabiran-El Imparcial. Before he died on March 24, 1977, he wrote an unpublishedmemoirs which contains anecdotes about the guardia civil, the Katipuneros, Thomasites,and houseguests Manuel Quezon, Juan Luna, Epifanio de los Santos and Jose Palma.His life and accomplishments had spanned several regimes in history: the Spanish, thePhilippine Revolution, the American, the Japanese Occupation, the Philippine Republic andMartial Law. Reference: Biographies of Famous Kapampangans by Alejandro Camiling.

He was born in SanFernando on June 27, 1892but grew up in Bacolor,where he discovered hisliterary calling. He studiedin the private school ofHilarion Cañiza of Dagupanand in the school ofModesto Joaquin in Bacolor,later transferring to Liceode Manila and the Escuelade Derecho where he tookup law. He passed the barin 1911, was electedcouncilor in Bacolor andthen worked as secretary ofthe Provincial Board ofPampanga from 1925 to1931, when he won asrepresentative for thesecond district. As a poet,

64. Jose Gutierrez DavidBecause one lifetime was simply not enough for him

Born in Bacolor on June 27,1895, Zoilo MercadoGalang was educated in theBacolor Elementary School,Trade School of Pampanga,Pampanga High School andEscuela de Derecho deManila where he graduatedin 1919. He learned typingand stenography in Englishand Spanish by himself; heattended a special coursein English at the Universityof the Philippines in 1925and an advanced course onliterature at ColumbiaUniversity, New York in1926. He toured the worldin 1926-1928. He authoredbooks of fiction, biography

62. Zoilo GalangBecause he put together the first Philippineencyclopedia and wrote the first Philippinenovel in English

he wrote two volumes of poems: Adelfas and Patria y Redencion.He was crowned poet laureate of Pampanga for his poem Ing Babai.He also served as editor of El Imparcial and El Paladin andcontributed to various newspapers in Pampanga and Manila. Hefounded the fraternities Katipunan Mipanampun and LaborantesCivicos. But it was his mimeographed Bayung Sunis (1962) thatrevolutionized Kapampangan orthography by arguing effectivelythat the Kapampangans had possessed the required alphabet andorthography before the Spaniards came, and therefore advocatedthe use of k instead of the Hispanized c and q, which many hadthought to be the original Kapampangan spelling (in fact, the pre-Spanish Kapampangans used a syllabary of Devanagari origin,similar to the one still used by Bornean tribes) His being a memberof the Institute of National Language helped him advance his cause.Reference: Encyclopedia of the Philippines, Vol. XVII, ed. By Zoilo M. Galang.Manila: Exequiel Floro,Kapampangan Writing: A Selected Compendium andCritique by Evangelina Hilario-Lacson.Manila: National Historical Institute.

and philosophy, such as AChild of Sorrow (the first English novel written by a Filipino, madeinto a movie in 1930), Nadia, For Dreams Must Die, Springtime,Leaders of the Philippines, Glimpses of the World, Life andSuccess, Master of Destiny, Unisophy, Barrio Life, and others.He is the first Filipino novelist in English. His early poems werepublished in E Mangabiran. But his greatest work is the 10-volumeEncyclopedia of the Philippines, which he edited, first publishedin 1934-36, with a second edition in 1948 (destroyed by fire), anda third 20-volume edition in 1949-58. Galang is the first Filipino toedit and write portions of a Philippine encyclopedia, which dealswith Philippine literature, biography, commerce and industry, art,education and religion, government and politics, science, history,builders of the new Philippines, and general information and index.

Reference: “Introduction” by Camilo Osias in Encyclopedia of the Philippines,Vol. XVII, ed. by Zoilo M. Galang. Manila: Exequiel Floro. Notes by Alex Castro

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65. Amado YuzonBecause he was a true renaissance man

Born in Guagua on August 30, 1906, Amado Magcalas Yuzon was one of those rarebreed of Kapampangans who could run a business, dabble in politics, practice law,write poems, edit newspapers and perform on stage all at the same time. He finishedtwo graduate programs: Master of Arts summa cum laude and Master of Science inBusiness Administration, again summa cum laude; he finished law cum laude and passedthe bar in 1939. He got his Doctor of Literature degree in London; afterwards hetaught at Far Eastern University and at Quezon College (now MLQU). He representedthe first district of Pampanga in 1946-49; as congressman, he introduced the MagnaCarta of Labor after the war. He edited the newspapers Ing Catuliran, La Libertadand the poetry magazine Laurel Leaves which had an international circulation. Hepublished a collection of poems entitled Salitang Paca-Versu and translated works ofShakespeare, Omar Khayyam, Tagore, Euripides, Sophocles, Hugo, Sappho, Edgar AllanPoe, Longfellow, Rizal, etc. He wrote and recited poems in four Filipino and threeEuropean languages. He was crowned Poet Laureate of the Philippines in 1959 andPoet Laureate of the World at the World Congress of Poets in 1969. He convincedMalacañang in 1965 to proclaim a National Poetry Day; was honored as the MostOutstanding Man of Letters of the Philippines in 1962, being the only one who couldcrown poets laureate in any region in the country.. The Pampanga Provincial Boardpassed a resolution proclaiming him Ari ning Parnaso and Ari ning Crissotan for life. Hedied January 17, 1979 and was buried in his hometown.Reference: Biographies of Famous Kapampangans by Alejandro Camiling.

66. JoaquinAlejandrino

Because he gave up his life forhis country. He was just amonth old when his father, Capt.Isabelo del Rosario, wasexecuted by the Americans. Hegrew up in the care of hismaternal uncle, Pedro AbadSantos, who tutored him onsocialist ideas. He won as mayorof Angeles in 1940 during thewave of socialism sweeping theprovince. He was arrested bythe Japanese when the warbroke out and imprisoned at FortSantiago. When he refused toswear al legiance to theJapanese flag, he was executedin March, 1942. He was 41 yearsold.

68. Agapitodel Rosario

67. VivencioCuyuganBecause he was the firstSocial ist mayor in thePhilippines. Vivencio Cuyugany Baron co-founded theSocialist movement in thecountry. He was elected mayorof San Fernando in 1938; thewar interrupted his term but hewas reinstated in 1945.However, the Americansreplaced him after he wasquoted as saying that theHukbalahap would never laydown their arms.

69. PedroSantosBecause he was the firstKapampangan to become anArchbishop, in 1951, two yearsahead of Rufino CardinalSantos. Born Pedro PabloSantos y Songco in Porac, hewas ordained in 1913, becamethe parish priest of Bacolor(where he founded St. Mary’sAcademy in 1919) and Angeles(where he founded Holy AngelUniversity in 1933). In 1938,he became the Bishop ofNueva Caceres (where hefounded Ateneo de Naga), andin 1951, Pope Pius XIInamed him the firstArchbishop of Nueva Caceres.

Because he fought the Span-iards and later the Americansas a ranking military officer.When the Spaniards surren-dered and demanded to betreated as prisoners of war inaccordance to the Geneva Con-vention, he told them, “We arenot signatories to the Tratadode Ginebra (Geneva Conven-tion). We recognize no ginebraother than that sold in flasks!”Later, he ran as a Socialist can-didate but lost; he migrated toMindanao, where he died in1942. Jose Alejandrino wrotethat his brother “renderedgreater services to the countrythan I did, yet he is much lessknown than I am.”

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70. SoteroBaluyut

71. BenignoAquino, Sr.

72. EmigdioCruz

Because he became, in 1932,the President of the PhilippineChamber of Commerce, thehighest post a local merchant

Because he was a prolific writerof Kapampangan culture andhistory. A native of Angeles,“Katoks” Tayag graduated fromthe UP College of Law in 1939with friend Ferdinand Marcos,with whom he also passed thebar in 1940 and with whom hestarted a law firm soonafterward. He served asDirector of the Phil ippineNational Bank for 19 years untilhis death in 1985. He authoredmany highly readable books,including Recollections andDigressions and The Sinners ofAngeles, as well as wrotecountless newspaper andmagazine articles, mostlydealing with local history andculture.

75. GaloOcampo

Because he made the countryget interested in its history;this Angeleño headed theNational Library for 21 yearsand the National HistoricalInstitute for 13 years; he wasresponsible for the Institute’snew sense of direction in termsof staff development andupgrading of collection.

Occupation, he was appointedmember of the Council of Stateas well as Speaker and Director-General of the KALIBAPI(Kapisanan ng Paglilingkod saBayan). He died in Manila onDecember 20, 1947.

Because he fast-trackedPampanga’s development byundertaking massivecementing of highways.Baluyut was an engineer whobecame Governor of Pampangain 1925 and reelected in 1928.he was called the Father of theNational Electric Power andDevelopment Company. Hewon as Senator in 1931 andbecame President Quezon’sSecretary of Public Works andPresident Quirino’s Secretary ofInterior.

Because he was one of the firstadvocates of Filipinism bypushing for the independenceof the Philippines when he wasa senator (before the war).Born in Concepcion, Tarlac onSeptember 3, 1894 and the sonof General Servillano Aquino,Benigno Sr. finished law at theUniversity of Santo Tomas in1918; he was a representativeto the Philippine Assembly from1919 to 1928 and majorityleader and senator from 1928-1941. During the Japanese

Because he was, in the wordsof Gen. Douglas MacArthur,“the most important agent toenter the (Japanese-occupiedPhilippine) Islands” in 1942. Hepenetrated Manila to contact theCommonwealth officials leftbehind to verify rumors that theyhad switched allegiance. Laterhe fought as a guerilla until heescaped back to Austral iaaboard a US submarine in 1944.This Arayat-born patriot was theprivate physician of PresidentQuezon; he was instrumentalin showing him the tract of landthat later became Kaledian,Quezon’s hacienda and resthouse at the foot of MountArayat.

73. GonzaloPuyat

74. RenatoTayag

could aspire for. A native ofGuagua, he started as anemployee in a billiard hall, thenput up a repair shop for billiards,then expanded tomanufacturing billiard tables,barber’s chairs and dentist’schairs. His son Gil Puyatbecame the head of theNacionalista Party and SenatePresident.

Because he designed thePhilippine Republic coat-of-arms and the seals of thePresident and the VicePresident, as well as those ofprovinces and cities. Ocampo,born 1913 in Sta. Rita, was theonly Filipino to study heraldry;he was a painter, mosaicist,stained glass artist and discipleof Surrealism. His best knownwork is the Brown Madonna(1938) which Filipinized theimage of the Blessed Mother,creating a stir among Churchofficials. (Alex R. Castro)

76. SerafinQuiason

Because he was a pioneer inmodern architecture. In

77. FernandoOcampo

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80. Juan and Teresa NepomucenoBecause their partnership powered the first cityof the Kapampangan Region

79. JuanFlores

78. BobRazon

partnership with TomasArguelles, Ocampo, a nativeof San Fernando, formed hisown archictectural firm in1928. In 1930, he founded theU.S.T. School of Architectureand was a member of theBoard Exams from 1929-1930.His contributions to Philippinearchitecture were honored witha Gold Medal of Merit from thePhil ippine Institute ofArchitects in 1953. His bestknown work is thereconstruction of the ManilaCathedral in the 1950s. Helikewise restored the Cathedral of San Fernandoafter it was destroyed by firein 1939. Among his commercialprojects, the Arguelles Bldg.along Rizal Avenue, Cu-unjiengBldg. in Escolta and AngelaApartments along Roxas Blvd.

Because he started thewoodcarving industry in his

Because he was the Dean ofPortraiture in the Philippines; asearly as 1946 he was a popularphotographer of celebrities; in

1985 he discovered use of acanvas and oil technique (COT)to enhance print blowups; nativeof Mabalacat.

Because their partnership powered the first cityof the Kapampangan RegionBy Erlita P. Mendoza

Two of the most remarkableKapampangans in the 20th

century who shaped localsociety, as wel l as themindscape and soulscape ofAngeles and Pampanga, werethe spouses Juan D.Nepomuceno (1892-1973) andTeresa Gomez Nepomuceno(1893-1970).

Married March 19,1919 on the Feast of St.Joseph, theirs became apartnership which, by preceptand example, insti l led

made education accessible tolocals who could not afford tostudy in Manila. Before WorldWar II, they also set up theReina-Aurora Softdrinks Factory,which had a distribution base ofPampanga and Bataan, and aBurlap Sack Factory, whichprovided industrial-grade sacksto farmers and sellers in theregion and the production ofwhich gave jobs to the womenof Angeles.

