To mark the Diamond Jubilee of the Archdiocese of Cebu, the Cathedral Museum of Cebu and the Archdiocesan Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church will soon launch the book Balaanong Bahandi: Sacred Treasures of the Archdiocese of Cebu.

Published in collaboration with University of San Carlos Press, Balaanong Bahandi continues the pioneering work of Fr. Felipe Redondo who first chronicled the history of the Catholic Faith in Cebu through the book entitled Breve reseña de lo que fue y de lo que es la Diócesis de Cebú en las Islas Filipinas published in 1886.

With excerpts from a translation of Redondo’s magnum opus, over 1,000 full color photographs interspersed with vintage pictures in 58 chapters bring together the Church’s treasured heritage: houses of faith that have not only withstood the vagaries of time and the elements but spawned new parishes.

Balaanong Bahandi is the ultimate guide to the Archdiocese’s architectural heritage, showcasing all the churches in Cebu from the earliest missions to contemporary parishes, including all of the outstanding artistry they contain: bas reliefs expressed in coral stone, carved images in ivory and wood, ceiling paintings by the famed Canuto Avila and Raymundo Francia, handwritten pages in canonical books, bronze bells, and many other tangible manifestations of over 400 years of Christianity in Cebu.

To help raise funds for the book, a month-long exhibition of 50 of the hundreds of select photographs in the book will be held at the Cathedral Museum of Cebu to be opened on July 3, 2009. The exhibit opening will also coincide with pre-selling of the upcoming book at discounted rates.

By purchasing copies in advance, buyers not only get a 20 percent discount on the 300-page full color book, they will also share in the noble task of promoting and ensuring the protection and preservation of Cebu’s heritage churches as proceeds from sales will go to the Cathedral Museum of Cebu Trust Fund and the heritage conservation programs of the Archdiocesan Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church.

Jojo R. Bersales
Editor/Project Coordinator

By Trizer D. Mansueto

Many elderly devotees would still not believe that the image of the Santo Niño venerated in its marble chapel in the basilica is the same image that they have been venerating in their younger years. They reason out that the image they have always thought to be the same image given by Magellan to Queen Juana in 1521 was black and not the Caucasian-skinned Santo Niño.

Fair complexion

When Magellan arrived in Cebu almost five hundred years ago, we can assume that the original image had a fair complexion because we are told that the image came from Flanders, Belgium. Not having any evidence, we surmise that it had been quite a while since the Santo Niño had become black, as evidenced by the stories that were handed down from generations stating that the image is indeed dark-skinned.

Black image in legend
Rosa Tenazas, writing in 1965, concludes: “After long and exhaustive investigation, no document has been found which states precisely that when the image of the Santo Niño was found in Cebu, it was ebony black…” Tenazas instead recounts a legend which mentions of a fisherman who went out to sea one day but every time he would cast his net into the sea, would instead catch a piece of wood. “Disgusted, yet fascinated by the phenomenon, the fisherman brought the wood home with him.” The fisherman forgot about the wood. “That very night, the fisherman had a strange dream. He dreamt that the firewood that he had “caught” that morning had turned into a statue of a little child.”

Why the image became black
Tenazas whose work on the Santo Niño is considered authoritative, however, mentions that former rector Fr. Leandro Moran, OSA, had once told her that a Spanish priest who suffered melancholia or depression had one day painted the image black.

For generations, the Santo Niño was black so that an American visitor described the revered image as: “not beautiful… nor does he faintly resemble our conception of the Christ-child. Its face is flat and lifeless, carved roughly out of some dark wood…”

Ernesto Chua, a long-time devotee of the Santo Niño, in a presentation last 2008, stated that the Augustinian priests “re-discovered” the image’s original color right after the war when a nun discovered that the black paint had peeled off.

When she was still alive, Chua interviewed Prof. Rosario “Mimi” Trosdal, long-time camarera of the Santo Niño on her role in restoring the image’s original Caucasian color: “So when the image returned to the church after the war, Fr. Pablo asked me to repair and paint the image in the original color.”

Mysticism in black
For the sake of discussion, one friend asked why of all colors, the melancholic Spanish Augustinian painted the Santo Niño black. After interviewing several old timers who do not wish to be identified, it was gathered that the reason was purely economics.

