CHAPTER 6
CAPITAN TIAGO
Thy will be done on earth.
While our characters are deep in slumber or busy with their breakfasts, let us turn our attention
to Capitan Tiago. We have never had the honor of being his guest, so it is neither our right nor
our duty to pass him by slightingly, even under the stress of important events.
____________________________________________________________________________
Low in stature, with a clear complexion, a corpulent figure, and a full face, thanks to the liberal ➢ Description of Capitan Tiago’s Physical Appearance
supply of fat which according to his admirers was the gift of Heaven and which his enemies
averred was the blood of the poor, Capitan Tiago appeared to be younger than he really was; he
might have been thought between thirty and thirty-five years of age.
At the time of our story his countenance always wore a sanctified look; his little round head, ➢ Facial expression is always holly
covered with ebony-black hair cut long in front and short behind, was reputed to contain many
things of weight; his eyes, small but with no Chinese slant, never varied in expression; his nose
was slender and not at all inclined to flatness; and if his mouth had not been disfigured by the ➢ So this is his vices
immoderate use of tobacco and buyo, which, when chewed and gathered in one cheek, marred
the symmetry of his features, we would say that he might properly have considered himself a
handsome man and have passed for such. Yet in spite of this bad habit he kept marvelously ➢ He grooms or takes care of himself well despite bad habits, and can be passed as
white both his natural teeth and also the two which the dentist furnished him at twelve pesos handsome.
each.
___________________________________________________________________________
He was considered one of the richest landlords in Binondo and a planter of some importance by ➢ Capitan Tiago’s socio-economic status.
reason of his estates in Pampanga and Laguna, principally in the town of San Diego, the
income from which increased with each year. San Diego, on account of its agreeable baths, its
famous cockpit, and his cherished memories of the place, was his favorite town, so that he
spent at least two months of the year there.
His holdings of real estate in the city were large, and it is superfluous to state that the opium ➢ This makes sense with his vices and bad habits as he controls opium, an addictive drug
monopoly controlled by him and a Chinese brought in large profits. from China. Basically a drug lord during his time
They also had the lucrative contract of feeding the prisoners in Bilibid and furnished zacate to ➢ Capitan Tiago’s Business Interests
many of the stateliest establishments in Manila through the medium of contracts, of course. ○ Aside from landowning, he profits from monopolies like opium trade and
government contracts.
○ This shows that Capitan Tiago’s wealth comes from exploiting both legal and
illegal businesses, further portraying him as an opportunist.
Standing well with all the authorities, clever, cunning, and even bold in speculating upon the ➢ COMMENTARY: Corruption and Social Hypocrisy.
wants of others, he was the only formidable rival of a certain Perez in the matter of the ○ Capitan Tiago gains wealth and influence by engaging in corrupt government
farming-out of revenues and the sale of offices and appointments, which the Philippine dealings, such as the sale of public offices.
government always confides to private persons. ○ This also tells us who Capitan Tiago is
○ This establishes Capitan Tiago’s status as a powerful yet morally questionable
figure in colonial society. His wealth is not entirely earned through hard work
but through his connections and corrupt dealings.
Thus, at the time of the events here narrated, Capitan Tiago was a happy man in so far as it is ➢ Of course, he will be happy because you cu can do anything when you are rich and has
possible for a narrow-brained individual to be happy in such a land: he was rich, and at peace connections.
with God, the government, and men.
____________________________________________________________________________
That he was at peace with God was beyond doubt,—almost like religion itself. There is no need
to be on bad terms with the good God when one is prosperous on earth, when one has never
had any direct dealings with Him and has never lent Him any money.
Capitan Tiago himself had never offered any prayers to Him, even in his greatest difficulties, ➢ CRITICISM: Religious Fanaticism and Commercialized Faith
for he was rich and his gold prayed for him. For masses and supplications high and powerful ○ Criticised the transactional nature of religion, where Capitan Tiago believes
priests had been created; for novenas and rosaries God in His infinite bounty had created the that wealth can substitute for personal faith.
poor for the service of the rich—the poor who for a peso could be secured to recite sixteen ○ Capitan Tiago is deeply religious, but his faith is not based on genuine
mysteries and to read all the sacred books, even the Hebrew Bible, for a little extra. devotion—rather, he sees religion as a way to gain influence and secure
blessings.