The post-war yearssaw the rise of the Villa TeresaSubdivision (1965), the premiereresidential address in the newlychartered city, and Nepo MartCommercial Complex (1968),the central district of businessand commerce of thisKapampangan urban axis.

Juan and TeresaNepomuceno were also knownfor their philanthropy; it is saidthat people lined up at the doorof their house for their daily rice,salt, sugar, etc. as well as forcatechism and quick fix for avariety of ailments, for whichTeresa seemed to have beengifted. They also had fundsready for scholarships,improvement of hospitals andupkeep of local churches.

Like the Cojuangcos,Osmeñas and other larger-than-li fe Fil ipino families, theNepomucenos of Angeles couldtake credit for the developmentof the region but unlike them,they seem to possess notendency to create a politicaldynasty to extend their influencebeyond what Juan and TeresaNepomuceno had originallyintended.

philanthropy among their 10children and created theacademic and business-industrial institutions that haveempowered (literally as well asfiguratively) Angeles and itsenvirons for almost a centurynow. They were a pioneeringcouple who set up enterprisesthat illustrate the spirit of civicnationalism while maintainingtheir lay religiosity, which seemsto be the hallmark of old familiesin Pampanga.

The Teresa Ice Plant(1921) contributed to thegrowth of Angeles as a thrivingstation-town and distributingcenter of the Manila-DagupanRailways, while the AngelesElectric Corporation (1923)provided electric power to thecommunity and transformed the19th-century gas-lit pueblo toone of the country’s brightestcities. Holy Angel University(1933), the first Catholic schoolrun by laypersons in the country,

80. Juan and Teresa Nepomuceno

stand out for their sleek art decodesign. (Alex R. Castro)

hometown Betis; his carvings,which adorn palaces, hotelsand churches both here andabroad, have spawned ageneration of imitators. Thethree large wood and glasschandeliers in the CeremonialHall of the Malacañang Palace,considered masterpieces ofPhilippine artistry in wood,were carved and installed byJuan Flores in 1979. Histownsmates, whom he trainedin his shop, have carried on thewoodcarving tradition whichhas sustained the cultural andeconomic life of barangay Sta.Ursula in particular and Betisin general. Flores was muchpublicized in Europe and theUnited States when he won a1972 sculpting competitionorganized by the University ofCalifornia.

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Gregorio Singian of Santo Tomas, called “The Father of Philippine Surgery” byhistorian Gregorio Zaide; he fought in the Philippine-American War and later foundedthe Anti-Cancer League of the PhilippinesRoman Santos y Rodriguez of Apalit founded Prudential Bank and Trust Co. in1952 and other major insurance companies.Vidal Tan, Sr. of Bacolor, a math wizard and poet, became Dean of two Collegesof the University of the Philippines: College of Arts and Sciences and College ofEngineering; also President of the University of the Philippines and Far EasternUniversityRicardo C. Galang of Apalit led intelligence operations in Palawan during WorldWar II; one time he changed the position of a road sign at night which misled threeenemy truck convoys into a narrow dead-end, allowing US planes to strafe them.His uncle, Ricardo E. Galang, an ethnographer, became the dean of UP’s Collegeof Anthropology.Josefina Gonzales of Apalit, elevated Kapampangan fashion to art; the daughterof Roberta Tablante Paras, originator of the RT Paras Dressmaking Schoolironically never learned to sew, she only cut and fitted but she went on to becomea doyenne of couture.Bienvenido M. Gonzales of Apalit was the sixth President of the University of thePhilippinesAmelito R. Mutuc of Arayat, Philippine Ambassador to the United States, waselected President of the World Law Association in 1977Tina Santos, prima ballerina of Harkness Ballet, toured Europe and the UnitedStates as solo dancer of the San Francisco Ballet; her sister Cecile was an earlyBroadway performerCarlos Valdes of Bacolor put up the country’s most prestigious accounting firmEstelito Mendoza of Bacolor, Governor, Solicitor General, Justice Secretary, andabove all, a true patron of Kapampangan art and literatureAber Canlas supervised the construction of the Folk Arts Theatre, which stood onland reclaimed from the sea and finished in 77 days, in time for the Miss UniversePageant in 1974Fe S. Panlilio of Mexico was a world-famous gemologist and philanthropistBren Z. Guiao of Magalang started his stint as governor of Pampanga in 1986when the nation had just been unshackled from a dictatorship, and ended in 1995after he effectively supervised the province’s recovery from the Pinatubo disasterVicente Catacutan of Apalit founded the Apalit Small Christian Communities(ASCOM) in 1980, one of the country’s top innovative development organizations,as well as the ASCOM Multi-Purpose Cooperative which initiated livelihood programsfor farmers, factory workers and small merchantsManuel Pangilinan of Apalit, President and CEO of the Philippine Long DistanceTelephone Co. (PLDT) and one of the most influential businessmen in the countrytodayCid Caesar Victor Reyes of Apalit, adjudged art critic of the year by the ArtAssociation of the Philippines; publisher of Larawan Publishing HouseBeatriz “Patis” Tesoro of Angeles is a leading fashion guru whose advocacy forthe use of indigenous materials and designs has helped put the country on thefashion mapBen Cabrera (a.k.a. Bencab) of Sasmuan, internationally known visual artistnow based in Baguio CityClaude Tayag of Angeles whose watercolor and acrylic paintings, wood and rattansculptures, furniture designs and serigraphs have made him one of the mostrespected and influential Filipino visual artistsPepe Baltazar of Sasmuan made the folksy brass band a Kapampangan culturalmainstay by founding Banda 31, which became nationally famousGang Gomez of San Fernando, the Philippines’ top fashion designer now aBenedictine monk in Bukidnon (known as Dom Martin de Jesus, OSB); he recentlypublished a book on vestments using indigenous materialsLea Salonga of Angeles (father is from Porac), star of Broadway and West EndEfren “Bata” Reyes of Betis (later, Angeles) won the 1999 World Professional 9-Ball Pool Championship in Cardiff, Wales; together with fellow Kapampangan fromTarlac, Francisco Bustamante, made billiard respectable againReferences: Armando Regala’s Homepage; Alejandro Camiling’s Homepage; notes from Alex Castroand newspaper clippings

Men of influence,women of substance

Mariano Angel Henson, the noted local historianof Pampanga, was born in Angeles on October3, 1897. His parents were Jose Pedro Hensonand Maxima Rosario Sadie.

Henson is best known for hismonumental work The Province of Pampangaand Its Towns (A.D. 1300 – 1962). Typewrittenand mimeographed, the book providescomprehensive data on Kapampangan studies,particularly on local and church histories of eachmunicipality as well as on the former territoriesof the Kapampangan region. Containing wellresearched details, the book has seen severaleditions through the years and is one of themost indispensable reference books inKapampangan Studies, along with John A.Larkin’s The Pampangans .

Henson also wrote A Brief History ofAngeles City, a monograph with a Kapampanganversion (Ing Pangatatag ning Balen Angeles).He has also a string of publications on otherfacets of Kapampangan studies, includingABCDE Capampañgan (Pampango Primer),Tastes and Ways of a Pampango (onKapampangan culinary arts), Evolution ofPampango Writing over the Centuries, andEjercicio Cotidiano (Daily Spiritual Retreat inPampango).

He was also a prolific genealogist. Anumber of endeavors in this field include thegenealogies of Eugenio Juco and Maria Davidof Guagua, the Gatbontons of Candaba, theHensons of Pampanga, Mariano Cruz deMiranda and Magdalena Ticsay of Santa Rita,and Francisco de los Santos and Luisa Gonzagade Leon (the Kapampangan translator ofEjercicio Cotidiano in the 1840s).

Henson also wrote on diverse topicslike agriculture, mathematics, and recreationalgames.

81. Mariano A. HensonBecause he launched the modernera of Kapampangan StudiesBy Lino L. Dizon

Josie Henson

He died on July 5, 1975.

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82. Jose GallardoBecause he was the most prolific and influentialKapampangan writer of his generation

Jose MauroGal lardo yManapul (1918-1986) was the sonof a poor farmerwho directedkumedyas inbarrio Gulap inCandaba. Theylived in a kubunggarosa, a hutdoubling as acarabao-dr ivengareta duringw a t e r m e l o nharvest season;when Jose was 8,

they moved to the house of his widowed eldest brother Laureano.Due to poverty, Gallardo was not able to go beyond

elementary school, but at 14 he could memorize poems publishedin Catimawan and Liwayway magazines, and at 16 he started writingfor Bulaklak, and at 17, he wrote his first verse narrative Apat aBanua, the story of his first love. He had developed a talent forpublic speaking and had become an avid fan of Kapampanganpoets Amado Yuzon, Roman Reyes and Isaac Gomez. Hewas elected first councilor of Candaba at 22; when World War IIbroke out he joined the HUKBALAHAP as a ranking officer. Afterthe war, Gallardo became involved in theatre as writer, directorand actor. Among his early plays were Ing Pugante, Torneo, Siculining Camatayan and Linamnam ning Pait.

He wrote 200 poems, 26 plays and zarzuelas, 30 crissotans,6 novels and countless short stories, but his best known work is

Crucifijong Pilak, staged more than 100 times between 1956 and1972 (all productions directed by him).

He won the Yuzon trophy at Torneo Poetico in Sto. Cristo,Guagua in 1950, was the Ari ning Crissotan in 1952 and wasdeclared Ari ning Parnaso, successor to Amado Yuzon, in 1979—the highest literary honor than can be achieved by Kapampanganpoets, which is for life.

Gallardo invented malikwatas (short for malikmatangkawatasan), or magic poems, in which a single poem can berearranged to become several new poems. In 1961, he revivedCompania Ocampo in Candaba; it was suspended in 1972 whenmartial law curfews made it difficult to stage plays after dark. In1964, he helped organized the Aguman ding TalasulatKapampangan (AGTAKA); he edited the two-page spread IngSiuala, the Kapampangan section of the community paper TheVoice. At a time when the Kapampangan long narrative form waslosing its popularity, he wrote the hugely popular Alas Diez ningBengi and Burac a Guintu.

According to anthologist Edna Manlapaz, Gallardo was“the only playwright of the postwar period who achieved a relativedegree of eminence.” With the proliferation of movies andtelevision, Kapampangans watched Kapampangan plays less andless; the closure of Kapampangan magazines and newspapersfurther discouraged poets and short story writers. Gallardo,however, continued to churn out new scripts and poems, shiftingto radio and Tagalog whenever necessary. He had burned hisbridges behind him and literature was the only thing he knewhow to do.

Before he died on January 8, 1986, he organized theLigligan Pamanyulat Kapampangan, a project of Gov. EstelitoMendoza. Most of the last remaining Kapampangan poets todayhave been influenced by his style of writing and delivery.

The barrio of Balitucan lies at the aslagan,or the extreme eastside, of the town Magalang inPampanga, near the Tarlac town of Concepcion.Although known officially as San Ildefonso, its peopleprefer the pre-Hispanic place-name which theyattribute to balitug (cornfritters), a Kapampangandelicacy of dried, sugar-powdered corn kernel—thesynthesis, actually, of the two main products of theplace: corn and sugar cane. But there are those whobelieve that it was derived from the Ilokano balituk orgold. This substantiates yet another historical tale thatthe pioneering settlers were actually Ilokano migrantsfrom the province of Nueva Ecija, and not the presentlydominant Kapampangans from Central Pampanga. Theethno-linguistic barriers and merges notwithstanding,the amber fields reflecting a golden resplendence atharvest time make Balitucan live up to its name.

Balitucan appears in a list of Magalang barriosin 1853, but so does San Ildefonso, which means theystarted separately but eventually merged. There is anexpediente in the National Archives concerning arequest of the people to form a barrio named SanFulgencio apart from barrio San (Y)ldefonso to becomposed of sitios Balincutan(sic), Turu, and Baludand this was dated June 10, 1876. A follow-up

By Lino L. Dizon

trek

Balitucanas Dalan-Sinukuan:Where insurgents trekthe road to freedomand cultists walk the path to mysticism

52

(solicitud) was also on file, dated August 18, 1877. It is obviousthat these motions did not materialize.

