THE PHILIPPINE RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION

INTRODUCTION

Histories of colonized peoples often suffer from the fact that history books were written by their former colonial masters.  The facts were sifted out, the characters classified, and the events interpreted from the perspectives of the historians’ vested interests.

Such is the case of the history of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) or Philippine Independent Church (PIC).  Since its inception in August 3, 1902 until today, only two major books are written about it. 

The first is a four-volume work entitled “Religious Revolution in the Philippines” written by Jesuit scholars, Pedro Achutegui and Miguel Bernad.  This work was written as a major polemical resource of the Roman Catholic Church in denigrating the IFI especially in its formative stage. 

The second is entitled “The Struggle for Freedom” written by Episcopalian writer, Lewis Bliss Whittemore.  This was written as an apologetic tool by The Episcopal Church in the United States (ECUSA) when it was considering its its Concordat of Full Communion with the IFI.

This Dissertation Paper is my attempt to balance the truncated perspectives of the two previous books and to help reawaken and challenge the present generation of the IFI towards a renewed interest in their historical development, theological journey and sense of mission.

I was ordained in the IFI in 1978 and served as priest in two churches: the IFI in Dagupan City, Pangasinan and the IFI in Pasay City, MetroManila. My father was a devout Roman Catholic and my mother was a fierce IFI stalwart. In the arena of religious conflict, my mother won. All of us six children followed our mother’s choice. So as a child, I became an acolyte of the IFI in our hometown in Ajuy, Iloilo and as a youth I became president of the IFI Youth Organization in Manila.

I had experienced the suffering and joy of being a member of the IFI whom other Christians identified as a “church of the poor.”  As an IFI seminarian in an Episcopal Seminary (St. Andrew’s Theological Seminary in Quezon City), I experienced the yearning for a shared self-identity.

While studying for the priesthood, I served as managing editor of The Christian Register and the Aglipayan Review, the official publications of the IFI in the 1970’s.  I also had the privilege of having traveled throughout the Philippines as companion of the former Obispo Maximo, the Most Rev. Macario v. Ga. As a matter of fact, I served as his speech writer. I had seen the abject needs of the church and saw a glimpse of its problems.

After serving the IFI for two years since my ordination in 1978, I left the Philippines in 1980 to pursue a Master of Theology in Singapore under the Southeast Asia Graduate School in Theology. While working on my thesis, I was invited by the Anglican Church to serve as missionary priest at St. Andrew’s Anglican Cathedral where I served for six years.

In 1986, I came to the United States to complete a Doctor of Ministry at San Francisco Theological Seminary.  In the course of this study, I was appointed director of the Filipino Ministry Probe by the Presbyterian Church in San Jose, California.  After serving with the Presbytery of San Jose for a year, I was invited by the Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real, California to serve as Canon Missioner for Asian Cultures. While working in the Diocese, I founded the Holy Child Filipino Congregation which has now become the Holy Family Episcopal Parish. In 2004, I was appointed by then Presiding Bishop, the Most Rev. Frank Griswold as the missioner for Asiamerica Ministries, a position I still hold today.

WHAT IS THE IGLESIA FILIPINA INDEPENDIENTE

The Philippine Independent Church is an indigenous Christian denomination of about four to five million members.  It is founded as a result of the great Philippine Revolution of 1896-1898.  That Revolution was the culmination of intermittent revolts of the Filipino People against three centuries of Spanish political, military and religious colonization.  At the time of its schism from the Roman Catholic Church in 1902, the PIC captured the imagination of the Philippines and gained adherents of more than 30% of its, then, eight million population.

Founded by a Roman Catholic priest-patriot, Gregorio Aglipay and nationalist-labor leader, Don Isabelo delos Reyes, Sr., this “revolutionary Church” gained the loyalty and love of the Filipino masses who saw it as the embodiment of their ideals for self-determination, national identity and indigenous Christianity.  This love and loyalty were tested at the crucible of suffering when this Church lost its property from the Roman Church in 1906 and when the religious movement deteriorated from years of trials and tribulations.