○ This highlights how religion in Spanish-controlled Philippines was often
commercialized, where the wealthy could buy prayers and religious services.
If at any time in the midst of pressing difficulties he needed celestial aid and had not at hand
even a red Chinese taper, he would call upon his most adored saints, promising them many
things for the purpose of putting them under obligation to him and ultimately convincing them
of the righteousness of his desires.
____________________________________________________________________________
The saint to whom he promised the most, and whose promises he was the most faithful in ➢ He has a special devotion to the Virgin of Antipolo and believes she is more powerful
fulfilling, was the Virgin of Antipolo, Our Lady of Peace and Prosperous Voyages. than other saints.
○ This reflects the Filipino culture of selective devotion, where people choose
saints based on perceived effectiveness rather than spiritual sincerity.
1 With many of the lesser saints he was not very punctual or even decent; and sometimes, after
having his petitions granted, he thought no more about them, though of course after such
treatment he did not bother them again, when occasion arose. Capitan Tiago knew that the
calendar was full of idle saints who perhaps had nothing wherewith to occupy their time up
there in heaven. Furthermore, to the Virgin of Antipolo he ascribed greater power and
efficiency than to all the other Virgins combined, whether they carried silver canes, naked or
richly clothed images of the Christ Child, scapularies, rosaries, or girdles. Perhaps this
reverence was owing to the fact that she was a very strict Lady, watchful of her name, and,
according to the senior sacristan of Antipolo, an enemy of photography. When she was angered
she turned black as ebony, while the other Virgins were softer of heart and more indulgent. It is
a well-known fact that some minds love an absolute monarch rather than a constitutional one,
as witness Louis XIV and Louis XVI, Philip II and Amadeo I. This fact perhaps explains why
infidel Chinese and even Spaniards may be seen kneeling in the famous sanctuary; what is not
explained is why the priests run away with the money of the terrible Image, go to America, and
get married there.
In the sala of Capitan Tiago’s house, that door, hidden by a silk curtain leads to a small chapel
or oratory such as must be lacking in no Filipino home. There were placed his household
gods—and we say “gods” because he was inclined to polytheism rather than to monotheism,
which he had never come to understand. There could be seen images of the Holy Family with
busts and extremities of ivory, glass eyes, long eyelashes, and curly blond hair—masterpieces
of Santa Cruz sculpture. Paintings in oil by artists of Paco and Ermita2 represented martyrdoms
of saints and miracles of the Virgin; St. Lucy gazing at the sky and carrying in a plate an extra
pair of eyes with lashes and eyebrows, such as are seen painted in the triangle of the Trinity or
on Egyptian tombs; St. Pascual Bailon; St. Anthony of Padua in a guingón habit looking with
tears upon a Christ Child dressed as a Captain-General with the three-cornered hat, sword, and
boots, as in the children’s ball at Madrid that character is represented—which signified for
Capitan Tiago that while God might include in His omnipotence the power of a
Captain-General of the Philippines, the Franciscans would nevertheless play with Him as with
a doll. There, might also be seen a St. Anthony the Abbot with a hog by his side, a hog that for
the worthy Capitan was as miraculous as the saint himself, for which reason he never dared to
refer to it as the hog, but as the creature of holy St. Anthony; a St. Francis of Assisi in a
coffee-colored robe and with seven wings, placed over a St. Vincent who had only two but in
compensation carried a trumpet; a St. Peter the Martyr with his head split open by the talibon of
an evil-doer and held fast by a kneeling infidel, side by side with another St. Peter cutting off
the ear of a Moro, Malchus3 no doubt, who was gnawing his lips and writhing with pain, while
a fighting-cock on a doric column crowed and flapped his wings —from all of which Capitan
Tiago deduced that in order to be a saint it was just as well to smite as to be smitten.
