Mabalacat: Ang Pagkatatag

Fr. Andres de San Fulgencio, Tagapagtatag ng Mabalacat

Ang papel na ito ay tumatalakay sa kasaysayan ng Mabalacat, isang munting bayan sa dulo ng Pampanga.  Tinatalakay dito ang pagkakatatag ng bayan, hanggang panahon ng mga Hapon.  Ayon sa datos, itinatag ang Bayan ng Mabalacat noong 1717, taliwas sa nakaugaliang taon na 1712.  Ito ay tahanan ng mga Pinatubo Aeta at mga Zambal.  Mga Agustino Rekoleto ang nangangasiwa dito hanggang magkaroon ng rebolusyon.  Lubhang nasira ang bayan noong panahon ng mga Hapon dahil na rin sa kalapitan nito sa Clark Field na ginawa ring kota ng mga Hapon.

Through a Stretch of Unsettled Country

For the imperial Spain, the 17^th century was a period of consolidation of its control over the Philippines. In Luzon, many areas of the Northern Provinces of Ilocos and Pangasinan have long been colonized by the mighty Spain. These provinces were governed from Manila, the colonial capital.

Traveling by land, the emissaries from Manila must pass through the Provinces of Bulacan and Pampanga to reach the Northern Provinces. However, the route between Pampanga and Pangasinan was very dangerous. It was a desolate territory where travelers were exposed to the attacks of the headhunting Aetas and Zambals from the Zambales Mountains. The Aetas were known among the Spaniards for their ferocity. Around 1648, many reckless Spaniards and natives died in the hands of the Aetas.

If one goes there by land, he must inevitably pass through a stretch of unsettled country for a day’s journey, between the province of Pampanga and that of Pangasinan, from the village of Magalang to that of Malunguey. One cannot pass it with security without an escort of Zambals, who are, like the Pampangos of elevated villages in that province, a brave people. The reason is that that entire unsettled portion is exposed to the incursions of the blacks from the mountains of Playa Honda, who are the cruelest of all scattered nations… Many other Spaniards have been killed by their carelessness and great confidence, and consequently, that unsettled stretch is very dangerous. [1]

           It was not only the Aetas who terrorized the region but the Zambals themselves. A 1684 letter reported that the Zambals came down from the nearby mountains and raided the Province of Pampanga. They captured and enslaved the Kapampangans who were peacefully working on their fields. Thus,  

The Procurator of this City (Manila) reported that those of this race (Zambals) were a people who lived in the hills without settlements, and they were so given to killing that they usually spent all their time at it, descending on the province of Pampanga and capturing the natives who were working in their fields, by which they caused grave dangers[2]

Equally brave but socially organized, the Kapampangans fought back with impunity and killed or enslaved many Zambals. However, these unabated Aeta and Zambales incursions made the terrain unsafe. And the best way to keep this important route from Pampanga to Pangasinan safe and open was to humanize and Christianize the Aetas and Zambals. Hostile and deprived, these races were so difficult to Christianize much more civilize, la escoria del genero humano,[3] as a missionary would later put it.

To put an end to the Aeta and Zambal incursions, Governor General Martin Ursua y Arizmendi, in 1712, ordered the establishment of towns along the Pampanga-Pangasinan route. Incidentally, on the same year, the spiritual administration of the territory was restored to the Augustinian Recollects of the Province of de San Nicolas de Tolentino de Filipinas after a prolonged legal dispute with the Dominicans.[4] Thus, the execution of the Governor’s order fell on the hands of the Augustinian Recollects.  They opposed the order because of the inherent difficulty of its execution.[5] But the Governor insisted and even invoked the name of the King in his second order. The Recollects bowed in obedience. The Rector Provincial, Fr. Jose de San Nicolas de Tolentino, sent the best and the brightest missionaries to start the missions. The first missionaries were Fr. Manuel de San Nicolas, Fr. Andres de San Fulgencio and Fr. Juan de Santo Tomas de Aquino. Soon, the missions of Alupay, Mabalacat and Panipoan or Bamban were established.[6]

