Friar Documents and the Early History of Mabalacat

A paper presented at Pagpopook at Pagdadalumat: Kasaysayang Lokal Tungo sa Pagbuo ng Kasaysayang Nasyonal, Ferbary 21, 2017, Cultural Hall, Mabalacat City College, Mabalacat City, Pampanga sponsored by SAMAKA-MCC

Introduction

Like many cities in the Philippines, the history of Mabalacat, Pampanga during the Spanish period is very much intertwined with the history of the friar activities in the area. Filipino historian Leon Ma. Guerrero once wrote, “the Spanish history of the Philippines begins and ends with the Friar.” Indeed, in Mabalacat, the Spanish era history began with the respected Fr. Andres de San Fulgencio and ended with the dreaded Fr. Gregorio Bueno.

The Spaniards were record-conscious race and the Friars were prolific writers. They left behind thousands of pages of records kept in archives in the Philippines and overseas. These records may vary from the writing of personal letters, evangelization reports, requests and even complaints to the writing of grammar books, treatises, dictionaries, expedientes, maps and sketches, name it the friars wrote it. Besides, by mandate, they were required to keep canonical books. It seemed like not a single day passed without the Friar writing something.

This paper surveys some friar parchments present in some archives and offers illustrative reconstructions of parts of early history of Mabalacat. This is with a view of emphasizing usefulness of Friar documents in writing local histories. In particular, the Friar writings surveyed include: Cartas, Vocabularios and Grammar Books, Canonical Books, and Expedientes.

I. Cartas

Cartas are letters written by the Recollect Friars to their superiors detailing their evangelization efforts, the challenges they encountered as well as their achievements. During their stint at Mabalacat, the Missionaries assigned wrote a number of letters. The letters were now preserved at the Archivo Recoleto of Saint Ezekiel Moreno Province in Quezon City and Archivo Histórico Provincial of Saint Nicholas Province in Marcilla, in Navarra, Spain.

For a long time, historians believed that Mabalacat was founded in 1712, the year Governor General Martin Ursua y Arizmendi ordered the establishment of towns along the Pampanga-Pangasinan route. However, a carta from Fr. Andres de San Fulgencio revealed that he founded Mabalacat in 1717. Thus, from the Cartas, the reconstruction of the Founding of Mabalacat goes:

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...[1]

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. The attempts at relocation drove them to hunger.

II. Vocabularios and Grammar Books

Clever historians have long recognized the importance of bocabularios and grammar books in giving flesh to the otherwise lean historical data. Bocabularios lists native words and detailed its meaning or description in Spanish. As it defined the native words, it unwittingly, it gave out some local colors, customs and traditions or other cultural features of a place or period. Fray Diego Bergaño's Vocabulario de Pampango en Romance, y Diccionario de Romance en Pampango for example gave out archaic words that described pre-hispanic cultural practices. And Fr. Francisco Coronel's Artes y Reglas de la Lengua Pampanga treated Kapampangan slavery very casually as he used them as examples to illustrate word usages.

Through Vocabularios and other friar documents, the culture of the inhabitants of Mabalacat during the Spanish contacts may thus be reconstructed as:

The Early Culture and Society of Mabalacat

According to Fr. Andres de San Fulgencio, the region of what is now the present territory of Mabalacat was inhabited by the natives who were ‘so savage and barbarous whose innate inclination is bow and arrow and the taking of lives, of cutting heads, having magnatos and feasts, drinking in skulls…’[2] Albeit brief, the description provided a glimpse of the early culture and society of Mabalacat.

The Pinatubo Aetas were the first inhabitants of Mabalacat. Physically, they possessed dark complexion, curly hairs and small body stature. With this racial phenotype, they belong to the Negroid race. The Spaniards called them negritos taking into account their black skin tone and small stature. The natives referred to themselves as Aetas. Early Spanish accounts confirmed their reputations of ferocity and notoriety not only among the Spaniards but also among the neighboring Kapampangans and Ilocanos.

Primarily, Pinatubo Aetas lived by hunting and gathering forests products for family consumption and for trading with its neighbor, the Zambals. As such, they mastered the forests and sharpened their skills in bows and arrows. They combed the mountains and valleys for honey, fruits, edible roots and other forest products. They hunted wild animals such as boars, deer and carabaos.

The constant and long standing trade between the Pinatubo Aetas and the Zambals resulted to many shared cultural practices among the two cultures. These included magnatos (religious rituals), ambas (chants), mangaw (head taking), among others.

Magnatos were religious rituals performed during celebrations, assemblies, marriages, feasts and healing the sick. These were facilitated by high priests called Bayoc. The rituals included a repertoire of chants, dances and non-stop drinking. The enemies’ skulls, accumulated during mangaw, were dried out and polished and fashioned into drinking cups and were used during these ceremonies.