Who could enumerate that army of images and recount the virtues and perfections that were
treasured there! A whole chapter would hardly suffice. Yet we must not pass over in silence a
beautiful St. Michael of painted and gilded wood almost four feet high. The Archangel is biting
his lower lip and with flashing eyes, frowning forehead, and rosy cheeks is grasping a Greek
shield and brandishing in his right hand a Sulu kris, ready, as would appear from his attitude
and expression, to smite a worshiper or any one else who might approach, rather than the
horned and tailed devil that had his teeth set in his girlish leg.
Capitan Tiago never went near this image from fear of a miracle. Had not other images, even
those more rudely carved ones that issue from the carpenter shops of Paete,4 many times come
to life for the confusion and punishment of incredulous sinners? It is a well-known fact that a
certain image of Christ in Spain, when invoked as a witness of promises of love, had assented
with a movement of the head in the presence of the judge, and that another such image had
reached out its right arm to embrace St. Lutgarda. And furthermore, had he not himself read a
booklet recently published about a mimic sermon preached by an image of St. Dominic in
Soriano? True, the saint had not said a single word, but from his movements it was inferred, at
any rate the author of the booklet inferred, that he was announcing the end of the world.5 Was
it not reported, too, that the Virgin of Luta in the town of Lipa had one cheek swollen larger
than the other and that there was mud on the borders of her gown? Does not this prove
mathematically that the holy images also walk about without holding up their skirts and that
they even suffer from the toothache, perhaps for our sake? Had he not seen with his own eyes,
during the regular Good-Friday sermon, all the images of Christ move and bow their heads
thrice in unison, thereby calling forth wails and cries from the women and other sensitive souls
destined for Heaven? More? We ourselves have seen the preacher show to the congregation at
the moment of the descent from the cross a handkerchief stained with blood, and were
ourselves on the point of weeping piously, when, to the sorrow of our soul, a sacristan assured
us that it was all a joke, that the blood was that of a chicken which had been roasted and eaten
on the spot in spite of the fact that it was Good Friday— and the sacristan was fat! So Capitan
Tiago, even though he was a prudent and pious individual, took care not to approach the kris of
St. Michael. “Let’s take no chances,” he would say to himself, “I know that he’s an archangel,
but I don’t trust him, no, I don’t trust him.”
Not a year passed without his joining with an orchestra in the pilgrimage to the wealthy shrine
of Antipolo. He paid for two thanksgiving masses of the many that make up the three novenas,
and also for the days when there are no novenas, and washed himself afterwards in the famous
bátis, or pool, where the sacred Image herself had bathed. Her votaries can even yet discern the
tracks of her feet and the traces of her locks in the hard rock, where she dried them, resembling
exactly those made by any woman who uses coconut-oil, and just as if her hair had been steel
or diamonds and she had weighed a thousand tons. We should like to see the terrible Image
once shake her sacred hair in the eyes of those credulous persons and put her foot upon their
tongues or their heads. There at the very edge of the pool Capitan Tiago made it his duty to eat
roast pig, sinigang of dalag with alibambang leaves, and other more or less appetizing dishes.
The two masses would cost him over four hundred pesos, but it was cheap, after all, if one
considered the glory that the Mother of the Lord would acquire from the pin-wheels, rockets,
bombs, and mortars, and also the increased profits which, thanks to these masses, would come
to one during the year.
But Antipolo was not the only theater of his ostentatious devotion. In Binondo, in Pampanga,
and in the town of San Diego, when he was about to put up a fighting-cock with large wagers,
he would send gold moneys to the curate for propitiatory masses and, just as the Romans
consulted the augurs before a battle, giving food to the sacred fowls, so Capitan Tiago would
also consult his augurs, with the modifications befitting the times and the new truths, tie would
watch closely the flame of the tapers, the smoke from the incense, the voice of the priest, and
from it all attempt to forecast his luck. It was an admitted fact that he lost very few wagers, and
in those cases it was due to the unlucky circumstance that the officiating priest was hoarse, or
that the altar-candles were few or contained too much tallow, or that a bad piece of money had
slipped in with the rest. The warden of the Brotherhood would then assure him that such
reverses were tests to which he was subjected by Heaven to receive assurance of his fidelity
and devotion. So, beloved by the priests, respected by the sacristans, humored by the Chinese
chandlers and the dealers in fireworks, he was a man happy in the religion of this world, and
persons of discernment and great piety even claimed for him great influence in the celestial
court.