Balitucan, which straddles the three provinces of Tarlac,Nueva Ecija, and Pampanga , is the largest barangay of Magalangin terms of land area. It consists of eight sitios whose provenancesare somehow reflective of the idiosyncrasies of their geographicalsettings. These are Pasiro (patiro, or contoured?) , Balud (balut, aduck-egg delicacy conjuring a river setting?), Malatumbaga (a hugetree), Balibago (another tree, Paritium tiliaceum, thriving alongstreams), Sua (suha, a type of citrus fruit), Turu (toro, or bull, butit could be turo, the tree Ardisia squamulosa), Kabayung Sarul(horse-plow, a variant to the more common carabao-plow) andMalabug (dirty water; suggestive of a swamp). Interestingly, thelatter, together with Almendras and Sabanang Tugui, was identifiedby the Augustinian historians Cavada and Font as the original siteof Macapsa (a balen-balenan or proto-town) that gave birthto San Bartolome deMagalang in the 17thcentury and the binarytowns of San Pedro deMagalang andConcepcion. Due tothe Malong Rebellionof 1660 (wherein theleader ’s aide-de-camp, Melchor deVera, with an army of6,000, marched toMacaualu [now thebarrio of Santiago, inConcepcion, Tarlac]).Macapsa, in theBalitukan area, wasabandoned andbecame for some timea despoblado (ghost-town). Of etymologicalinterest here is thatthe sit io ofMalatumbaga ispopularly known asPitabacan (lit. ‘a placewhere a bolo wasused’); aside from itsbeing, geographically,a sharp junction toBalitucan, it couldhave been the site ofa battle that

his bastion on top of Mt. Arayat to complement the Sierra Madrelair of the supreme revolutionary council, the Biak-na-batogovernment of General Emilio Aguinaldo in San Miguel de Mayumo,Bulacan. General Makabulos and his troops, which included his aide-de-camp, Major Servillano Aquino and the Filipino-Chineserevolutionary, Jose Ignacio Pawa or Hao A-pao, settled in sitioKamansi, a densely wooded plateau on the slopes of the mountain.On the Piedra Blanca they built houses and barracks for the troops.The Makabulos camp, 500 meters in length and camouflaged bylush rainforests, served as the watchpoint for the whole CentralLuzon plain.

The Spaniards under General Fernando Primo deRivera used the Balitucan path in the last quarter of 1897 to getto the Makabulos fortress, which they had to destroy to get theupper-hand in their Central Luzon campaign. As early as mid-

September of 1897,Colonel JoaquinMilans de Bosch andhis aides, Lt. Cols.Carbo and OlaguerFeliu , uponinstructions from theCapitan-General andthe Cmdte Gral delCentro y Norte deLuzon, were alreadyscouring the foothills ofArayat, in search ofMakabulos and theenemigos. But it wasonly two months later,in the early days of theBiak-na-bato Republicof November, thatfiercer and more realbattles took place. TheSpanish offensive wasled personal ly byGeneral RicardoMonet , the formerSpanish governor ofTarlac and Nueva Ecija(thus very familiar withthe terrain) and thethen Commandant ofthe CommandanciaGeneral del centro deLuzon , with no otherintent than to seizecontrol of the

transpired centuries ago.Balitucan is a pilawen, a lookout with a vantage point where

one can view Mt. Arayat in its fullness, and the mythical PiedraBlanca (the gigantic White Rock). This is believed to be the Olympusof Aring Sinukuan, the revered mountain god of ancientKapampangans. It was most likely in Balitucan that countless talesabout the mountain were woven. Furthermore, this barrio is knownas Dalan king Sinukuan because it offers the easiest route to themountain.

Actually the dalan-Sinukuan, via Balitucan, has always beena controversial itinerary in the shaping and re-shaping of Philippinehistory.

Balitucan was the route used by the Tarlaqueñorevolutionary general, Francisco Makabulos, when he assumedcontrol of the revolution in Central Luzon in mid-1897, establishing

Sitio Kamansi.After surveying the place, Monet discovered the two

possible routes to the Makabulos camp: one route an almost verticalascent to the mountain peak (through Balitucan), and the other acircuitous path via the poblacion of Arayat town itself. For theprocess, General Monet had to make preliminary adaptations forhis troops, choosing the other side of the mountain as his buttress,the pueblo of Magalang. One of his first moves was to block allpossible escape routes for the rebels, namely the Pampanga Riverand its tributary the Chico River as well as the towns around themountain like Concepcion (Tarlac), Mexico (Pampanga) and Cabiao(Nueva Ecija). It was a massive Spanish force divided into threecolumns; the first being the assaulting team of 600 under MajorAngel Fernandez, then the artillery under Lt. Col. Olaguer Feliu,and finally a reserve troop; not to mention also the native loyalistsoldiers, the Makabebe volunteers, guarding the Piedra Blanca.

Kasaysayan Makabulos camp in

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The Monet asalto was actualized on the dawn of November27, 1897 and Sastron accounted for at least six attempts by theformer before an advance to the rebels’ stronghold was madepossible. After the lull of the night, which allowed Monet to getreinforcement and stronger artilleries for the final assault, theSpaniards found in the Makabulos camp nothing but the carcassesof 93 rebels, with leftover lantakas, ammunitions and beasts ofburden grazing nearby. General Makabulos, Major Aquino and themajority of the 2000 rebel force were nowhere to be seen. Accounts,like that of Dr. Leonardo Guevarra of the Tarlac Historical Society,have it that Makabulos was rescued by his wife, Dona DoroteaPascual Makabulos. In this bloody encounter between General Monetand General Makabulos, the would-be Chinese general in the serviceof the Philippine Revolution, Jose Ignacio Pawa was promotedto the rank of a colonel in the army. General Monet, who figuredprominently in the role of the Spanish government in Aguinaldo’sHong Kong exile during the Pact of Biak-na-bato in December of1897, saw the importance of the Camansi encampment in securingCentral Luzon from the continuousrampage of the rebels (Gen.Makabulos being the most hard-headed of them all), despite theceasefire of the pacto. AfterMakabulos’ defeat, Monet assigneda detachment from his brigade tothe camp. It was only in May of1898 that this unit was tranferredto San Antonio, also in Magalang,where a formidable blok-haus(blockhouse) was built for thepurpose. General Monet proudlyinformed his Capitan-General thata torre heliografia (watchtower), 20meters high and with materialsdirectly taken from Manila, wasbeing built in Mabalacat instead ofin Sinukuan.

Two years later, afterthe fall of the Phil ippinegovernment in Tarlac on November10, 1899, and two days after heengaged one of the last battles ofthe Republic against the Americansin the Bamban-Concepcion roadwith about 1,200 men , General Servillano Aquino followed the1897 footsteps of his comrade, General Makabulos, by choosingthe Sinukuan area in continuing his struggle against the Americans,this time through guerilla warfare. Following instructions of PresidentAguinaldo that remnant Filipino leaders should continue the fightas roving bands, General Aquino and his remaining 500 men settledin Sitio Pader, Kamansi.

Two months later, in the first week of a new year, theAmericans began their assault of the Aquino lair, obviously takingthe same convenient Balitucan route. A report of the U.S. WarDepartment went: “On the 5th of January 1900, upon informationobtained by previous reconnaissance, Companies B, K and M of the25th Infantry ... left Magalang and attacked the stronghold of theinsurgent General Aquino...The troops scaled heights of greatdifficulty and crawled thru dense undergrowth.” An officer-memberof the American expedition mentioned that upon approach, theywere fired on by insurrectos of undetermined number (around 15-20), from a hill about 100 feet high (replaying the experience ofthe Spanish offensive in 1897). He had a vivid recollection:This hill was very steep and was difficult to climb. It was taken inthe face of a severe fire, the enemy retreating by a well-definedtrail along a ridge. In taking the hill the men were annoyed by a fire

from the hills some hundred yards in rear. The town was thentaken with practically no resistance, the enemy retreating into themountains. Five American prisoners were found in Camansi whohad been shot, boloed, and mutilated by insurrectos just beforeabandoning the place. Three of the men are from the Ninth Infantryand two from the Twelfth. The buildings and stores were burnedand the command returned by the other road to Magalang.

During the initial years of the American Period, a travelerincluded this direction of a journey (actually, a puga or a jailbreak)he made in 1902, in his testimony of 1910 prepared for thePhilippine Constabulary:..Acopoi naptungo sa Bundoc na sinucuan ng acoi dumating satabi ng ilog acoi nacaquita ng bangcang may tauo acopoi ng hingeng canin ay acopoi biniguian at ng acoi macacain ay acoi napatauidsa ibayo... (...I went to the Sinukuan mountain and upon reachingthe river bank, I came upon a banca with people in it. I asked forsome rice , I was given and was able to replenish and manage tocross the river.)

The travelerwandered in the vicinity for acouple of days, particularly thefootholds of Sinukuan (Guilemand Tilburan) and continued tolive off the generosity and awa(pity) of the simple folks of thearea. After a much-neededrest, he related:... ng acopoi manggaling doonpinunta co po ang lugar ngcabalatucan acopoi nacaquitang cubo sa gubat na maytaoang ngalan ay Vicente.1 Acopoing hingi ng canen. Acopoibiniguian at pag cacain copoay kami nagsalitaan.(Thereafter, I went to the placeof Cabalatucan (Balitucan)where I saw a hut in a forestinhabited by a man namedVicente. I asked for some riceand I was given. After themeal, we conversed...)

The traveler (or thejailbreaker) was none other

than Felipe Salvador, the “papa (pontiff)” of the Santa Iglesiacult; he was describing the initiatory weeks that led him to the re-foundation or resurrection of his katipunan, a millenarian movementthat started in 1899 as a guerilla force against the Americans andinitially folded up after his capture in 1902. Convicted of sedition,he was being brought to Bilibid prison (Manila) from Nueva Ecijawhen he managed to escape and return to his base in Sinukuan.“Claiming that from the mountain’s peak his spirit had traveled toheaven and conversed with God,” muses Ileto, “Salvador announcedthe coming of independence.” “Displaying shoulder-length hair,Biblical attire, and an impressive crucifix,” and promising a “rain ofgold and jewel and a redistribution of land” upon the installationof his supreme government, which could be achieved by raidingconstabulary camps in order to secure the arms needed for a “greatbattle to come”, the peasantry of Central Luzon rallied to his cause.There is enough data on that decade regarding the disturbancesthat the Santa Iglesia had caused in the whole region. By the endof that decade, on July 24, 1910, three months after his triumphalentry to Arayat, he was recaptured by the Americans in, as in apalindrome, the same place where he resurrected his katipunan.He was publicly hanged on April 15, 1912; some of those whoattended his wake observed that he seemed only asleep, a certain

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with his company. The personnel of this Company were thoroughlyscreened from the four major services of the AFP. A military reportcited that “out of the 32 officers, 18 enlisted personnel (EP) and209 ex-trainees screened, only 13 officers,72 EP, and 22 ex-traineesqualified and passed the rigid selection .”

Upon its organization, the unit’s primary activity wasdesigned for both internal and external deployment. The trainingthat followed consisted of specialization courses on SpecialOperations, Ranger, Airborne, Weapons, Communications, Medical,Demolition, and Intelligence; duration of which averaged to a 16-week period. In such a short time, the members of this elite unitmanaged to familiarize themselves within the Balitucanenvironment; with its sugar cane fields and the then operationaldalan-tren (railroad) run by PASUDECO (Pampanga SugarDevelopment Corporation).

Having attained its goals, the laboratory camp then foldedup. And that young captain who once roamed the dusty roads andrailroad tracks of Balitucan in the turbulent 1960’s, in defense ofhis country, became the 12th President of the Republic of thePhilippines exactly thirty years later.