The people of yesteryears found some mysticism with the dark color. Black images were the in-thing in Europe then. It has been estimated that there are more than four hundred dark images venerated in famous shrines all-over Europe dating from the 11th century up to the 16th century. It includes the Black Madonna of Einsideln in Switzerland, the Virgin of Altotting in Germany and the Virgin of Guadalupe of Caceres, Spain. In our country, mention must be made on the two black Mexican images that were also attracting devotees in Manila; the Nazareno and the Virgin of Antipolo. And so the Spanish Augustinians in Cebu had to do something. So, thus, was the reason why they say, the image was painted black.

Black or fair, it’s just a representation
In the final analysis, it doesn’t really matter if we venerate a black of a fair-skinned Santo Niño de Cebu because the image is just a representation of the Christ-child and besides the Divine lives in each one of us. If we just recognize the Divine in each one of us then an image is not even important because, after all, we are the manifestation of the Divine.

Trizer D. Mansueto
When the Iberians came to control the Philippines, it was not really the Spanish soldiers who conquered the islands but the friars or missionaries who belonged to the religious orders. Control of the archipelago was only fully effected not through arms but through the use of the Catholic faith and its various ceremonies that displayed pomp and pageantry.

Due to the use of religious ceremonies and sacramentals, the early Filipinos easily abandoned their anitos in favor of the Christian deity and saints who were also portrayed in human form. The foreign deity then became a Filipino deity. Thus, in one of the churches in Manila, one would see an image of the Christ Child dressed in the conqueror’s garb being venerated by Filipinos. This is the Santo Niño Conquistador.

This Pista Señor 2007, we are reminded of an event that came down into history where the Santo Niño de Cebu, the divine Child, was invoked to conquer a rebellious people.

Tamblot’s rebellion
The story is about the rebellion led by Tamblot in the province of Bohol in 1620, a few years after the reestablishment of Spanish rule in the country. Tamblot, a native priest supposedly encouraged the Boholanos to throw off Spanish yoke and convinced the people that they were “assured of the aid of their ancestors and divatas, or gods.” To prove this, “the priest went with some of the more trusty among them, cut a bamboo with a small knife and wine gushed forth. He cut another and rice came out.” The trick was so convincing that the belief spread far and wide in the island.

In the fear that the belief would spread to the city of the Santisimo Nombre de Jesus (Cebu City), the Spanish missionaries in Bohol alerted the officials of the said city. Not having any orders from the governor of the Visayas, Don Juan de Alcarazo, the alcalde mayor, did not dispatch soldiers to Bohol at once to quell an impending revolt. It was only quite later that Alcarazo acceded. “The alcalde-mayor was persuaded and assembled the soldiers and adventurers who appeared most suitable to him, besides a number of Sugbu Indians armed with sword and bucklers…”

Don Juan de Alcarazo
The Spaniards feared the rebels who were safely entrenched in the mountains of Bohol and who had received many sympathizers among the people. Due to this, Don Juan de Alcarazo thought of seeking aid from the Santo Niño. Alcarazo visited the church of the Augustinians and requested for a mass to be said. The chronicler, the Augustinian Fray Medina has this to say: “But the most diligent effort made by this gentleman was to go to our convent to have a mass said to the Holy Child, before whom many candles were burned; to promise to take Him as patron; and to perform no action in that war which not be done in His name.Since His (Divine) Majesty, he said, had, by His favor, given those islands to the Spaniards, he prayed that He would not permit them to lose, those that they already possessed.”

Defeat and victory
Alcarazo’s prayers were answered but not after encountering certain difficulties. They attacked the enemy and were about to lose when heavy rains occurred that almost rendered their arquebuses useless. The natives were becoming successful due to their position and the support they had from other people. Just when the Spaniards were about to be defeated, “the shields of the Sugbu Indians were brought into service, and the latter aided excellently by guarding with them the powder-flasks and powder-pans of the arquebuses, so that they were fired with heavy loss (to the enemy.)”

Feeling that nature was not aiding them, the enemy’s babaylan (Tamblot?), encouraged the rebels to attack the Spaniards. “Consequently, they became like mad dogs; and they preferred death than enduring the conditions of the conqueror. But so many fell that death had to fulfill its duty, namely, to inspire them with fear.”