____________________________________________________________________________
That he was at peace with the government cannot be doubted, however difficult an achievement
it may seem. Incapable of any new idea and satisfied with his modus vivendi, he was ever
ready to gratify the desires of the last official of the fifth class in every one of the offices, to
make presents of hams, capons, turkeys, and Chinese fruits at all seasons of the year.
If he heard any one speak ill of the natives, he, who did not consider himself as such, would ➢ CRITICISM: The Role of the Filipino Elite in Oppression
join in the chorus and speak worse of them; if any one aspersed the Chinese or Spanish ○ Rizal criticizes the elite Filipinos like Capitan Tiago, who betray their own
mestizos, he would do the same, perhaps because he considered himself become a full-blooded people by aligning with the Spanish colonizers instead of advocating for their
Iberian. fellow countrymen.
He was ever first to talk in favor of any new imposition of taxes, or special assessment, ➢ His Political Alliances
especially when he smelled a contract or a farming assignment behind it. ○ Capitan Tiago maintains his position by aligning himself with the Spanish
government, avoiding any controversy.
He always had an orchestra ready for congratulating and serenading the governors, judges, and ○ This explains why he is protected by the Spanish authorities—he is an asset to
other officials on their name-days and birthdays, at the birth or death of a relative, and in fact at their rule rather than a threat.
every variation from the usual monotony. For such occasions he would secure laudatory poems
and hymns in which were celebrated “the kind and loving governor,” “the brave and
courageous judge for whom there awaits in heaven the palm of the just,” with many other
things of the same kind.
____________________________________________________________________________
He was the president of the rich guild of mestizos in spite of the protests of many of them, who
did not regard him as one of themselves. In the two years that he held this office he wore out
ten frock coats, an equal number of high hats, and half a dozen canes. The frock coat and the
high hat were in evidence at the Ayuntamiento, in the governor-general’s palace, and at military
headquarters; the high hat and the frock coat might have been noticed in the cockpit, in the
market, in the processions, in the Chinese shops, and under the hat and within the coat might
have been seen the perspiring Capitan Tiago, waving his tasseled cane, directing, arranging,
and throwing everything into disorder with marvelous activity and a gravity even more
marvelous.
So the authorities saw in him a safe man, gifted with the best of dispositions, peaceful, ➢ COMMENTARY: Blind Obedience to Authority
tractable, and obsequious, who read no books or newspapers from Spain, although he spoke ○ portrays Capitan Tiago as an ideal subject under Spanish rule—obedient and
Spanish well. uninterested in enlightenment or progress, reinforcing Rizal’s critique of
passive Filipinos.
Indeed, they rather looked upon him with the feeling with which a poor student contemplates
the worn-out heel of his old shoe, twisted by his manner of walking. In his case there was truth
in both the Christian and profane proverbs beati pauperes spiritu and beati possidentes,6 and
there might well be applied to him that translation, according to some people incorrect, from
the Greek, “Glory to God in the highest and peace to men of good-will on earth!” even though
we shall see further along that it is not sufficient for men to have good-will in order to live in
peace.
____________________________________________________________________________
The irreverent considered him a fool, the poor regarded him as a heartless and cruel exploiter ➢ COMMENTARY: Women's Oppression and the Double Standard
of misery and want, and his inferiors saw in him a despot and a tyrant. As to the women, ah, the ○ suggests that Capitan Tiago may have taken advantage of vulnerable women,
women! Accusing rumors buzzed through the wretched nipa huts, and it was said that wails and and yet society does not hold men like him accountable.
sobs might be heard mingled with the weak cries of an infant.