Balitucan, the hotbed of dissidence for centuries, is nowcleansed (at least, for the time being) of this stigma. At present,this barrio is one of the most peaceful in Magalang, shimmering inthe splendor of balituk or golden fields. But it continues to providethe convenient dalan-Sinukuan, or, at the risk of sounding gasgas(gähgas in the Magalang-Concepcion accent), or overused, RobertFrost, it was a road less-taken. Like the fate of the cogon grassundulating on the roadside, this may be the cogent reason somany glorious chapters of Philippine history have been waylaid,and need to be re-taken.

sign that he would be coming back to life to continue his lakaran.It was also in this vicinity that the HUKBALAHAP (Hukbo

ng Bayan Laban sa mga Hapon) was born: a peasant guerillamovement led by Luis Taruc and others to fight the Japanese in1942 and to campaign for agrarian and social reforms after WorldWar II. It is rather odd to be relishing this fact with a confectionarystory about the town, that went:Magalang is a quiet little town in Pampanga which is otherwisenoted for being the cradle of the Hukbalahap Movement. Thatpeasants rose and took to the hills indicates the presence of anantithesis: the caciques...But while they are remembered for theirabuses against the peasantry, from autocratic paternalism to outrightexploitation, they are also credited for the flourishing of thePampangan cuisine — lutong Capampangan. For who else wouldbe able to indulge in the luxuries of the table but those who had allthe resources at their command?

The movement was resuscitated in 1946, only months afterthe Philippine Liberation from the Japanese, when the dissatisfiedpeasants continued their struggle, calling themselves as HMB(Hukbong Mapagpalaya sa Bayan) or the Huks.

Two decades later, in the 1960s, the stragglers of the saidmovement, particularly the warring factions of KumanderSumulong (Faustino del Mundo) and Kumander Alibasbas(Cesario Manarang), confined themselves in the same terrain. Therivalry was capped by the massacre of the latter with nine of his kinand men in Almendras (then still a sitio of San Bartolome)Concepcion, Tarlac. Actually, the encampment of Alibasbas,described by a Philippine Constabular officer as “open to observationand therefore open to attack,” the site of the massacre that occurredat 1:00 a.m. on February 2, 1966, is already in the vicinity ofCabayungsarul, in Balitucan, Magalang town.

This gruesome event stirred a flurry of opinions in manyareas of Central Luzon at that time. As in the case of Felipe Salvador,barrio folks did not see Alibasbas’ death as a blessing. As disclosedby some informants, “Alibasbas and his men gave help to the poorfamilies ...in the form of clothing, food, and even money.” He hadreportedly become a Robin Hood of sorts to the people after hissplit with Kumander Sumulong. He gave protection to the peoplewhenever other dissident elements reportedly tried to terrorize theplace; he even had a chapel built for them. For some, however, themassacre was the result of a conspiracy between Huk leaders andgovernment officials in Tarlac and Pampanga. Alibasbas was thenready to surrender, as he surmised in as secret interview he gave inConcepcion “if he had been able to eliminate his rival in the Hukhierarchy.”

The Alibasbas massacre did not yet eliminate theenvironment of dissidence in Balitukan. A prodigy of KumanderSumulong, Bernabe Buscayno or Kumander Dante, barrio folksstill remember, learned the rudiments of his own revolution — theNew People’s Army — in the Balitucan landscape.

Around the time of the Alibasbas massacre - though noone is about to admit the connection - a young captain of thePhilippine Army, Fidel Valdez Ramos, chose Balitucan as hislaboratory for the 1st Special Force Company (Airborne) then underGeneral Romeo Espino. Organized on June 25, 1962, this was thefirst regular Special Forces Unit of the Armed Forces of the Philippine(AFP). Still fresh from his training in a special anti-insurgency course(which included psychological warfare) from Fort Bragg in NorthCarolina, USA, Capt. Ramos took advantage of the chaotic politicalconditions in the barrio to apply the theories he had learned.

The old folks of Balitucan point to the backyard of its highschool as the site where Capt. Fidel Ramos made the encampment

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Pedro was born January 31,1876 in San Fernando to parentsVicente Abad Santos andToribia Basco (native ofGuagua), while Jose was born10 years later, on February 19,1886. But it was the youngerJose who achieved greaterprominence because he wouldbecome the country’s ChiefJustice of the Supreme Courtand suffer a high-profi lemartyrdom during the JapaneseOccupation. Pedro, on the otherhand, would be increasinglymarginalized from civil society ashe went farther and farther leftin his political ideology. Whileboth of them had the samemission in life, which was toimprove the condition of themasses, they held oppositeviews on how to attain this.

83. PEDRO ABAD SANTOS

84. JOSE ABAD SANTOS

Because while they represented the farthest opposite ends of the country’spolitical and ideological spectrum, they were one in their commitmentto alleviate poverty and injustice; because they both had a vision for theircountry and gave up everything to attain it; because they died as heroesin their own separate waysBy Robby Tantingco

Thus, Pedro Abad Santos andJose Abad Santos attempted toimpose on history their separateideologies, representingrevolution and evolution,respectively, as means ofsecuring change in the existingorder.

Pedro finishedBachelor of Arts in the Universityof Santo Tomas; he took up lawand was admitted to the bar in1906. During the Philippine-American War, he became Chiefof Staff of Gen. MaximinoHizon’s Command. He wascaptured and charged withguerilla activities, for which hewas meted a death sentence.He joined Hizon, ApolinarioMabini, Artemio Ricarte andMelchora Aquino in exile inGuam; upon his return, his

death sentence was commutedto l ife imprisonment. USPresident TheodoreRoosevelt pardoned him later.He joined politics, first runningas municipal councilor and lateras representative of theprovince’s second district; in1922, he joined theindependence mission to theUnited States headed bySpeaker Sergio Osmeña.

His brother Jose alsopassed the bar, in 1911. Hewas given a license to practicelaw in the United States. Unlikehis ascetic and celibate brother,Jose married a townmate,Amanda Teopaco, with whomhe had five children. He becamethe first Filipino corporate lawyerof the Philippine National Bank,Manila Railways and other

government agencies. In quicksuccession he became AttorneyGeneral and then Secretary ofJustice, and ultimately ChiefJustice of the Supreme Courtduring President Quezon’s term.

Meanwhile, DonPerico, as Pedro was now beingcalled, ran as Governor and wasdefeated, although he wasgaining popularity as achampion of the poor, offeringfree legal assistance and helpingorganize labor organizations. In1932 when the PartidoKomunista ng Pilipinas (PKP)was outlawed by the SupremeCourt, Don Perico founded thePartido Sosyalista ng Pilipinas(PSP). Two years later, togetherwith his assistants Agapito delRosario, Luis Taruc, LinoDizon and others, he

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reorganized the Aguman dingTalapagobra ning Pilipinas (ATP)into the Aguman ding MaldangTalapagobra (AMT), similar tothe general workers’ unions inSpain, Mexico and France, whichadvocated the expropriation oflanded estates and friar lands,farmers’ cooperative stores andthe upliftment of peasants’ livingconditions. On November 7,1938, during the anniversary ofthe Russian BolshevikRevolution, members of the PKPand the PSP held a conventionat the Manila Grand OperaHouse where they declared theirmerger as the Communist Partyof the Philippines. CrisantoEvangelista was electedpresident, Pedro Abad Santosvice president, GuillermoCapadocia secretary general.

In those few remainingyears before World War II,socialism was sweeping theKapampangan Region. TheSocialist Party even went as faras fielding candidates in localelections. Pedro Abad Santos’stature was reaching mythicproportions. He was known tohave the biggest collection ofMarxist and Soviet literature inAsia. He often advised peasantsto keep all harvest and promisedlegal assistance if sued bylandowners.

The paths of Pedro andJose Abad Santos crossed in adramatic public confrontation onValentine’s Day in 1939, whenPresident Quezon acceptedPedro’s invitation to a farmers’and workers’ ral ly in SanFernando. Eager to please thetroublesome peasants’ hero andassured by Pedro’s brother Jose,who was then Secretary ofJustice, President Quezon cameto the public gathering. DonPerico introduced the Presidentas “a friend of the masses andthe poor” and admonished hislisteners “to plant in your heartwhat he will say.” Just asQuezon was rising from his seat,Don Perico enumerated thepeasants’ grievances, accusedjudges and fiscals of beingpawns of rich landowners, andthen turned to his brother Jose,who was seated beside thePresident, and challenged himas Justice Secretary to clean upthe courts. Unable to hide hiscontempt for Jose’s peacefultemper and methods, Pedroadded, “The Secretary cannot

help us if he just sits in hisoffice.”

When the war brokeout, the Japanese jailed DonPerico and other communistleaders at Fort Santiago.Secretary Jose Abad Santos, onthe other hand, was left behindby the evacuated PresidentQuezon to head the caretakergovernment. He was arrestedby the Japanese in Carcar, Cebu,subjected to gruelinginterrogation and asked to swearallegiance to the Japanese flag.Justice Abad Santos told hiscaptors: “To obey yourcommand is tantamount tobeing a traitor to the UnitedStates and my country. I wouldprefer to die than live in shame.”He was taken to Parang,Cotabato and then to Malabang,Lanao del Sur, where he wasexecuted on May 2, 1942. Hehad told his son, Jose, Jr., “notto cry and to show these peoplethat you are brave. It is a rareopportunity to die for one’scountry. Not everybody is giventhat chance.”

Pedro AbadSantos, meanwhile, hadbeen released fromprison due to his failingeyesight and stomachailment, and was insteadput under house arrest inhis niece’s residence,right beside that of theleader of the puppetgovernment, Jose P.Laurel. He reportedlyasked Laurel to allow himto return to his people inPampanga to die, whichLaurel granted. KaRoberto Datu ofAbelardo Dabu ’sSquadron in theHukbong Mapagpalayang Bayan (HMP), fetchedDon Perico; they escapedby boat throughBangkusay in the Tondoarea, made their way tothe Manila Bay and intoPampanga River. PedroAbad Santos stayed inthe residence of theManansala family in Alasasvillage in San Isidro, town ofMinalin where he died onJanuary 15, 1945, three yearsafter his younger brother’sexecution.Reference: Ang Kabayanihan ni KaPedro Abad Santos by Luis M. Taruc;notes from Fray Francis Musni, OSA andIvan Anthony Henares.

Because he foundedthe original Hukmovement

85. BernardoPoblete

Born in Minalin,Poblete (a.k.a. JoseBanal) organizedthe firstH U K B A L A H A P(Hukbo ng BayanLaban sa Hapon)on January 1, 1942as a guerilla unitagainst theJapanese. Shortlyafterward, theCommunists gainedcontrol of the Hukmovement, makingLuis Taruc theHuk Supremo.Taruc converted theHukbalahap as theCommunist Party’sarmed forces. JoseBanal’s unitseceded andcontinued itsseparate campaign

against the Japanese. He ledfierce battles and ambuscades,the most notable of which wasthe firefight along theMacabebe-Masantol channelwhich led to great casualtieson both sides. Banal’s unit wasthe only unit recognized by theUnited States Army.

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The son of a tenant farmer, Luis Taruc grewup in San Luis, where he became a farmerlike his father, and worked as a tailor in SanMiguel, Bulacan. He graduated from highschool in Tarlac, Tarlac and finished a yearof college in Manila. In 1936, when hebecame involved in peasants’ organizations,he left tailor shop to his wife and devoted

86. Luis TarucBecause he led a massiveand sustained campaignfor social justiceBy Lino L. Dizon

full time to the movement. In that sameyear, he met Pedro Abad Santos in SanFernando and joined his Aguman dingMaldang Talapagobra (AMT, or Workers andPeasants Union). Taruc also joined theSocialist Party in 1938; when the socialistsmerged with the Communist Party, hebecame a ranking officer in the Partido

Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP).On March 29, 1942, in a place

described by Teodoro Agoncillo as “aclearing in the forest that joined theprovinces of Tarlac, Pampanga, and NuevaEcija” and identified by Benedict J. Kerkvlietas a barrio in Concepcion, Tarlac ‘at the footof Mt.Arayat’, Taruc was selected to lead amovement that became known as the“Hukbalahap” (Hukbong Laban sa Hapon:Anti- Japanese Army), whose mission wasto harass the Japanese through guerilla-styleactivities. “Undoubtedly,” Kerkvliet believes,“his demonstrated commitment andleadership was why those at the foundingmeeting of the Hukbalahap selected him tolead the resistance army.”

After the war, Taruc and his menrefused to surrender their arms and werenot recognized as genuine guerillas by theUnited States Army. Later, Taruc became theSecretary-General of the Union of Workersand a top-rate labor leader. In the 1946elections, he ran for congressman along withsix Communists; they won, only to beunseated by Congress on charges ofterrorism. He fled to the mountains andhoisted the flag of defiance against thegovernment.