Today, after 87 years of existence, the Philippine Independent Church is like an old man.  Beset by problems of factionalism, declining membership, waning political influence, continuing crises of leadership, financial instability and apparent loss of vision, the PIC has greatly weakened.  It seems, however, that this undying love and loyalty of the poor, the memory of the founders and the grace of God have altogether conspired to keep this revolutionary Filipino Church alive.

What were the forces that gave shape to this religious movement in the past?  How did these forces converge to give birth to the Philippine Independent Church?  What were the factors that brought about its rise, its decline and its present predicament?  What are the factors that will enable its present renewal?  This work will attempt to answer these questions.

This Dissertation Paper consists of three parts.  The first part is an overview of Philippine History from pre-colonial times to the Philippine Revolution of 1896-1898 which set in motion the religious revolution in the Philippines.  The second part is a thematic history of the Philippine Independent Church, since its inception 1902 up to the death of its seventh Supreme Bishop in 1989.  The third part contains some pre-notes for the renewal of this Church, which is a kind of “thinking aloud” by the author on the contemporary situation.

On July 28-31, 1987, I had the opportunity to test the assumption of this Dissertation when I gave a series of lecture on the “History of the Philippine Independent Church” at the Aglipayan Congress, held in Tampa, Florida.  This Congress was a gathering of clergy and lay leaders of the Philippine Independent Church in the United States and Canada.  Using the materials culled from this Dissertation, I have designed a seminar curriculum which is being used by the Filipino Congregation of St. Philip’s Church, San Jose, California which my wife and I have organized since 1988 while working on this Dissertation.  The seminar outline, together with the listing of some historical events in the Philippine Independent Church are included in the appendix.

If the readers would sense the passion, and at times, polemical tone in this work, it is only because the author is so close to the subject he is writing about and struggling to keep distance from his own pain and frustrations.  Many of the living personages mentioned in the book are known to me intimately.  Many of the problems are known to me personally.  At any rate, I recommend this Dissertation Paper as a seminal attempt in the continuing evolution of authentic works of the history, theology and renewal of the Philippine Independent Church.

                                                  Rev. Wenifredo B. Vergara

                                                  San Francisco, California

                                                  December 25, 1989

PART ONE

OVERVIEW OF PHILIPPINE HISTORY

The Philippines is an archipelago consisting of 7,107 islands and islets in Southeast Asia.  It is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean and on the west by the South China Sea.  The land surface is 115,600 square statute miles and is criss-crossed with mountains and drained by small river systems.  An early myth tells the origin of the islands as the result of a battle between the sea and the sky, where the former rose higher intending to submerge the sky and the latter retaliating by throwing land masses and rocks on the sea.¹

There are two theories as to the “peopling” of the Philippines.  The first widely-accepted theory is that the aborigines of the Filipino people were nomads from other parts of Asia who traveled through “land bridges.”  This theory says that during the “Ice Age” or the Pleistocene era, the waters surrounding what is now the Philippines fell about 156 feet below the present levels resulting in vast area of exposed land and becoming some sort of land bridges.

This Pleistocene migration theory was introduced by Robert Heine-Geldern (1932) and popularized by H. Otley Beyer (1947).  It assumed that the early immigrants to the Philippines were the Negritoes from South China and Vietnam, the Indonesians from Java, and the Malaya.  Up until early 1970’s it was also believed that the Philippines was once a part of mainland China.²

The second theory was propounded in February 1976, when Dr. Fritjof Voss, a German scientist studied the geology of the Philippines and found out that the 35-kilometer thick crust underneath China does not extend to the Philippines.  This theory claims that the Philippine archipelago “rose from the bottom of the sea and continued to rise as the think Pacific crust moves below it.”  In other words, the Philippines could not have been a part or “land bridge” to the mainland of Asia but indigenous “earth faults extending to deep undersea trenches” which, through violent earthquakes rose to the surface of the sea.³

This second theory further disputed widely-held beliefs that the aborigines of the Filipinos were the Negritoes, Indonesians and Malays.  Filipino anthropologist F. Landa Jocano argued against Prof. H. Otley Beyer’s assumption that the Malays migrated to the Philippines and then became the largest portion of the population.  Jocano believed that fossil evidences of ancient men show that they came not only to the Philippines but to New Guinea, Java, Borneo, and Australia and that there is no way of telling whether or not they were Negritoes.  The discovery of a skull cap in a Tabon case in Palawan in 1962 shows conclusively that man came earlier to the Philippines than to the Malay Peninsula where, according to the first theory, the Filipinos came from.