The Founding of the Mission of Mabalacat

Father Andres de San Fulgencio founded the Mission of Mabalacat in the year 1717. He noted that in the mountains of Mabalacat, there lived more than a thousand Aetas and Balugas. Fr. Andres convinced the heads of the clans to relocate to a more convenient town site to facilitate their Christianization. He believed that when the heads are resettled, their followers would be tagged along. More or less thirty (30) native chiefs and their families acquiesced. They constructed their houses and fields around the town site centered on the church. They comprised the core populace of the town. On September 3, 1717, Fr. Andres de San Fulgencio blissfully reported:

The town of Mabalacat, that began in the year 1717, is currently showing auspicious beginnings, not only in spiritual terms but also temporal, with the fields and houses that were already made, with many requests for baptism and of making the township an excellent foothold towards the mountains, where, as I already indicated, it is more convenient and proportionate to the ends that are being attempted.

 I have dwelt this year (1717) among them in these mountains of Mabalacat; having reduced the natives of the elevated vicinity, making them go down and settle in this place that I believe at this moment is very convenient for such purpose...[7]

 Fr. de San Fulgencio started the catechism, instruction and baptism of this new town. Before September, he baptized at least ten natives. However, many of the natives slipped back to their nomadic lives. The natives were, by occupation, hunters and gatherers and as such, they relied on the mountain resources for their sustenance.[8] The attempts at relocation drove them to hunger.

Influx of Migrants from Pampanga and Bataan

When the Mission of Mabalacat started to flourish, some Kapampangans from the nearby towns started immigrate. This resulted in the depopulation of Magalang, a town administered by the Augustinians. To arrest the damage of the migrations, in 1720, the Kapampangans were forbidden by the Missionaries to reside or build houses in Mabalacat. The sole exception was when they marry someone from the said town.[9]

Furthermore, in 1722, the Prior Provincial of the Recollects in the Philippines required the ministers to conscientiously keep records, among others, of all the old and new Christians in the town. Being a town with a predominantly Zambal population, the sacraments were also required to be administered in Zambal language. And before baptism, the Katutubo was required to reside in the town and if possible, to build their own houses and to establish their own farms.[10]

In 1734, due to discouraging results of the Christianization efforts, the Recollects abandoned their Missions in Alupay, Talimarin and Dinalupijan. The Christian converts of these missions were joined with Mabalacat and Bamban contributing to the diversity of the ethnic populations in the mission. Dinalupijan was a predominantly Tagalog Mission. By 1737, the combined population of Mabalacat and Bamban was four hundred.[11]

A Fledgling Mission

Poverty struck the Mission of Mabalacat. The books of accounts were the silent witnesses of the budget shortages suffered by the Religious assigned therein. In 1729, the missionaries begged Recollect Superiors to excuse two- third of their required remittances because the church collection barely covered the expenses. The expenses of the Mission of Mabalacat and Bamban were subsidized by the King of Spain through his Royal Haciendas in the Indies. Time and again, the Recollects expressed disappointments on these endeavors, which they considered as wastage of missionary effort and government resources.

 While considerable success had been achieved with regards the Christianization and pacification of the Zambals, Kapampangans and the Tagalogs, the same cannot be said with that of the Aetas. After baptism, the Aetas tend to abandon their newly-acquired faith, slip back to the mountains and resume their nomadic lives. On his 1737 report to the King, the Rector Provincial, Fr. Jose de la Concepcion, echoed previous requests for the Superior Government to subdue the Aetas by force. Fr. Concepcion candidly reported that these previous requests fell on deaf ears because of lack of funds. [12]

Thirteen years later, in October 1750, the same disappointment resonated from the report of the aging Rector Provincial. He reported to the Superior Government that despite the enormous efforts of the Recollect missionaries, the registers of the towns of Patlin, Panipoan and Mabalacat showed insignificant number of Christians. This was far from the expected yield. As such, the maintenance of the said towns proved to be costly for the Spanish colonial government. At the time of the report, there were only 226 Aetas and Balogas in the town and mission of Mabalacat. They were under the care of Fr. Francisco de la Natividad since 1737. Mabalacat had 32 straw huts, thus per 1722 instruction, there were at least 64 married persons. In addition, there were 89 taxpayers, 49 of which were bachelors and 36 were women (widows and maidens). There were also 29 school children and 48 catechumens.[13]