Don Juan himself did not escape unscathed by the skirmish, although not mortally as his “morion (armor?) received the blow. Although he fell ill, he arose cured and with renewed courage by calling on the Holy Child, who gave the Spaniards the victory, and, with it, the islands for a second time.”

The defeat of the rebels had such an impact so that: “After this victory, those who had desired to raise the yoke placed their necks once more under it…”

Cebu Daily News

17 January 2007

By Trizer D. Mansueto

I have this impression that the Fiesta Señor we have today had always been a big celebration in the past although its intensity has increased since then. Pilgrims coming from all over Cebu province and the nearby provinces from the Visayas and Mindanao would pour into the city and visit the Santo Niño in his shrine. The original church of the Augustinian friars could no longer contain the huge crowds every fiesta so that what used to be the church’s plaza was converted into the present pilgrim center. The devotees of the Holy Child of Cebu seem to be growing each single year so that even the pilgrim center could no longer accommodate the crowds who eventually swell to the streets a few days before the fiesta.

The devotion to the Santo Niño of Cebu was already well-entrenched in the past so that even before the fourth centenary of the Christianization of the Philippines in 1965, the “Little King” of Cebu already had many devotees. This is no more than evident in a newspaper article written by a certain Rosa Mistica in January 1939 in Bag-ong Kusog.

The strong devotion to the Santo Niño would continue as long every devotee has a favor to ask and as long as the Holy Child dispenses miracles to his clients. Rosa Mistica writes: “Ang labing kinaham ug dinugukang patron sa Sugbu nga gituohang labing karaang larawan nga Kristohanon sa Pilipinas mao ang Senyor Santo Ninyo, alampoanan sa tanang balatian sa lawas, kansang tinuig na pangilin saulogon sa tungatunga ning bulana.” This description of the image is an assertion of the old gozos that the Santo Niño is the “batobalani” (lodestone) of the ancients.

The image is highly venerated by people so that it had been known as one of three most venerated images in the country. “Giingon nga sa tibuok Pilipinas duruha da ka patron ang makalabaw sa Santo Ninyo sa Sugbu sa gidaghanon sa mga tawo nga mosimba ug mangilaba…” The author mentions the black images of the Virgin of Antipolo and the Nazareno of Quiapo. “Dinugokan kaayo ang pangilin sa senyor kay sa ubang patron sa Kabisay-an ug Mindanaw kay kuno kahibulongan.”

The author then recounts another version of the miraculous discovery of the image by a soldier of Legazpi’s fleet named Juan de Camus. “Samtang nagsuroy-suroy sa karon San Nikolas hipunitan ni Camus ang larawan sa senyor nga nagkamuritsing sa yuta…” Based on another version, we were told that the image was found inside a wooden box in a burned hut of the ancient Cebuanos. “Ang kinit-ang larawan nga maayong pagkakulit nahimo dayong unang patron sa Sugbu ug dugay sa maong simbahang nipa, kawayan ug kahoy sa San Nikolas una makuha sa mga pari sa San Agustin tungud sa hangyo sa mga paring Agustinos…” The claim that the image was discovered in San Nicolas (which was once a town independent from Cebu City) continues to be an unsettled issue.

“Sa pangilin sa senyor, mga Katoliko ug dili Katoliko gikan sa kinalay-ang suok sa Kabisay-an ug Mindanaw, hangtud sa Manila, mangabut sa Sugbu aron pagtuman sa ilang mga panaad.” The non-Catholics that the author mentions may refer to members of the Aglipayan Church who also venerate the miraculous image. Most of those who had made panaad (vows) came to seek for divine intervention or to give thanks, especially for cures. “Kadaghanan niini nagdalag mga bata nga masakiton kun bag-ong nangaayo sa sakit aron isayaw sa atubangan sa senyor.” The author mentions that the image is also the patron of children.