On June 21, 1948, Luis Tarucagreed to surrender; he was brought toManila where President Quirino receivedhim in Malacañang. The President also

Journalist Ninoy Aquino (with glasses) discusses terms of surrender with Ka Luis Taruc in 1954

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In 1965, Faustino del Mundo (aliasKumander Sumulong) led the Hukmovement following the capture ofBenjamin Hizon and the killing of CesarioManarang (alias Kumander Alibasbas).Two years later, when it was clear thatKumander Sumulong was creating anextortion network in Central Luzon withAngeles City as base of operations, adisillusioned Buscayno (alias KumanderDante) distanced himself from the Hukmovement and in 1969 founded the NewPeople’s Army. Today Buscayno runs afarmers’ cooperative in his hometownCapas, Tarlac.

g r a n t e damnesty to allHuks oncondition thatthey givethemselves upand surrendertheir weapons.The sixC o m m u n i s tlegislators, aswell as Taruc,would regaintheir seats inthe Congress.There would beno prosecutionof any Huk,save thoseguilty ofc o m m o ncrimes. Thebenefits of theamnesty couldbe enjoyed until the deadline of August 15.The government, however, accused theHuks of violating the terms of the Quirino-Taruc agreement. Taruc once more fled tothe mountains and the QuirinoAdministration hardened its stance againstthe dissidents.

The election of President RamonMagsaysay in 1953 would change thepicture. Barely a few months in office,President Magsaysay secretly appointedBenigno Aquino, Jr., then a reporter ofthe Daily Mirror, as his emissary to the rebelleader. On May 17, 1954, after four monthsof negotiations, Taruc surrendered. Broughtto court in Manila, he was sentenced totwelve years in prison.

87. BernabeBuscaynoBecause he foundedthe New People’s Army (NPA),which has grown intothe most serious armedthreat against the government

Bernabe Buscayno a.k.a. Kumander Dante and President Marcos

In 1938-1940, the most popular and influential person in Pampanga was PedroAbad Santos, the founder of the Socialist Party of the Philippines. Although he lostthe elections for governor (to Sotero Baluyut), Socialist candidates won as mayors ineight (8) towns, namely, Angeles, San Fernando, Mabalacat, Arayat, Floridablanca, Mexico,

When Kapampanganssang the Internationale

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San Luis and San Simon. In the countryside, torch parades werea familiar sight at night, participated in by tenants clad in redshirts, waving red flags and sickles, and singing the Communistanthem Internationale. Landlords cringed in fear whenever theyheard the tambuli (carabao horn), which signaled the start ofevery peasants’ meeting.

“Pampanga had become a Little Russia,” wrote JusticeLeopoldo Rovira in the Philippine Free Press (January 4, 11, 1941)“where it is not the voice of judges and jurists that prevails, butthe voice of Lenin and Stalin.”

Government records show that Pedro Abad Santos andsome of his followers went to Moscow’s Lenin Institute for trainingand indoctrination (although Luis Taruc refutes this). Earlier, AbadSantos had organized the Socialist Party after the Supreme Courtdeclared illegal the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP) whichwas founded in 1930 by Crisanto Evangelista and company.

When the Japanese occupied the Philippines in WorldWar II, Abad Santos, Evangelista and Guillermo Capadocio werearrested and jailed in Fort Bonifacio. Evangelista was promptlyexecuted while Abad Santos and Capadocio were later released.

On October 14, 1943 the Japanese proclaimed the so-called Second Philippine Republic with Jose Laurel as President.The Huks, expectedly, did not recognize this government. In1945, when the combined Philippine-US forces liberated thearchipelago from the Japanese, Taruc and fellow Huk leader CastoAlejandrino of Arayat were arrested by the US Counter-Intelligence Corps; they were jailed in Iwahig, Palawan. Afterthe Third Republic was proclaimed on July 4, 1946, PresidentRoxas tried to convince the Huks to lay down their arms. Inresponse, the Huk leaders held a council of war in Candaba anddecided not to accept the government offer. Instead, they declaredwar, set up their own alternative government, collected their owntaxes, issued firearms licenses and solemnized marriage. Theyalso campaigned for countryside peace. Thus, both governmentmilitary and Huk guerillas competed for the trust of the masses

caught in the crossfire.The government stepped up its war against the Huks by

creating various military and paramilitary armies (e.g. CivilianGuards, Philippine Constabulary, etc.). Even members of theIglesia ni Cristo were armed to fight insurgency. It was at thistime when barrio folks evacuated en masse to poblacions wherethey stayed in designated areas, returning to their villages onlyduring Holy Week. It was on a Good Friday, April 15, 1949, whenthe Civilian Guards allegedly massacred villagers in Maliwalu,Bacolor who were suspected of being Huks and behind theassassination of a Civilian Guards officer.

Judge and Senator Pablo Angeles David wrote that atthe height of Huk power, “two governments existed in centralLuzon: the lawful but impotent one, and the super governmentof the Huks from whom the former looked for obedience anddictation.” In Angeles, prominent residents, Catholic leaders andChinese businessmen supplied Huks’ needs with pilferedammunition from Clark Air Base in collusion with American GIsand Clark employees.

In 1950, the Hukbalahap was renamed HukbongMapagpalaya ng Bayan (HMB), with Casto Alejandrino aschairman. Luis Taruc was relegated to the Communist Party’sorganizational division. Both Alejandrino and Taruc were underthe Communist Party of the Philippines’ central committee headedby Dr. Jesus Lava of Bulacan. By this time, the HMB hadrecruited more than 21,800 members (9000 active and 12,800reserve).

In a show of force, the HMB staged simultaneous raidsin 12 provinces in Luzon and Visayas on the 8th anniversary ofthe Huk movement, on March 29, 1950, throwing the governmentoff-guard. It seemed that the country was about to fall into thehands of Communists.

And then came Ramon Magsaysay, who was appointedSecretary of National Defense by President Quirino one weekafter the raid. His multi-pronged approach to the Huk menacegained quick results: Huks surrendered by the hundreds, andpeople returned to their villages. Taruc surrendered, andCommunist leaders were decimated.Reference: The Province of Pampanga and its Towns by Mariano A. Henson

The feminist re-examination andreconstruction of history attest tothe fact that women, even withinor especially outside the privilegedclass, were capable of courage. Inthe case of the anti-JapaneseHukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon(Hukbalahap), the military arm ofthe merged Partido Sosyalista ngPil ipinas and the PartidoKomunista ng Pilipinas duringWorld War II, the femalecombatants and commanders stillremained largely anonymous.Researches are so wanting.

89. ELENA POBLETE88. FELIPA CULALA

Because they abandoned the security ofhome to become Kumander Dayang-Dayangand Kumander Mameng, respectively;because despite their gender, or maybebecause of it, they led their men to victoryBy Tonette T. Orejas

One did manage to break out fromthe obscurity. Felipa Culala, moreknown as Kumander Dayang-Dayang, gained fame for leadinga daring operation on a Japanesearmory in Bataan. The attackequipped the then fledglingHukbalahap, founded in 1942, withan adequate cache of firearms,according to oral accounts by herlone surviving niece and someguerillas in Candaba.But what exceptional braveryCulala showed was immediatelydiminished by accusations ofJo

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Elena Poblete

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banditry. Her execution,confirmed by Huk leader LuisTaruc, occurred at Mt. Arayat,the fortress of the guerillas inPampanga. The fallacy orauthenticity of those chargesremains a dark area until now,lost in the Hukbalahap’s rushto defeat, or at least survive,the enemy.

Very recently, thetraces in the life of anotherHukbalahap commander hadleaped from the shadows. Theretelling of the role of ElenaPoblete or KumanderMameng in the liberationmovement seemed accidental.Moises Lopez, a 71-year-oldHuk veteran from Minalin, wasonly recalling the last chapterin the life of socialist founderPedro Abad Santos duringan oral witnessing session atHoly Angel University. Lopezwas narrating how AbadSantos, then hunted by theJapanese army, took refuge inMinalin until his death on Jan.15, 1945 when he mentionedJose Poblete a.k.a.Kumander Banal, Taruc’sfirst battalion commander inPampanga, as instrumental in

helping Abad Santos obtainsanctuary in Minalin. Lopez livedtwo houses away fromManansala’s house where thesocialist leader hid in Sitio Alasasin Barangay San Isidro.

And then Lopezmentioned Poblete’s daughter,Elena. Lopez recalled that shewas the commander of thesquadron to which he belonged.He could not tell Elena’s exactage. In an undated colorizedphotograph that Joseph Dado ofMinalin provided the University’sKapampangan Center, Elenaappeared barely in her 20s or’30s. Wearing the Huk’sstandard brown uniform butwithout her insignia or medals,Elena had a sad but stern look.“The Japanese chased us up toDampulan,” narrates Lopez. “Wehad to retreat to Saguin.Kumander Mameng said ‘Let’srest. Most of you are tired andsleepless.’ But somebody mighthave tipped us off. Early the nextday, the Japanese bombardedthe area. From planes, theywere dropping bombs here andthere. Kumander Mamengordered us to disperse in smallergroups. She said the enemy

could not detect us if we movedin smaller units. We did as shetold us.”

Waiting for others tobreak out, Lopez said Elenasustained the main defense line.The enemy, eager always to getthe leader, and KumanderBanal’s daughter at that, firedthe fatal shot. Citing theaccounts of his comrades whoremained with Elena, he said thebullet pierced through above herright brow.

Lopez could notremember the exact year, monthand day of Elena’s tragic butvaliant end. The late Dr. JesusLava, former secretary-generalof the old communist party,recalled that the Japanese armylaunched the biggest operationsin the Central Luzon provincesof Nueva Ecija, Pampanga andTarlac in 1943. Even Taruc couldnot give precise details. Did shemarry or remain single? If shemarried and had children, didshe take up arms to defendthem as the Huk song OBabaeng Walang Kibo wantedthe mothers to do?Bakit hindi ka magtanggol?May anak kang nagugutom?

Bunso mo ay umiiyak,matitiis mo sa hirap?Hayo’t magbalikwas kung inakangmay damdamin at paglingap!

Kumander Banaloutl ived his daughter byseveral years. Between 1944and 1946, he joined Taruc inorganizing the DemocraticAlliance, which won severalseats in Congress to representthe farmers, workers and themiddle class. Elena’s heroismis eclipsed by the legacy of hisnear-legendary father. Whatprompted her (and FelipaCulala) to join the revolution,assume military leadership andbe in thick of warfare? Thesequestions beg answers so thatwe can at least determine whya woman, so unlikely of the erashe belonged to, would choosea life of high risks instead ofremaining in the cocoon ofdomesticity. Was it because ofher underprivileged class? Outof any pressure from herfather? Out of the necessity ofsurvival? Or was it because shewas a woman?

Sweet and compassionate Daling Villareyes was an original memberof the Bamban guerilla outfit, the 101st Squadron under Capt.Alfred Bruce, which fell under the Luzon Guerilla Force (LGF) ofLt. Col. Claude Thorpe during the Second World War. She servedthe Bruce’s unit as supply officer, which meant she carried rifles,

90. Adelaida VillareyesBecause she did not betray her comrades despite hunger and torture

bullets and grenades. By 1943, the Japanese campaign in Bambanhad become vicious. Earlier, bicycled Japanese reconnaissancetroops were ambushed by Filipino soldiers; in response, the Kempei-tai executed four Filipinos at the back of the municipal hall in fullview of local residents. Daling was wounded and captured duringa dawn raid of their hideout in sitio Tapuak, barangay Sacobia.She was forced to walk to the Japanese headquarters at the sugarcentral in Bamban where she witnessed the torture and executionof captured guerillas, and where she was interrogated. Refusingto talk, she was taken the next day to Camp O’Donnell in Capas formore interrogations, then sent back to Bamban. “I saw guerillastortured everyday just to make them reveal the names of otherguerillas. The Japanese dipped them into the swimming pool andthen sat on their stomachs,” Daling recalled. She was next takento a prison camp in Magalang, where she suffered severe hungerand torture from September 3 to December 7, 1943. After herrelease, she immediately rejoined Capt. Bruce’s unit in the Bambanhills. This unit played a major role in the local intelligence of Gen.MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific Area Command as well as and inthe Liberation and in the Bamban-Stotsenburg campaign. DalingVillareyes survived the war with the rank of captain, the fifth namein the roster of officers of the Bamban Battalion-Bruce Guerilla,Tarlac South Military District and the only woman among the guerillasoldiers in Bamban during the war.