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[1]Casimiro Diaz, OSA, Conquistas de las Islas Filipinas: la temporal por las armas de nuestros catolicos reyes de España, y la espiritual por los religiosos de la orden de San Agustin, y fundacion y progresos de la provincia de santissimo nombre de Jesus de la misma orden. Parte segunda que a beneficio de los materials que dejo recopilados el M.R.P. Fr. Gaspar de San Agustin, autor de la primera parte, compuso el padre Casimiro Diaz. Villadolid: Imprenta, libreria, heliografia y taller de grabados de Luis N. de Gaviria, 1890. See Blair and Robertson’s The Philippine Islands, XXXVII, 169-170 et. seq.  

[2]“Carta a su Magestad de la Audiencia de Manila respecto a la Cedula de 12 de Junio 1679 relacionada con la esclavitud de los Indios. Manila, 22 de Junio 1684.” AGI: Filipinas 67-6-24.

[3]Literally, the Dregs of Humanity, See Arch. Provl. Carp. 24. leg. 2.º, núms. 54 y 55. See Gregorio Ochoa del Carmen, Historia General de la Orden de Agustinos Recoletos, tomo IX, (Zaragoza: Imprenta Editorial Gambon, 1929), 57.

[4]General History of the Discalced Augustinian Fathers, by Fray Pedro de San Francisco de Assis, Vol. XLI, 1691–1700, The Philippine Islands, 1493–1898,

[5]Gregorio Ochoa del Carmen, Historia General de la Orden de Agustinos Recoletos, tomo VII, (Zaragoza: Tip de F. Gambon, Canfranc, 3 y Valencia, 2, 1924), 575.

[6]Fr. Pedro Fabo del Corazon de Maria, Historia General de la Orden de Agustinos Recoletos, tomo VI (segunda parte) Años 1706-1714 (Barcelona: Imp. de la Editorial, Libreria Religiosa, 1927), 361-362

[7]Fr. Andres de San Fulgencio to Father Provincial, Mabalacat, 3 September 1717, Dr. Lino L. Dizon (trans) See “Archaeology of Reduccion and (Re-) Settlement Narratives Among Recollect Missions in Upper Pampanga, 1712-1898,” Alaya: The Kapampangan Research Journal , vol. 5, December 2007-2008, 55-56.

[8]Fr. Andres de San Fulgencio to Father Provincial, Mabalacat, 3 September 1717, Dr. Lino L. Dizon (trans) See “Archaeology of Reduccion and (Re-) Settlement Narratives Among Recollect Missions in Upper Pampanga, 1712-1898,” Alaya: The Kapampangan Research Journal , vol. 5, December 2007-2008.

[9]Licinio Ruiz de Sta Eulalia, Sinopsis Historica de la Provincia de San Nicolas de Tolentino de las Islas Filipinas de la Orden de Agustinos Descalzos, vol. 1, (Manila: Tip. Pont. de la Universidad de Santo Tomas, 1925), 43-44.

[10]Recollect Missions of Upper Pampanga, 1722: “Instructions that Must be Followed and Observed by Each of the Ministers who Reside in the Convents of the Zambales Missions, Namely: The Convent of Alupay, of_____, of Mabalacat, of Talimarin and of Dinalupijan,” Alaya: Kapampangan Research Journal, no. 3 (December 2005), 97-103.

[11]Fr. Jose de la Concepcion to Your Majesty, Convent of San Juan de Bagumbayan, Outside the Walls of the City of Manila, July 4, 1737, Archivo Provincial Lib. 1.º 2.º de Consultas, fol. 3 vto.

[12]Fr. Jose de la Concepcion to Your Majesty, Convent of San Juan de Bagumbayan, Outside the Walls of the City of Manila, July 4, 1737, Archivo Provincial Lib. 1.º 2.º de Consultas, fol. 3 vto.

[13]Jose de la Concepcion, “Reseña Historica: de nuestra Provincia de San Nicolas de Tolentino de Filipinas, desde su origen hasta el año 1750,” Boletin de la Provincia de San Nicolas de Tolentino de Filipinas de la Orden de Agustinos Recoletos, Año IX Enero de 1918 Núm. 91, 61.