I was able to witness devotees dance the Sinulog in the basilica last year and I realized that this had been a long-standing tradition. It was not only candle vendors outside the church who danced the Sinulog but so were ordinary folks who were seeking favors or in thanksgiving for the favors received. “Ang pagsayaw sa Sinulog sa atubangan sa senyor maoy pagtuman sa panaad… Kon dili makasayaw ang tagtungud, mahimo nga mosayaw pinaagi sa pagsuhol sa mga bata kun tigulang nga magsinulog sa gawas, apan atubangan sa simbahan sa San Agustin dinuyogan sa tambul.” Today’s Sinulog mardigras was inspired by one woman who had kept alive the practice. Nang Titang Diola of Mabolo, Cebu City still invokes the Holy Child, like the faithful of old and dances the original Sinulog beat, in honor of the Santo Niño.

The practice of dancing the Sinulog was for a time forbidden but devotees persisted. “Giingon nga dihay higayon nga gisultihan ang mga tawo nga dili na kinahanglan magsayaw kun magsinulog pa sila sa atubangan sa senyor human manimba ug mangilaba niini.” But this tradition is difficult to obliterate from the Cebuanos: “Apan ang mga tawo wala patuo ug mipadayon hangtud karon pagsayaw sa Sinulog nga gihimo sa ilang katigulangan kapid-an ka gatus ka tuig na karon.”

***

Pit Senyor sa atong mga mahal sa kinabuhi! Pit Senyor alang sa atong mga kahigalaan! Pit Senyor alang sa mga maykaligutgot kanato! Pit Senyor sa mga nanagsakit! Pit Senyor kanatong tanan!

Cebu Daily News

10 January 2009

By Trizer D. Mansueto

Our country is said to have the longest Christmas celebration in the world because it starts on the first day of September and ends either on the sixth of January, the feast of the Epiphany or to some, on the second day of February, the feast of the Presentation (Candelaria).

Some do not necessarily put up their Christmas decors at home yet in September but radio stations start to play Christmas songs. For some people, the first day of September signals the caroling season.

Just this year, I’ve noticed a new modus operandi of some carolers. When the practice of caroling started in Europe in the 13^th century and introduced in the Philippines by the Spaniards in the 17^th century, it was meant to bring cheer to people for the birth of the Messiah through meaningful Christmas songs. Those of us who take the public transportation daily have noticed that some young men have been riding public utility vehicles to carol with the now familiar spiel: “Ate, kuya dili mi dautan, isnatser o tulisan pero mamaskohay lang.”

Anyway, it seems that as early as the 1960s, Cebu City already had an ordinance which tried to levy an appropriate tax on carolers for the reason that some had already considered it as a means to earn the fast buck. Esteban M. David writing for Bisaya in December 1964 had these thoughts: “Kalahi na karon itanding sa mga daygon sa atong mga katigulangan! Kanhi, sa katugnaw sa kagabhion sa Pasko, ang mananaygon magkugi pagbatbat sa hingpit nga kaagi sa Ninyo.”

It would seem that David was right. Last year, I heard some children from a mountain barangay in Naga, Cebu perform what they called the Pastores, a song and dance presentation retelling the birth of the Christ-child in Bethlehem. The Requinto clan of Naga is probably the only group left that continues the traditional Cebuano daygon today.

We have an idea at present that the original Cebuano daygon was quite long to perform, thanks to Epifania Magallon, a student of St. Theresa’s College who recorded the lyrics of the lengthy daygon in 1966. The traditional daygon Magallon documented had at least 13 parts which included; Ang Pagminyo ni Maria kang Josep, Ang Pagkunsad sa Angel, Pagmando ni Cesar Agusto, Ang Pagsulat, Sa Belen, Sa Kamalig sa Baka and Mga Dayegon sa Pagkatawo sa Mesiyas. But it does not end there. The other parts are sung after Christmas as suggested by Mga Dayegon Human sa Pasko, Ang Milagro sa Trigo, Pag-abut sa Ehipto, Paghinagbo kang Dimas Escariote, Sa Balay ni Dimas and Ang Milagro sa Pagpanglaba.

Due to space constraints, I copied the first few verses of Mga Dayegon sa Pagkatawo sa Mesiyas:

1. Ang oras miabut

Ang gitagna sa mga profetas

Kadtong bulak nga gihulat

Sa katawhan gipasalamat.

1. Sa langit ang bulak

Ang kang Maria nga gi-anak

Sa kalibutan misidlak

Nakalukop ang iyang kasilak.