References: Case No. GR L-800 Dec. 17, 1947, Supreme Court; Report No. 139GHQ, United States Army, Pacific War Crimes Branch; various interviews

By Rhonie de la Cruz

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Throughout history, the Kapampangan Region has always beenthe breeding ground of patriots whose ideologies occupy thewhole range of the left-wing spectrum. Tarik Soliman andFrancisco Maniago used their swords to resist invaders andprotest colonial abuses, while the pioneering achievements ofthe first clergy and nuns was a form of rebellion against theinferior status of a colonized race. During the Revolution againstSpain and the war with the United States, even Kapampanganpoets either used their pens or took up arms to join fellowFilipinos in their fight for independence. When the Japaneseinvaded the country, Bernardo Poblete and Luis Taruc led theHukbalahap while thousands of nameless, facelessKapampangans gave up their lives defending their country. Thesocial unrest before and after World War II made Kapampangansturn to socialism and communism; the radicalism created bythe 20-year dictatorship of Marcos pushed them deeper intothe Left.These fearless Kapampangans include:Eugenio Santos a.k.a. Kumander Kislap, leader of theHukbalahap in Macabebe;Nilo Tayag of Porac co-founded with Jose Ma. Sison theKabataang Makabayan (KM) which nearly drove President Marcosout of Malacanang;Rodolfo Salas, a.k.a. Kumander Bilog of Angeles City, whoonce served simultaneously as chairman of the Communist Partyof the Philippines (CPP) and commander-in-chief of the NewPeople’s Army (NPA) in 1976-1986, after Sison left the country.Felixberto “Ka Bert” Olalia of Tarlac, who organized the Unionde Chineleros y Zapateros de Filipinos in 1920, one of the firstindustrial unions in the country; founded the Kilusang Mayo Uno(KMU) in 1980 and the Pagkakaisa ng Manggagawang Pilipino(PMP); was arrested during the labor crackdown of August 13,1982 and died of pneumonia while in detention in 1983;Rolando “Ka Lando” Olalia, son of Felixberto Olalia; lawyerand charismatic trade union leader who was abducted andbrutally murdered by suspected RAM soldiers on November 13,1986, during President Cory Aquino’s term;Satur Ocampo of Sta. Rita, son of landless tenants; foundingmember of the National Democratic Front (NDF); arrested in1976 and suffered severe torture for nine years; a military triedhim for seven years (he was never convicted); headed the NDFpeace panel during negotiations with the Aquino government;rearrested in 1989 together with wife Carolina Malay; after theirrelease, they continued to work for nationalist, democraticagenda; presently serves as Bayan Muna Party List representativeRandolf “Randy” David of Betis, sociologist, political activistand founding director of the Third World Studies Center; formerchairman of the socialist organization BISIG and editor of thejournal Kasarinlan; host of the longest-running public affairstalk show on Philippine television, Public ForumRoland Simbulan, political activist and expert on US-Philippinemilitary relations; as chairman of the Nuclear-Free PhilippineCoalition, he led campaigns against US military bases in thecountry; author of the best-selling book The Bases of ourInsecurityMa. Theresa “Cherith” Dayrit Garcia of Lubao, a cum laudedouble-major graduate of St. Scholastica’s College who becamea ranking officer of the New People’s Army (NPA); died in ambushon July 16, 2000 in Isabela

From Tarik to TarucKAPAMPANGANSFROM THE LEFT

On November 23, 1944, Japanesesoldiers bombed the vi l lage ofMapaniqui in Candaba to smoke outsuspected guerilla soldiers. Thevillagers were herded to the schoolgrounds where the men were mauledand executed in full view of theirfamilies. Some men were stripped,their penises cut and inserted in theirmouth to further demoralize thevillagers. A few were beheaded. Theirbodies were dumped inside the schoolbuilding which was then torched. Nextthe women, including little girls,numbering about a hundred, weremade to walk two kilometers carryinglooted sacks from the village. Whenthey reached the Japaneseheadquarters, a rouge-paintedmansion called bahay na pula, thesoldiers pulled their respective partnersinto rooms and tents and raped them.Mothers and children were raped in thesame room, sometimes by the samesoldiers. The next morning, they wereshooed away from the mansion andmade to walk back to Mapaniqui. Theycollected the burnt remains of theirhusbands and sons and buried themin a common grave. With their men,houses and honor gone, the womenof Mapaniqui walked away in separatedirections to start again their liveselsewhere. It was only years afterthe war, when President Magsaysaypromised peace in the countryside, thatthey returned to Mapanique andrebuild the community. A few yearsago, after Rosa Henson of Angelescame out as a World War II comfortwoman to demand compensation fromthe Japanese government, about 70remaining Mapanique women bravedsociety’s alienation and their family’sshame by telling the world their storyand asking Japan if not forcompensation at least for an apology.They flew to an international court inJapan to testify against everyone in theJapanese hierarchy responsible for themassacre and rape, including theEmperor himself. Today the womenhave organized themselves into theMalaya Lolas, looking after oneanother, going around the province towarn young people about the horrorsof war, any war, and singingKapampangan songs not only abouttheir terrible experiences but alsoabout hope and love.

91. The Malaya LolasBecause the unspeakable horrors of wardid not break their spirit

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Because he had the tenderness of a poetand the savvy of a politician;because under his Administration, thecountry became the most progressivecountry in Asia, next only to Japan;because who would have thought thatthe poor, barefoot lad from Lubao wouldone day become the President of theRepublic?By Erlita P. Mendoza

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prized student-declaimer. When he went to Manila to get his collegeeducation, he was a working student who wrote and published inIng Catimawan, a Kapampangan forthnightly which enjoyedenormous readership and following at the time. It was toKapampangans what Liwayway is to Tagalogs. Here he publishedhis now famous poems as “Sapa”, “Gareta,” “Gripu,” and “Angin,”which exemplify his use of the bayung sunis, new rhyme, underthe literary column “Cundiman” (love song). He became such a hitwith regular patrons of the publication that eventually he becameits editor, a post he carried for almost a decade.

Meanwhile, he too was an actor of the zarzuela, the mostbeloved form of theatre during his youth. Having grown up in thecompany of zarzuelistas in his hometown, he co-authored the workBayung Jerusalem with his father Urbano Macapagal (with musicby Victor Lumanug) and starred in its premiere and run in 1932.He went around the towns of Pampanga with his fellow poets likeAmado Yuzon, Silvestre Punsalan, and Roman Reyes todeclaim during town fiestas and to crown local beauties with versesand praise in glittering nights of putungans. He was a much sought-after minstrel of the Kapampangans whose poetry and song broughtgladness in the midst of their trials and adversities.

His other works include the poems “Sintang Cayanacan”(earlier known as “Chant D’ Amour”), his well-remembered lovepoem that shows the speaker’s youthful idealism; “Requiem,”Macapagal’s poetic tribute to his mentor-benefactor, Don HonorioVentura of Bacolor; and “Sintang Asawa,” dedicated to EvangelinaMacaraeg Macapagal in 1961, as well as short stories “Sisilim”and “Gulong ning Palad.”

*Concise edition of Mendoza,E.P. From a Footnote to History to a Literary Exposition:The Story of Diosdado Macapagal as a Kapampangan Poet (1st International Conferenceof Kapampangan Studies, Holy Angel University, September 2001).

92. DIOSDADO MACAPAGAL

Born in Lubao, Diosdado Pangan Macapagal (1910-1997) armedhimself with hard work and perseverance to cut the shackles ofpoverty and used education as the ultimate means to economicfreedom. The second of four children of a soft-spoken, religiouslaundry woman and a popular itinerant vernacular playwright, heovercame the devastation of hunger and material want, personaltragedy and heartbreak to become a lawyer, politician, championof the common man and the Fifth President of the PhilippineRepublic in 1962.

Macapagal topped the bar examinations in 1936, waselected representative of Pampanga’s First District in 1949, VicePresident in 1957 and finally, President in 1961, defeatingreelectionist Carlos P. Garcia. As President, he moved theanniversary celebration of Philippine Independence from July 4 toJune 12, made a claim to Sabah, enacted land reform and otherlaws that made the Philippines gallop to economic prosperity neverbefore achieved and never again after. And yet, he was still defeatedin his reelection bid by Ferdinand Marcos.

Macapagal was elected President of the 1971-1972Constitutional Convention, held on the eve of martial law. He diedApril 21, 1997. His daughter Gloria Macapagal Arroyo becamePresident of the Republic in 2001.

This public part of his life is one that is familiar to Filipinos.However, a careful study of his younger years, with their virtualunbeknown details, reveals that the heart and soul of Macapagalwere attuned to his province’s literary arts and belle lettres. It isthe former president as “y Dadong, watas ning balen” (our Dadong,poet of the people) that Kapampangans remember.

Macapagal started writing verse while still a student inLubao. At the Pampanga High School in San Fernando in the 1920s,he became editor of the school organ The Pampangan as well as a

President Macapagal with teenage daughter Gloria (extreme right), later also President of the Philippines

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Long ago, on a lazy afternoon in the town of Lubao, threefarm boys sat under a mango tree vowing to be friends forever.No matter what happened, they swore, they would help each otherattain their dreams.

And so, years later, one of the boys became the King ofPhilippine Movies, the second became the President of the Republic,but it was the third one who achieved the highest honor of all:martyrdom.

Jose B. Lingad is not as well known as Rogelio de laRosa and Diosdado Macapagal; today, he is better known forhis initials, JBL, and for the provincial hospital named after him.His name, more often than not, is merely indexed and footnoted inbooks about his two more popular childhood friends. But amongthe three, he was the one who helped the other two become whatthey eventually became.

In return, President Macapagal gave Lingad positions ofresponsibility in his administration. In his book, Stone for the Edifice:Memoirs of a President, Macapagal appointed Lingad as LaborSecretary because JBL, in his stint as Commissioner of Customs,had “displayed interest in the welfare of labor and an ability ingetting along with labor leaders”. The President relied on Lingadin solving a serious labor situation involving a certain Roberto Oca,whose labor leadership “contributed to the division and consequentweakness of the labor ranks”. Lingad was instructed to negotiatewith Oca and arrive at a “satisfactory compromise agreement”.JBL was able to do so in a matter of hours. On another occasion,Macapagal lauded Lingad for his “fine graft-cleaning record asChairman of the Games and Amusement Board”. Nick T. Enciso, acolumnist for the Manila Bulletin wrote, “His stint at the customsbureau was devoid of any cloud of wrong-doing”.

Lingad’s political enemies, however, thought otherwise.One of the worst accusations against him, never proven, was hisimplication in the celebrated Maliwalu (Bacolor) Massacre on GoodFriday of 1951, while he was Governor of Pampanga. A captain ofthe paramilitary Civil Guards, Nonong Serrano, had been killed

supposedly by the Huks; days later, a group of men descendedupon Maliwalu killing dozens of villagers in cold blood. Themassacre so terrified the people that Maliwalu became a ghosttown for many years. There was suspicion that it was done inretaliation of Nonong Serrano’s murder. Governor Lingad lost hisreelection bid later.

In his book, The Huk Rebellion, A Study of Peasant Revoltin the Philippines, Benedict Kirkvliet acknowledged it was Lingadwho had personally organized the Civilian Guards in 1946 toneutralize the growing Hukbo insurgency. He was worried becausefarmers had stopped tilling their land knowing that the Huks wouldseize the harvest anyway. President Marcos would later adopt theconcept of this civilian volunteer group, renaming i t BarangaySelf-Defense Units (BSDU) under the command of the ArmedForces. Ironically, it was Lingad who was the most outspokenagainst this group because they had become abusive. His tiradesagainst the BSDU was how he first got the dictator’s ire.