Ambas were the songs and chants sung and recited during magnatos and during celebrations of victory over enemies. These songs and chants detail their exploits as they present cut heads of their enemies. The heads were displayed in their houses to flaunt their valor. Other terms of similar import are gamba and alaula – to sing of, or celebrate a victory after cutting off heads. The enemies’ heads, treated as war trophies, were known among the Kapampangans, the perennial victims, as dangin. [3]

Mangaw were headhunting expeditions to attack and cut off heads of enemies and intruders. The Pinatubo Aeta and Zambals always kept with them a long pointed blade called bararao. This weapon was sharp enough to cut off human head with one stroke. During the mangaw, brave Pinatubo Aetas hid themselves behind thick vegetation along travelers’ route awaiting ambush. When an unfortunate passer by traverse the ‘dangerous passage’ (cabalingan) or the ‘scary place’ (pipacdayan), the Pinatubo Aetas began to scream (buyao) and stage the heinous attack. If by miracle, traveler escaped, then he was just ‘scared away’ (mabuyao), [4] if not, then his head became ‘war booty’ (dangin).

III. Canonical Books.

Canonical Books are the parish registers (libros de asientos, libros de cargo y data, libros de bautismos, casamientos and difuntos). These books keep track of the parishioners, parish expenses, baptisms, marriages and deaths. The contents of these books may give a glimpse of the historical socio-economic situation of a particular mission or town. Unfortunately for Mabalacat, only a few of these canonical books survived. Those which survived belonged to the later part of Spanish period and are now deposited in Archdiocesan Archives of San Fernando (AASF) in Pampanga. Some of its contents, however may be gleaned from the cartas and other reports. Thus, from the canonical books, together with the cartas and other friar writings, the reconstruction of the early history of Mabalacat goes:

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. [5]

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.[6]

IV. Expedientes. Another set of Friar Documents which are useful in the writing of the history of Mabalacat expedientes written by Vicaria Capitular de Manila, Vicaria Foranea de Pampanga or the Parish Priests assigned to Mabalacat. Expedientes are dossiers or set of documents dealing with a particular issue. Kept in the National Archives of the Philippine are documents relative to the separation of the Bamban Mission from the its Mother Parish, Mabalacat. Thus, from the expedientes, the reconstruction of the separation of the Visita of Bamban from Mabalacat Parish goes:

Mabalacat Parish Gave Birth to Bamban Mission

Since its foundation, the Town of Bamban had been under the Spiritual Administration of Mabalacat. The distance between Mabalacat and Bamban is three (3) leguas that is about an hour and a half walk. Recollect missionary priests based in Mabalacat regularly visited Bamban to administer Catholic Sacraments. However, during rainy days, the Parua River, which served as a boundary between the two towns, is difficult to cross, making it difficult, if not impossible, for the Missionaries to go to Bamban. This resulted to the neglect of the religious duties of the rather fragile Aeta faithfuls. [7]

Thus, in 1875, the Governor of the Politico-Militar District of Tarlac presented a petition before the Vicaria Capitular de Manila for the creation of an independent Mission of Bamban. The Vicaria Foranea de Pampanga and Fr. Felix Perez de la Soledad, the Parish Priest of Mabalacat Parish supported the petition. They explained that the Creation of the Mission of Bamban is important as it would result to a better civil and religious lives of the natives. [8]

The petition was found to be meritorious. On February 3, 1876 the Vicar Capitular de Manila formally declared the creation of a Mission in Bamban, Politico-Military District of Tarlac, separate and independent from the mother parish Mabalacat, Province of Pampanga.[9]

Conclusion

At the outset, the idea of writing the early history of Mabalacat, Pampanga is challenging. The town was too rustic and remote during the Spanish period to merit bigger spaces in the Spanish colonial writings. Historians seemed to have reached a dead end before they even started. But as Friar writings surfaced, the writing Mabalacat's early history became very exciting. This is especially intensified with the advent the availability of digital copies of many friar writings in the internet. Thus, with Friar documents, taken together with civil writings plus some historical imagination, coming up with a comprehensive history of Mabalacat is not impossible.

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[1] 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.

[2] Andres de San Fulgencio, to Father Provincial, Mabalacat, September 3, 1717, Archivo General de Indias, Indice 31, Doc. 94.

[3] Dangin - Fray Diego Bergaño, Vocabulario de Pampango en Romance, y Diccionario de Romance en Pampango. Translated by Fr. Venancio Q. Samson (Angeles City: The Juan D. Nepomuceno Center for Kapampangan Studies, Holy Angel University, 2007), p. 146.

[4] Buyao - Fray Diego Bergaño, Vocabulario de Pampango en Romance, y Diccionario de Romance en Pampango. Translated by Fr. Venancio Q. Samson (Angeles City: The Juan D. Nepomuceno Center for Kapampangan Studies, Holy Angel University, 2007), p. 91.

[5] 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.

[6] 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.

[7] Fr. Felix, Letter to Gobernador Eclesiastico de este Arzobispado, 15 Diciembre 1785, National Archives in the Philippines.

[8] Vicaria Foranea de Pampanga, Letter to Gobernador Eclesiastico de Arzobispado de Manila, 18 Diciembre 1785, National Archives in the Philippines.

[9] Vicar Capitular de Manila, February 3, 1876, National Archives in the Philippines.