1. Ngadto sa portal sa Belen

Mag-anak ang usa ka Birhen

Niadtong langitnon nga laurel

Nga mao si Salvador Emmanuel.

1. Si San Gabriel mikunsad upod

Embahador nga matuod

Nagakanta ug nagasayud

Gilibutan sa mga panganud.

1. Nagabutyag sa misteryo

Sa bag-ong hari nga natawo

Nagakanta pag-abut didto

Gloria in excelsis Deo.

1. Ug mao na ang kasayuran

Himaya sa Dios Amahan

Nga natawo sa kalibutan

Ang magbubuhat sa ngatanan.

In the past, San Nicolas, Cebu City was known for its presentation of the Pastores, Niño Perdido and Siete Doctores. Besides San Nicolas, Minglanilla was also known for its “singing shepherds” (mga pastora magdalag mga daygon) who wore beautiful costumes appropriate for their presentation. Mabolo and Mandaue, on the other hand, were known for their Villancico, described as “panaygon nga sinimbahan,” which is said to awaken godliness in everyone.

David mentions that it was not only the residents from the city and the towns who brought Christmas cheer through carols because even residents from the mountains (mga bukidnon) also came down. He noted that the carols in the past always centered on the birth of the messiah.

David appealed to people then (as now) not to forget the true spirit of Christmas by doing what he termed “daygon-daygon lang.” He also gave an advice to discipline carolers who don’t have the Christmas spirit: “Nagkinahanglan silang pitolon sa ngalan sa Diyos, aron mahibalik ang diwa sa pasko.”

13 December 2008

Cebu Daily News

By Trizer D. Mansueto

Tomorrow, the biggest fiesta in the entire Philippines will once again take place in our city. The Basilica del Santo Niño, the mother-church of all churches in the country will be full of activity with masses and prayers of supplication and thanksgiving done by old dancing ladies holding aloft unlighted candles as offering to the Holy Child of Cebu. In the streets of the city will dance many contingents from all over Cebu and from various parts of the country to venerate the Christ Child.  Read the rest of this entry »

By Trizer D. Mansueto

In the early morning of 26 March this current year, one of the old stone churches in Cebu province was gutted down by a fire that raged for eight hours. Two days later, I, together with some members of the Cebu Archdiocesan Church Heritage Commission traveled to Oslob to assess the destruction caused by the fire. Unlike in the previous fires that occurred, this year’s conflagration was worse because it also gutted down the old wood-and-stone rectory. In fact, when we arrived in the site, some wooden posts of the rectory were still smoldering. With the church reduced to mere stone shell and the rectory in ash and rubble, the people of Oslob also lost a part of their history and identity. Read the rest of this entry »

By Trizer D. Mansueto

Nowhere else in Cebu province nor in the entire Philippines for that matter can one see two churches built across one another than in Santa Fe, Bantayan Island, Cebu. Although, at first glance one will say they are the same because both venerate the Santo Niño as patron, yet upon closer scrutiny, one will discover that they are not. Only by reading the signage on their respective entrances will the first-time worshipper realize that one of the churches is actually Roman Catholic and the other Aglipayan. The two churches are only separated by the narrow street named after Aguedo Batobalonos, a personality involved in the Tres de Abril uprising in Cebu, who also had an influence in the establishment of the Aglipayan parish.  Read the rest of this entry »

By Trizer D. Mansueto

Filipinos did not have family names until the middle part of the 19^th century when the Spanish Governor Narciso Claveria y Zaldua decreed on November 21, 1849 that Filipinos adopt family names in order to stop “the resultant confusion with regard to the administration of justice, government, finance and public order and the far-reaching moral civil and religious consequences to which this might lead because family names are not transmitted from the parents to their children, so that it is sometimes impossible to prove the degree of consanguinity for purposes of marriage…”  Read the rest of this entry »

By Jose Eleazar Bersales
Sociology-Anthropology Department
University of San Carlos

I was pleasantly surprised by the swift and positive outcome of my column (and my calls to the National Museum) last week regarding the looting of artifacts at Plaza Independencia. The National Museum (NM) immediately sent a team, led by its assistant director, Noel Cuevas, to meet with Vice Mayor Mike Rama, as well as the management of the subway project at the plaza, to check the reports. Read the rest of this entry »