Of the few political opponents JBL had, none was worsethan President Marcos. Lingad was among the first to be arrestedand jailed at Camp Crame after martial law was declared in 1972.After his incarceration in 1972, he retired from public office butmaintained contact with several opposition leaders. Ninoy Aquinoallegedly was the one who convinced him to run again for Governorin the 1980 local elections. (According to JBL’s son, formerCongressman Emy Lingad, JBL would certainly have beenappointed Defense Secretary in a Ninoy Aquino administration.)Meanwhile, Marcos made several attempts to win Lingad to hisside, convinced that it was better to have the feisty and influentialKapampangan as an ally than as an enemy. Ex-barangay chairmanEddie Lingad, a nephew of JBL, recalls a meeting at the MandarinHotel in Makati prior to the 1980 elections, in which emissariesallegedly delivered Marcos’ offer to “appoint” him as Governor ofPampanga. JBL was supposed to have defiantly replied: “Maspikasaman ke pa i Marcos keng buldit ku. Eku bisang magingpuppet na.” Art Borjal, in his Philippine Star column later wrote:“…minions of the Marcos regime approached Joe twice and offeredhim top jobs in the government. Joe Lingad’s response waspredictable. He told them Marcos can go to hell, and he and Ninoyand the few who still cared for genuine freedom had a covenant tocontinue the fight against authoritarianism.”

The 1980 elections were widely perceived as rigged. Initialresults of the counting showed Lingad edging the administrationcandidate. At that point the government declared a failure ofelections in San Fernando and scheduled special elections at alater date.

Then two bullets from an assassin’s gun felled Lingad.Art Borjal: “Very few remember the heinous crime now.

But the murder of Joe Lingad, Cesar Climaco and Ninoy Aquinosolidified the opposition in the early 80s and helped fuel the anti-Marcos crusade. The three - Jose, Cesar and Ninoy – were especiallychosen to lead the way because they could neither be bought norterrorized.”

Because he dared fight thedictatorship at a time when it was mostdangerous to do so; because his deathwas the first high-profile assassinationduring the martial law years; becausetogether with Ninoy Aquino, JoseClimaco and the other martyrs, hehelped pave the way for the historicPeople Power RevolutionBy Kaye Mayrina-Lingad

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Because she was the firstKapampangan woman tobecome a poet laureateBy Erlita P. Mendoza

95. Rosa Yumul Ogsimer

Although only an elementary schoolgraduate, Rosa Yumul Ogsimer (b. 1913),according to anthologist Evangelina Lacson,had enough accomplishments to beproclaimed “Princesa ning Crissotan” in 1930.In 1933, she was crowned the first poetesslaureate of Pampanga and Tarlac with herpoem, “Mutya” which was awarded first prizein a poetry contest. A woman with manytalents and distinction, her poetry has beenincluded in the anthology ParnasongKapampangan, a 1997 publication of theAguman Talasulat Kapampangan (AGTAKA).

96. Aurea BalagtasBecause she was one of the rareKapampangan women whospent their entire lives writingBy Erlita P. Mendoza

Alex Castro

Born Regidor de la Rosa in Lubao onNovember 12, 1914, he was a farm boyin charge of a piggery, a poultry and anorchard who initially trained with sistersAfrica and Purita and brother Tomas(later Jaime) in the Kapampanganzarzuela tradition, along with friend,townmate and brother-in-law DiosdadoMacapagal (whose first wife wasPurita). The six-foot basketball teamcaptain was discovered for the moviesby Jose Nepomuceno in 1929, pairedwith another new discovery, Rosa delRosario and together they werelaunched in Ligaw na Bulaklak (1932).He was one of the few actors who madea successful transition from silent moviesto talkies by shedding off hisKapampangan accent. His filmography,which includes numerous genres, speaksof de la Rosa’s range, quality of work andbankability: Bituing Marikit, Himala ngBirhen sa Antipolo, Señorita, Maalaala MoKaya, Victory Joe, Prinsipe Amante,Anong Ganda Mo, Pagdating ngTakipsilim, Jack and Jill, Milyonarya,Florante at Laura, Sonny Boy, Higit saLahat and many more. De la Rosa was anatural baritone but his singing partswere dubbed by Frankie Gordon andby Jimmy Navarro (Leah Navarro’sfather) His love team with CarmenRosales is one of the most enduring inlocal cinema but it was another actress,Lota Delgado of Angeles City, whom heeventually married. After retiring (his lastmovie was Veronica with Lolita Rodriguezand Paraluman in 1957), he ran and wonas an independent candidate for Senator.In 1961, he ran for President but wasprevailed upon by Diosdado Macapagal

The original King of Philippine Moviesran for President but backed outto pave the way for his fellowKapampangan’s victory

to withdraw from the race. PresidentMacapagal later appointed him ambassadorextraordinary and plenipotentiary toCambodia from 1965 to 1971. PresidentMarcos appointed him chief of mission inThe Hague, with concurrent accreditationto Poland. His last assignment as diplomatwas in Sri Lanka. He died at age 72 onNovember 26, 1986. Rogelio de la Rosa isregarded as the greatest Filipino matineeidol ever.Reference: “Kapampangan Artist in the Golden Ageof Philippine Cinema” by Erlita P. Mendoza in SingsingVol. 1 No. 4. Angeles City: Holy Angel UniversityPress; additional notes by Alex Castro.

94. Rogelio de la Rosa94. Rogelio de la RosaBecause his personal sacrifice changedthe course of Philippine historyBecause his personal sacrifice changedthe course of Philippine history

Born to one of the prominent families of turn-of-the-century Guagua, Balagtas wrote

mostly during the pre-waryears (c1925-1938). At theheight of her creative seasons,she was a self-publishingauthor and she kept a steadystream of private writing in theform of personal journals andunpublished manuscripts.Around the early 1930s, shepublished a collection of shortstories entitled CatuñgingSampaguita (A Strand ofSampaguita). It featured hershort fiction dated 1925 to1930: “Josefina Hidalgo,”“Elvira,” “Lihim” (Secret),“Catasan” (Pride) and “DonaConsuelo,” among others. In1936, she published a poementitled “Buri Cu Sa” in thenewspaper “Ing Bandila”republished in 1984 by Lacson,while Manlapaz, in herKapampangan Literature,included an undated Balagtaspoem entitled “Milabas Na.”(1981)

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One favorite pastime of Kapampangans is to name asmany personalities in show business as possible whohail from the Kapampangan Region, or whose roots canbe traced to Pampanga and Tarlac. Old folks remember,of course, popular director Gregorio Fernandez ofLubao, action stars Bernard Belleza of Macabebe,Tony Ferrer (also of Macabebe, whose brother Atty.Espiridion Laxa is a producer) and Jess Lapid; Eddiedel Mar who played Rizal in several movies; comediansVic Pacia, Patsy (Mateo, of Tawag ng Tanghalan, whichlaunched the careers of Pepe Pimentel, Edgar Mortiz,Diomedes Maturan and Nora Aunor)), Ben “Ohinde!”David, Pugak and Tugak, and Chiquito; thesepulchral voice of Kuya Cesar (Cesar Nucum ofCandaba); radio commentator Rafael Yabut; singersFred Panopio of Bacolor and Fides CuyuganAsencio; and the drama stars Dante Rivero andRosita Noble of Floridablanca, Oscar Roncal ofSasmuan, Tony Santos Sr., Liza Lorena (ElizabethWinsett Luciano in real life) of Magalang, brothersJaime and Rogelio de la Rosa of Lubao, brothersPepito and Ramil Rodriguez of San Fernando, andbrothers Luis and Bobby Gonzales.

Mabalacat folk consider the following theirkabalen: Miss International Melanie Marquez, actorsJoey Marquez and Chuck Perez; director ElwoodPerez; folk singer Ysagani Ybarra and comedian JonSantos. Gracita Dominguez, at the time a youngingénue from Mabalacat, was launched in ManuelConde’s classic Siete Infantes de Lara and got stellarbilling in Hiwaga ng Langit (1951). She is better knownas Dolphy’s first wife (whose children by her were Sahleeand Rolly Quizon). Contemporary singers like Rico J.Puno, Nanette Inventor, Mon David (of Sto.Tomas), as well as composer Louie Ocampo, areKapampangan, so is the entire Gil family (Rosemarie,Cherie and Mark Gil and Michael de Mesa, of Porac).Big stars like Vilma Santos (from Bamban), SharonCuneta (aunt Helen Gamboa and mother Elaine areKapampangans from Sta. Ana), Lorna Tolentino (fromConcepcion), Lea Salonga (father is from Porac), KrisAquino (of Concepcion), Alma Moreno (of Macabebe)and Judy Anne Santos (from San Fernando) areKapampangan. The prolific scriptwriter RacquelVillavicencio and jet-setter Minda Feliciano, formerwife of British actor Micahel Caine, are from AngelesCity; pianist Cecile Licad can trace her roots to Lubao.Isabel Preysler, Countess de Griñon of Spain andformer wife of Julio Iglesias, is a granddaughter of PepeArrastia, hacendero also from Lubao. Well, if even thesitting Governor and the Vice Governor of Pampanga(Lito Lapid and Mikey Arroyo, President’s son no less)are showbiz personalities, should one still wonder?

Reference: Notes from Alex Castro, Armando Regala, Ernie Turla, PolKekai Manansala, et al.

GALAXY OFKAPAMPANGANSTARS

Because she was the best Kapampangan woman writerof the 20th centuryBy Erlita P. Mendoza

Rosario Tuazon Baluyut of Bacolorstarted writing and publishing in the1930s with the publication of herworks in the local newspaper “IngBalen” and of her novel la andcollection of poetry and short fictionin Eloisa: Novelang Capampangan,Ampong Salitang Macuyad at Poesias(1938) in which her unforgettable“Ing Pamamali” (Revenge) found itsfirst publication, and in the post-warcollection Bayung Casulatan! SalitangMacuyad, Dalit at Cawatasan (1946).A self-publishing author, she was amajor proponent of the crissotan andwrote lyrics for gozos and dalitPamascu as well as verses especiallyfor the use of schoolchildren inBacolor. She continued to create and

97. Rosario Baluyut

publish her poetry and prose, givepublic readings of her works andpromote the local literary arts inthe regional language until the1980s. Lahar buried most of hermanuscripts; she resettled in SanFernando where she died, but shewas buried in her hometown as shehad wished.

Sources: Lacson,E.H. KapampanganWriting (1984); Manlapaz, E.Z.Kapampangan Literature (1981); Mendoza,E.P. Preliminary Notations in RelocatingRosario Tuazon Baluyut, KapampanganWoman Author (CIS Journal, UST,2002),Rosario Tuazon Baluyut: Amazona ningLiteraturang Capampangan (KapampanganCenter Lecture Series, HAU, November2002) and Preliminary Discussion on ‘IngMusa ning Wawa’: Aurea N. Balagtas (1902-1991) and Pre-War Writing in

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Rufino Santos y Jiao was born in barrio Sto. Niño, Guaguaon 26 August 1908, the youngest male of 7 children of GaudencioSantos and Rosalia Jiao. His siblings included Manuel,Emiliano, Quirino, Clara, Jovita and Exequiela. Gaudencio,who was working as an overseer for a farm near Arayat, moved hisfamily to Intramuros, Manila after the death of his wife where hehoped to find better livelihood prospects. There, at the ManilaCathedral Parochial School, the 8-year old Rufino was enrolled infirst Grade. He was one of the star students of the school, oftenrendering his services as altar boy or choir boy during the HolyMass at the Cathedral. His formative years at the parochial schoolobviously instilled his early ambition to serve God.

Finishing 4th grade with honors, he was accepted at theSan Carlos Seminary on 15 June 1921. His road to priesthood tooka major turn when, in 1927, he was accepted as a scholar of thePontifical Gregorian University in Rome. Just 19, he left for Italytogether with another scholar, 24-year old Leopoldo A. Arcaira.He obtained his Baccalaureate in Canon Law after 2 years, andthen further pursued his Doctorate in Sacred Theology for another2 years. At age 23, he was one year short of the required age forordination to priesthood, so a special dispensation had to be securedfrom the Pope. Finally, on 25 October 1931, Rufino Santos wasordained at the magnificent Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome.

Following his return to the Philippines, Fr. Rufino Santos,or simply Fr. Pinong to those close to him, was named as assistantpriest of Imus, Cavite and then parish priest of Marilao, Bulacan.Later, he was transferred to the see of Manila where he becameVice Chancellor (1932), Superintendent of Instruction and FinancialSecretary-Treasurer (1939) all at the same time.