More than one young woman was pointed out by her neighbors with the finger of scorn: she
had a downcast glance and a faded cheek. But such things never robbed him of sleep nor did
any maiden disturb his peace. It was an old woman who made him suffer, an old woman who
was his rival in piety and who had gained from many curates such enthusiastic praises and
eulogies as he in his best days had never received.
____________________________________________________________________________
Between Capitan Tiago and this widow, who had inherited from brothers and cousins, there ➢ Rivalry with Doña Patrocinio
existed a holy rivalry which redounded to the benefit of the Church as the competition among ○ Capitan Tiago competes with an old widow, Doña Patrocinio, in religious
the Pampanga steamers then redounded to the benefit of the public. Did Capitan Tiago present donations to earn prestige.
to some Virgin a silver wand ornamented with emeralds and topazes? At once Doña Patrocinio ○ This rivalry mocks the hypocrisy of religious devotion being turned into a
had ordered another of gold set with diamonds! If at the time of the Naval procession7 Capitan competition of wealth, rather than genuine piety.
Tiago erected an arch with two façades, covered with ruffled cloth and decorated with mirrors,
glass globes, and chandeliers, then Doña Patrocinio would have another with four facades, six
feet higher, and more gorgeous hangings. Then he would fall back on his reserves, his strong
point, his specialty—masses with bombs and fireworks; whereat Doña Patrocinia could only
gnaw at her lips with her toothless gums, because, being exceedingly nervous, she could not
endure the chiming of the bells and still less the explosions of the bombs. While he smiled in
triumph, she would plan her revenge and pay the money of others to secure the best orators of
the five Orders in Manila, the most famous preachers of the Cathedral, and even the Paulists,8
to preach on the holy days upon profound theological subjects to the sinners who understood
only the vernacular of the mariners. The partizans of Capitan Tiago would observe that she
slept during the sermon; but her adherents would answer that the sermon was paid for in
advance, and by her, and that in any affair payment was the prime requisite. At length, she had
driven him from the field completely by presenting to the church three andas of gilded silver,
each one of which cost her over three thousand pesos. Capitan Tiago hoped that the old woman
would breathe her last almost any day, or that she would lose five or six of her lawsuits, so that
he might be alone in serving God; but unfortunately the best lawyers of the Real Audiencia
looked after her interests, and as to her health, there was no part of her that could be attacked
by sickness; she seemed to be a steel wire, no doubt for the edification of souls, and she hung
on in this vale of tears with the tenacity of a boil on the skin. Her adherents were secure in the
belief that she would be canonized at her death and that Capitan Tiago himself would have to
worship her at the altars—all of which he agreed to and cheerfully promised, provided only that
she die soon.
Such was Capitan Tiago in the days of which we write. As for the past, he was the only son of a
sugar-planter of Malabon, wealthy enough, but so miserly that he would not spend a cent to
educate his son, for which reason the little Santiago had been the servant of a good Dominican,
a worthy man who had tried to train him in all of good that he knew and could teach. When he
had reached the happy stage of being known among his acquaintances as a logician, that is,
when he began to study logic, the death of his protector, soon followed by that of his father, put
an end to his studies and he had to turn his attention to business affairs. He married a pretty
young woman of Santa Cruz, who gave him social position and helped him to make his fortune.
Doña Pia Alba was not satisfied with buying and selling sugar, indigo, and coffee, but wished
to plant and reap, so the newly-married couple bought land in San Diego. From this time dated
their friendship with Padre Damoso and with Don Rafael Ibarra, the richest capitalist of the
town.
The lack of an heir in the first six years of their wedded life made of that eagerness to
accumulate riches almost a censurable ambition. Doña Pia was comely, strong, and healthy, yet
it was in vain that she offered novenas and at the advice of the devout women of San Diego
made a pilgrimage to the Virgin of Kaysaysay9 in Taal, distributed alms to the poor, and
danced at midday in May in the procession of the Virgin of Turumba10 in Pakil. But it was all
with no result until Fray Damaso advised her to go to Obando to dance in the fiesta of St.
Pascual Bailon and ask him for a son. Now it is well known that there is in Obando a trinity
which grants sons or daughters according to request—Our Lady of Salambaw, St. Clara, and St.