Summarizing his findings, Jocano maintained, thus:⁴

1.  The peoples of prehistoric Island Southeast Asia belonged to the same population which grew out of the combination of human evolution which occurred in Island Southeast Asia about 1.9 million years ago and of the latter movements of other peoples from Asia mainland.

2.  This core population share a common cultural orientation that included both flake and core impellents, their complex ceramic industries…and cultural elements consisting of similar ornaments, pendants, housetypes, belief systems, ritual complex and funeral practices.

3.  The configuration of these shared elements into a common way of life is what we call the base culture.  It emerged from similar responses people made to similar geographical conditions, climate, fauna and flora.

4.  None of the ancient (people) could be categorized under any of the historically identified ethnic groups (i.e., Malays, Indonesians and Filipinos) today.  The Western colonizers were the ones who fragmented the population into ethnic groups as they partitioned the region into their respective colonies…The British popularized the term “Malay” to characterize the group of people they encountered in the Malay peninsula.  The Portuguese, Germans and Dutch introduced the Indonesians to the Western world.  The Spaniards and the Americans worked for the conversion of the Filipinos and further differentiated them from their Southeast Asian cousins.

5.  The undue credit given to the Malays as the original settles of the region and the dominant cultural transmitter must be corrected.  Emerging from a common population with the same base culture, the Malays, the Filipinos and the Indonesians are co-equal as ethnic groups in the region of Island Southeast Asia without any of them being racially or culturally dominant.

CHAPTER I

THE EARLY FILIPINOS

Prior to the coming of Ferdinand Magellan and the Spanish explorers in 1521, the Philippine ancestors already had a progressive culture and an advancing way of life.  From scanty records that have come down to the present, it was known that the Philippines had some commercial relations with neighboring countries, particularly China.  In the 9^th century, Arab traders who were barred from Central China, found an alternative route starting from Malacca and passing through Borneo, the Philippines, and Taiwan.  Goods from Southeast Asia and the Western world were carried by Arab traders to the Philippines and Philippine goods were brought by Arab ships to mainland China through the port of Canton.  By the middle of the 14^th century, other countries (i.e., Cambodia and Champa in Indo-China, Siam and Tonkin) also began to trade with the Philippines.

In the 13^th century, ten datus (chief of a clan) from Borneo led by Datu Puti secretly sailed in their Barangays (wooden boats) together with their subjects apparently to escape the mistreatment of Bornean chief, Sultan Makatunaw.  After days of sailing, they arrived in Panay islands in the Visayan region of the Philippines and bartered the coastlands from Datu Marikudo (the Negrito chieftain) with a ridiculously low price of one golden salakot and a long golden necklace for Marikudo’s wife.

With the other datus and their families firmly settled in Panay, Datus Puti, Balensusa, and Dumangsil sailed northward to Luzon.  Dumangsil and Balensusa stayed and flourished in Luzon while Puti went back to Borneo.  The other seven datus (Sumakwel), Bangkaya, Dumalugdog, Lubay, Paiburong, Paduhinog and Dumangsol) remaining in Panay became prosperous and they divided the island into three districts: Hantik (now Antique), Irong-Irong (now Iloilo), and Aklan (now Aklan and Capiz).  For mutual protection and in order to maintain closer relations, they formed an organization known as “Confederatin o Madyaas,” whose leader was Datu Sumakwel.  In 1433, “Code of Kalantiyaw” was promulgated.⁵

Religion of the early Filipinos was founded on the belief of a Supreme Being (Bathala), the creator and a host of lesser deities who have their functions in the daily lives of the believers.  They believed in the immortality of the souls, in life after death and in environmental spirits and spirits of the departed relatives.  They adored the sun and the moon, the trees and the animals and accorded the whole of nature with respect and awe.  They believed that illnesses were caused by the spirits thus they would offer sacrifices to the anitors (animistic icons) in order to placate the spirits.  The offerings consisted of food, wine, pigs or gold which would be administered by the babaylan (priest) or katalona (priestess).