The Philippine Catholic Church was not spared from theonslaught of World War II in 1942. On 4 February 1944, Fr. Santoswas arrested and jailed at the Fort Santiago where he was beatenand tortured by Japanese soldiers; he was eventually moved toBilibid where he was rescued by Americans a year later—on theeve of his execution. Barely had he recuperated when he was namedby Archbishop Michael O’Doherty as Vicar General of Manila.Two years later, he was elected as the Titular Bishop of Barca andAuxiliary Bishop to the archbishop. Upon O’Doherty’s death,Archbishop Gabriel M. Reyes of Cebu assumed the archbishopricof Manila by papal appointment, the first Filipino to do so.

Fr. Santos took on the position of Military Vicar of thePhilippines in 1951. Upon Archbishop Reyes’ death in 1953, PopePius XII named Fr. Rufino Santos as the new Archbishop of Manila.In his new role, he quietly worked towards building a local churchsensitive to the needs of the masses, organizing welfare projectssuch as the Catholic Charities. He launched religious crusades (PurityCrusade for Mary Immaculate), built seminaries (Our Lady ofGuadalupe) and restored Manila Cathedral to its old grandeur.

The highlight of his religious life was his elevation to therank of cardinal at the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome at 9:30 a.m. on31 March 1960. In the company of his brother and sisters, andamongst kabalens like Vice President and Mrs. DiosdadoMacapagal, Msgr. Rufino Santos was conferred the galero or RedHat, the symbol of cardinalate, by Pope John XXIII in solemn

98. RUFINO SANTOSBecause he was rescued on the eve of his execution—a clear sign of manifestdestiny; because, sure enough, he became the first Filipino, and Asian, cardinal,the crowning glory of 400 years of Catholicism in the Philippines; because byfounding the Catholic Charities, upholding celibacy and initiating reforms, hereminded his people of the true mission of the Churchby Alex R. Castro

but glorious ceremonies attended by an international crowdnumbering in thousands. Finally, after 400 years of Christianity,the Philippines had a cardinal! It was a thrilling piece of news thatwas flashed around the globe, reverberating throughout the countryand echoing louder in his native Pampanga. Cardinal Santos thenissued his first message to a proud Filipino nation that included aprayer and a wish : “Honor and glory to the Lord…Blessed be thegreat Lady of the Philippines, the Immaculate Virgin…May Godbless my Country!”

Cardinal Rufino J. Santos’ 20 years of ministry as pastorof the See of Manila will be remembered as the years of majorreforms in the church as adjured by the 2nd Vatican Council. Liturgicalchanges, attitudes on family planning, Filipinization of the clergy—all these transpired during his term, not to mention controversieslike married priests, an issue that is very much now (Of this, thecardinal says: “A priest is not supposed to get married. When hemade the vows, he knew what he was doing. Priesthood is asacrament that eliminates another sacrament—marriage.”). It wasalso during his cardinalship that Pope Paul VI made his historicvisit to the Philippines in 1970.

On 29 June 1973, Cardinal Santos suffered his first strokewhile praying the rosary at Villa San Miguel; he would never recoverfrom his condition. At age 65, the good Cardinal died peacefully atSan Juan de Dios Hospital on 3 September 1973 and was interredseven days later in a crypt at the Manila Cathedral. A whole nationmourned the passing of the first Filipino cardinal, a Kapampanganwho made good his promise “to win men’s souls for Christ..”. Indeed,Pampanga’s loss was heaven’s gain.

The small town of Betis is said to have produced the mostnumber of priests in the country. Angeles City, much malignedfor its red-light district, is really a bastion of Catholicism; theparish church has five fully packed Masses every day and atleast ten Masses on Sundays—and that is only one church ina city that has several parish churches scattered all over.Pampanga’s fidelity to the Church is probably the mostenduring legacy of the Spaniards to Kapampangans.

In addition to the pioneers, Rufino Cardinal Santosand Archbishop Pedro Santos, other Kapampangans who haveclimbed up the ladder of the Catholic hierarchy includeSilvestre Lacson, OSB of Angeles City, the first FilipinoBenedictine Prior; his nephew Tarcisio Ma. Narciso, OSBalso of Angeles City, the third Filipino Abbot; and then thereare the bishops, Bishop Honesto Ongtioco of Cubao, BishopFederico Escaler, SJ, Bishop Crisostomo Yalung (formerlyof Antipolo), Bishop Teodoro Bacani (formerly of Manila),Bishop Jesus Galang of Urdaneta, Archbishop Oscar Cruzof Lingayen-Dagupan, Bishop Alejandro Olalia (formerly ofLipa), and the present Archbishop of San Fernando, PacianoAniceto, a native of of Sta. Ana, Pampanga.

Kapampangansin the Church hierarchy

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Because from being the fastest-risingand fastest-talking political star, hemellowed into a profoundly spiritual,almost ascetic, human being;because he showed the worldthat the Filipino is worth dying for;because his martyrdom inspired aPeople Power Revolution, toppled adictatorship, catapulted his widow tothe presidency, and continues toanimate the soul of an entire nation

Prior to martial law, Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino was only one of theusual politicians that paraded before the country during electionyear. In the first 40 years of his life he was an unlikely hero.Coming from a political family in Tarlac, Aquino was described as avery determined and ambitious politician.

His high-profile journalistic career in the 50s, coveringthe Korean War as well as other Southeast Asian countries broughthim to national limelight. The Manila Times, then the most widelycirculated newspaper in the Philippines, published his dispatches.Later, he exclusively covered and negotiated the surrender of HMBSupremo Luis Taruc, thus boosting his popularity further.

Only 22 when elected mayor of Concepcion town, he hadalways tested the strictures of the law. In 1963, he was electedgovernor of Tarlac and four years later as Senator of the Republica few weeks short of the prescribed age.

99. BENIGNO AQUINO JR.

of Marcos. As a reelected senator in 1971, he loomed as the mostserious contender for the presidency, since Marcos wasconstitutionally disqualified for a third term. Ninoy’s path to thepresidency was blocked by the declaration of martial law in 1972.But this event turned the traditional politician into the thoughtfulleader of the opposition. One of the first to be arrested, hisdetention made him ironically the most visible symbol of oppositionto the dictatorship.

In 1977, he was sentenced to death on charges ofsubversion. By this time he has further broadened his supportafter his campaign for a seat in the rubber-stamp BatasangPambansa (his ticket was wiped out by Imelda Marcos’ party), whichwould explain why President Marcos allowed him to leave for theUnited States in 1980 for medical treatment.

He returned on August 21, 1983 hoping to prevent a totalmilitary military takeover which he believed was likely in the eventof Marcos’ death (the President was then afflicted with a rare kidneydisease). He was instead assassinated while he was escorted outof the plane by government soldiers. The brazen act led to anexplosion of anti-Marcos sentiment and patriotism, the sheermagnitude of which was never before seen in the country. Hisfuneral is said to be the biggest in the history of the world, biggerthan that of Mahatma Gandhi.

Aquino’s decision to return despite the risk of imprisonmentor death made him both a martyr and hero. It also sounded thedeath knell for the dictatorship. Although it would take three moreyears before the collapse of the Marcos regime, Aquino’sassassination in 1983 set into motion a series of events thatinexorably led to the ouster of Marcos and the restoration ofinstitutions of liberal democracy in 1986.

Ninoy Aquino has truly become an authentic Filipino hero.

Pencil sketch by Daniel Dizon

As a senator, he became one of the most outspoken critics

With wife Cory Aquino, later President of the Philippines

By Erlinda Cruz

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Course on Pampanga church historyChurch heritage expert Prof. Regalado Trota Jose, author of

Simbahan, Visita Iglesia: Bohol and other books, has started his weekendseminar-workshop on the history of Pampanga churches this semester at theCenter for Kapampangan Studies.

The special course is held every Saturday for 20 consecutive weeks.Aside from lectures and archival researches, participants visit various parishesin the province, hold interviews and collect architectural materials from sites,like bricks, stones and wood. The course aims to equip students with researchskills for collating data and preparing basic histories of church communitiesin Pampanga. The students will also serve as a pool of researchers andwriters who will assist in the preparation of a book on Pampanga churches tobe authored by Prof. Jose. Photos show Prof. Jose and students examiningthe old retablo and paletada behind the main altar of the Sasmuan church,now undergoing renovation.

Singsing is published quarterly by The Juan D. Nepomuceno Center for Kapampangan Studies ofHoly Angel University, Angeles City, Philippines. For inquiries, suggestions and comments, pleasecall (045) 888-8691 loc. 1311, or fax at (045)888-2514, or email at rptmt@yahoo.com. Visit websiteat www.hau.edu.ph/kcenter.Editor: Robby TantingcoEditorial Assistants: Ana Marie Vergara, Sheila Laxamana

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Pampangos16 Delfin Quiboloy, poet17 Honorio Ventura18 Pablo Panlilio19 Rafaelita Hilario Soriano,author, The Pampangos20 Evangelina Hilario Lacson,author, Kapampangan Writing:A Selected Compendium andCritique21 Gen. Francisco Makabulos22 Justice Roberto Regala23 Gen. Servillano Aquino24 Agapito del Rosario25 Gen. Maximino Hizon26 Gen. Jose Alejandrino27 Macabebe Scouts28 Felix Galura, poet

29 Exec. Sec. Amelito Mutuc30 Jose Lingad, martyr31 Edna Zapanta Manlapaz,author, Kapampangan Litera-ture: A Historical Survey andAnthology32 Francisco Liongson33 Justice Jesus Barrera34 Eusebio Dizon, first Filipinodoctor of archaeology35 Archbishop Paciano Aniceto36 Abbot Tarcisio Narciso, OSB37 Don Augusto Gonzalez38 Bro. Andrew Gonzalez, FSC39 Amb. Sedfrey Ordoñes40 Nicolasa Dayrit41 Sor Dionisia Talangpaz42 Sor Cecilia Talangpaz

43 Monico Mercado, poet44 Diosdado Macapagal45 Rogelio dela Rosa46 Bienvenido M. Gonzalez,UP President47 Vidal Tan, UP President48 Jose Abad Santos, ChiefJustice, martyr49 Juan Crisostomo Soto, poet50 Francisco Bustamante,billiard champion51Amado Yuzon, poet laureate52 Efren “Bata” Reyes, worldbilliard champion53 Gen. Mariano Llanera54 Bernardo Poblete, founderHUKBALAHAP55 Benigno Aquino, Sr.56 Praxedes Fajardo57Nilo Tayag, KabataangMakabayan chair58 Benigno Aquino, Jr.59 Aurelio Tolentino, poet60 Isabelo del Rosario, martyr61 Roberta Tablante Paras62 Lea Salonga, winner,Laurence Olivier Award andAntoinette Perry Award63 Gloria Macapagal Arroyo64 Gene Gonzalez, author,Cocina Sulipeña65 Gov. Macario Arnedo66 Gov. Ceferino Joven67 Don Domingo Panlilio68 Bernabe Buscayno a.k.a.Kumander Dante69 Don Mariano VicenteHenson70 Carmeling del Rosario, MissPampanga 193571 Don Jose Leon y Santos72 Ka Luis Taruc, HukSupremo73 Vivencio Cuyugan, firstSocialist mayor of the Phil.74 Rufino Cardinal Santos75 Jose M. Gallardo, poet76 Capitan Juan GualbertoNepomuceno77 Socorro Henson, firstKapampangan to win nationalbeauty contest78 Fr. Pedro Santos, arch-bishop of Nueva Caceres79 Renato “Katoks” Tayag80 Patsy, comedianne81 Don Conrado Gwekoh82 Gregorio Fernandez, actor83 Pedro Abad Santos84 Pedro Danganan, a.k.a. ApoIro, faith healer85 Don Juan de DiosNepomuceno86 Judge Zoilo Hilario87 Justice Jose Gutierrez David

1 Patis Tesoro, fashion guru2 Sen. Gil Puyat3 Amb. Bienvenido Tan, Jr.4 Amb. Carlos Valdes5 Ambeth Ocampo, NHI chair6 Gov. Lito Lapid7 Gov. Estelito Mendoza8 Albina Peczon Fernandez,feminist writer9 Cecilio Hilario10 Justice Ricardo Puno11Jose Feliciano12 Ysagani Ybarra, folk artist13 Fr. Venancio Samson,translated Bible into Kapampangan14 Randolf “Randy” David15 Rosalina Icban Castro,author, Literature of the