Pascual. Thanks to this wise advice, Doña Pia soon recognized the signs of approaching
motherhood. But alas! like the fisherman of whom Shakespeare tells in Macbeth, who ceased to
sing when he had found a treasure, she at once lost all her mirthfulness, fell into melancholy,
and was never seen to smile again. “Capriciousness, natural in her condition,” commented all,
even Capitan Tiago. A puerperal fever put an end to her hidden grief, and she died, leaving
behind a beautiful girl baby for whom Fray Damaso himself stood sponsor. As St. Pascual had
not granted the son that was asked, they gave the child the name of Maria Clara, in honor of the
Virgin of Salambaw and St. Clara, punishing the worthy St. Pascual with silence.
The little girl grew up under the care of her aunt Isabel, that good old lady of monkish urbanity
whom we met at the beginning of the story. For the most part, her early life was spent in San
Diego, on account of its healthful climate, and there Padre Damaso was devoted to her.
Maria Clara had not the small eyes of her father; like her mother, she had eyes large, black,
long-lashed, merry and smiling when she was playing but sad, deep, and pensive in moments of
repose. As a child her hair was curly and almost blond, her straight nose was neither too
pointed nor too flat, while her mouth with the merry dimples at the corners recalled the small
and pleasing one of her mother, her skin had the fineness of an onion-cover and was white as
cotton, according to her perplexed relatives, who found the traces of Capitan Tiago’s paternity
in her small and shapely ears. Aunt Isabel ascribed her half-European features to the longings
of Doña Pia, whom she remembered to have seen many times weeping before the image of St.
Anthony. Another cousin was of the same opinion, differing only in the choice of the smut, as
for her it was either the Virgin herself or St. Michael. A famous philosopher, who was the
cousin of Capitan Tinong and who had memorized the “Amat,”11 sought for the true
explanation in planetary influences.
The idol of all, Maria Clara grew up amidst smiles and love. The very friars showered her with
attentions when she appeared in the processions dressed in white, her abundant hair interwoven
with tuberoses and sampaguitas, with two diminutive wings of silver and gold fastened on the
back of her gown, and carrying in her hands a pair of white doves tied with blue ribbons.
Afterwards, she would be so merry and talk so sweetly in her childish simplicity that the
enraptured Capitan Tiago could do nothing but bless the saints of Obando and advise every one
to purchase beautiful works of sculpture.
____________________________________________________________________________
In southern countries the girl of thirteen or fourteen years changes into a woman as the bud of
the night becomes a flower in the morning.
At this period of change, so full of mystery and romance, Maria Clara was placed, by the ➢ His Role in Maria Clara’s Life
advice of the curate of Binondo, in the nunnery of St. Catherine12 in order to receive strict ○ Capitan Tiago’s only daughter, Maria Clara, was raised under strict religious
religious training from the Sisters. conditions and sent to a convent.
○ This foreshadows the role of religion in Maria Clara’s fate and her connection
to the Spanish clergy.
With tears she took leave of Padre Damaso and of the only lad who had been a friend of her
childhood, Crisostomo Ibarra, who himself shortly afterward went away to Europe. There in
that convent, which communicates with the world through double bars, even under the
watchful eyes of the nuns, she spent seven years.
____________________________________________________________________________
Each having his own particular ends in view and knowing the mutual inclinations of the two
young persons, Don Rafael and Capitan Tiago agreed upon the marriage of their children and
the formation of a business partnership. This agreement, which was concluded some years after
the younger Ibarra’s departure, was celebrated with equal joy by two hearts in widely separated
parts of the world and under very different circumstances.
____________________________________________________________________________
1. This celebrated Lady was first brought from Acapulco, Mexico, by Juan Niño de Tabora, when
he came to govern the Philippines in 1626. By reason of her miraculous powers of allaying the
storms she was carried back and forth in the state galleons on a number of voyages, until in 1672 she
was formally installed in a church in the hills northeast of Manila, under the care of the Augustinian
Fathers. While her shrine was building she is said to have appeared to the faithful in the top of a large
breadfruit tree, which is known to the Tagalogs as “antipolo”; hence her name. Hers is the best
known and most frequented shrine in the country, while she disputes with the Holy Child of Cebu the
glory of being the wealthiest individual in the whole archipelago.