In the 14^th century, Islam was brought to Old Malaysia by the Arab traders, missionaries and teachers and began to take hold in Malacca.  In 1390, Raja Baginda, one of the petty rulers from Sumatra came to Sulu in Southern Philippines and converted some natives to Islam.  He was followed by Abu Bakr who later exercised his powers as sultan and established a government patterned after the sultanate of Arabia.  His influence on Sulu and Mindanao islands ensured the spread and strength of Islam in the Philippines.

Agriculture was the main source of livelihood among the early Filipinos.  Other industries included fishing, poultry, lumbering, weaving, mining and shipbuilding.  There was an abundance of rice, coconuts, sugar cane, cotton, hemp, bananas, oranges, and many species of fruits and vegetables.  So abundant was the produce of the land that Pigafetta, the early chronicler of the Magellan expedition in 1521, noted that Cebu has all kinds of foodstuffs and crops.

The daily food consisted of rice and boiled fish and likewise pork or venison and meat of wild buffalo or carabao.  They fermented the sap of coconut or nipa into tuba (wine), which they drank to enliven festivals.

The early Filipinos were influenced by the Chinese especially in trade and industry and in marriage, family life and funeral rites.  An examination of the Philippine languages, particularly of Tagalog, also reveals hundreds of words directly appropriated from the Chinese.  The major influence on Filipino languages, however, came from the Indian (Sanskrit) language, probably brought by the Hinduized Malays who settled in the Philippines permanently.

The other customs and practices of the early Filipinos were:⁶

1.  Clothing. – Both the male and female attire was composed of upper and lower parts.  The men wore kanggan (collarless jacket) and bahag (G-string)_, while the women wore camisa (jacket with sleeves) and saya (loose skirt).  A piece of red or white cloth was usually wrapped around the waist.

2.  Ornaments. – The early Filipinos had a penchant for personal adornments such as pendants, bracelets, earrings, and even leglets.  Tatoos were also forms of ornaments.

3.  Houses. – Usually made of wood, bamboo and nipa palm as can still be found in many houses in Philippine barrios.  Among the descendants of Indonesian settlers, however, like the Kalingas of Northern Luzon and the Bagobos of Mindanao, the houses were built on treetops while the Bajaos or sea gypsies of Sulu made their houses in their boats.

4.  Social Classes. – Early Filipino society was divided into three classes: the nobles, the freemen, and the dependents.  It must be stressed that the lines drawn on these classes were not hard.  They could move up or down the ladder depending upon the attendant circumstances.

5.  Position of Women. – Women enjoyed equal status with men as they could own and inherit property, engage in trade and industry and succeed to the chieftainship in the absence of a male heir.  As a gesture of deep respect, the men, when accompanying the women, walked behind them.

6.  Marriage Customs. – Usually consisted of elaborate rituals of courtship where the groom had to serve the bride’s parents for months or years, the use of go-betweens and the giving of dowries before the marriage can take place.  The wedding day was a community festival.

7.  Government. – The barangay (so named after their sailboats) was the unit of government and consisted of from 30 to 100 families.  Each barangay was independent and ruled by a chieftain who exercised all the executive, legislative and judicial functions.

8.  Laws. – Either customary (handed down orally) or written (as in the case of “Code of Kalantiyaw.”  The laws dealt with various subjects like inheritance, divorce, usury, partnership, crime and punishment, property rights, family adoption, and loans.