There has always existed a pious rivalry between her and the Dominicans’ Lady of the Rosary as to
which is the patron saint of the Philippines, the contest being at times complicated by counterclaims
on the part of St. Francis, although the entire question would seem to have been definitely settled by
a royal decree, published about 1650, officially conferring that honorable post upon St. Michael the
Archangel (San Miguel). A rather irreverent sketch of this celebrated queen of the skies appears in
Chapter XI of Foreman’s The Philippine Islands.—TR.
2. Santa Cruz, Paco, and Ermita are districts of Manila, outside the Walled City.—TR.
3. John xviii. 10.
4. A town in Laguna Province, noted for the manufacture of furniture.—TR.
5. God grant that this prophecy may soon be fulfilled for the author of the booklet and all of us
who believe it. Amen.—Author’s note.
6. “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and “blessed are the possessors.”—TR.
7. The annual celebration of the Dominican Order held in October in honor of its patroness, the
Virgin of the Rosary, to whose intervention was ascribed the victory over a Dutch fleet in 1646,
whence the name. See Guía Oficial de Filipinas, 1885, pp. 138, 139; Montero y Vidal, Historia
General de Filipinas, Vol. I, Chap. XXIII; Blair and Robertson, The Philippine Islands, Vol. XXXV,
pp. 249, 250.—TR.
8. Members of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, whose chief business is preaching and teaching.
They entered the Philippines in 1862.—TR.
9. “Kaysaysay: A celebrated sanctuary in the island of Luzon, province of Batangas, jurisdiction,
of Taal, so called because there is venerated in it a Virgin who bears that name ....
“The image is in the center of the high altar, where there is seen an eagle in half-relief, whose
abdomen is left open in order to afford a tabernacle for the Virgin: an idea enchanting to many of the
Spaniards established in the Philippines during the last century, but which in our opinion any sensible
person will characterize as extravagant.
“This image of the Virgin of Kaysaysay enjoys the fame of being very miraculous, so that the Indians
gather from great distances to hear mass in her sanctuary every Saturday. Her discovery, over two
and a half centuries ago, is notable in that she was found in the sea during some fisheries, coming up
in a drag-net with the fish. It is thought that this venerable image of the Filipinos may have been in
some ship which was wrecked and that the currents carried her up to the coast, where she was found
in the manner related.
“The Indians, naturally credulous and for the most part quite superstitious, in spite of the
advancements in civilization and culture, relate that she appeared afterwards in some trees, and in
memory of these manifestations an arch representing them was erected at a short distance from the
place where her sanctuary is now located.”—Buzeta and Bravo’s Diccionario, Madrid, 1850, but
copied “with proper modifications for the times and the new truths” from Zuñiga’s Estadismo, which,
though written in 1803 and not published until 1893, was yet used by later writers, since it was
preserved in manuscript in the convent of the Augustinians in Manila, Buzeta and Bravo, as well as
Zuñiga, being members of that order.
So great was the reverence for this Lady that the Acapulco galleons on their annual voyages were
accustomed to fire salutes in her honor as they passed along the coast near her shrine.—Foreman. The
Philippine Islands, quoting from the account of an eruption of Taal Volcano in 1749, by Fray
Francisco Vencuchillo.
This Lady’s sanctuary, where she is still “enchanting” in her “eagle in half-relief,” stands out
prominently on the hill above the town of Taal, plainly visible from Balayan Bay.—TR.
10. A Tagalog term meaning “to tumble,” or “to caper about,” doubtless from the actions of the
Lady’s devotees. Pakil is a town in Laguna Province.—TR.
11. A work on scholastic philosophy, by a Spanish prelate of that name.—TR.
12. The nunnery and college of St. Catherine of Sienna (“Santa Catalina de la Sena”) was founded
by the Dominican Fathers in 1696.—TR.