9.  Business. – Because currency was not then in use, the early Filipinos used the barter system in their transactions.  The commodities were sometimes priced in gold or metal gongs.  The Chinese traders testified to the honesty of the Filipinos who paid their debts dutifully to the trusting Chinese upon the latter’s return the following year.  Chinese writers Chao Ju-kua (1209-1214) and Wang Ta-yuan (1349) who gathered the reports of those Chinese had testified to the honesty of the pre-colonial Filipinos.  Not one Tagalog word existed for the unflattering connotation of a cheat, either as a verb or a noun.  The present Tagalog word for it, suwitik, is of Chinese origin.⁷

The early Filipinos had a culture that was basically Malayan in structure and form.  There were more than a hundred languages and dialects, eight of whom maybe considered major dialects, namely: Tagalog, Iloko, Pangasinan, Pampango, Sugbuhanon (Cebuano), Hiligaynon, Waray and Maguindanaw.  They had written languages that traced their origin to Austronesian parent-stock.  The bulk of literature was folk literature.  They had music and dances for almost all occasions and wide variety of musical instruments indicative of their ingenuity and versatility.

Our first glimpse of their artistic sense can be had in the remains of their tools and weapons which were formed and polished along the lines of leaves and petals of flowers.  With the advance of the New Stone Age, they began to show signs of artistic development in the form of beads, amulets, bracelets, and other body ornaments made of jade, cornelian and other attractive stones.  With the coming of the Bronze Age, implements made of bronze had improved in shapes and sizes.  Bronze bells, drums and gongs indicate social arts as dancing and music.  In the early Iron Age, their artistic variety reached its apex as bodily ornaments increased as bladed weapons, pottery, metal and glass came into use.  At the same time, weaving and tattooing reflected more artistic designs.

It can be gainsaid that although the early Filipinos had no notion of national territorial boundaries and sovereignty, their culture was undergoing a progressive evolution and their body-politic was moving slowly towards inter-island cooperation.  In other words, they were capable of achieving progress and modernization even without Western colonial prodding.  Ironically, it was that same lack of national consciousness and the absence of a complex socio-political and religious systems which made them prey to Spanish conquest and colonization in the 16^th century.

CHAPTER II

THE ADVENT OF SPANISH COLONIZATION

In the 15^th and 16^th centuries, political as well as scientific developments were creating decisive changes in Europe.  It was the age of the ascendant humanistic philosophy replacing the religious misadventures of the Crusades and the Dark Ages.  The renaissance of the long-forgotten cultures of Greece and Rome revealed an awesome wealth of knowledge and practical use of the printing press to communicate the wild tales of travels and conquests.  The accounts of European travels to the Orient, particularly that of Marco Polo which told of the great wealth and superior culture of China, fired the imaginations of Europeans and helped spawn the “voyages of discovery.”

In the Iberian Peninsula, the empires of Spain and Portugal became embroiled in rivalry of territorial aggrandizement.  In 1493, Pope Alexander VI attempted to settle the rivalry by issuing the Inter caetera, a papal bull which divided the world into Spanish and Portuguese spheres of influence.  The bull was followed by the signing of the Treaty of Tordesillas which amended and secured the demarcation line.

It was not uncommon for sailors from both kingdoms to switch sides.  One of them, Ferdinand Magellan renounced his allegiance to the Portuguese Crown and became a Spanish subject because the Portuguese king did not given him ample reward as officer and soldier in the Portuguese possession of India and Malacca.  He was able to persuade Charles I of Spain that the Moluccas or “Spice Islands” can be reached by sailing west, the Spanish side of the demarcation and that an Atlantic passage to the Pacific Ocean could be found.

With a fleet of five ships and 237 men, the Spanish Crown commissioned Magellan to lead the expedition which lasted months of incredible hardships that caused a captains’ mutiny and the loss of two ships.  Owing to Magellan’s miscalculation of the great Pacific distance, the voyagers were brought at the end of their journey a considerable distance far north of the Moluccas.  On the auspicious day of March 17, 1521,⁸ they sighted the island of Samar and landed at its neighboring islet of Homonhon.

The Spaniards then sailed to Limasawa, an islet of Leyte where they celebrated the first Catholic mass on March 31, 1521, an Easter Sunday.  Thereafter, he sailed for the island of Cebu and established cordial relations with Datu Humabon and forthwith converted Humabon and his wife and 800 other natives to the Catholic faith.  That proved to be Magellan’s last and most significant act.  When they landed in the next island of Mactan, they were resisted by Datu Lapulapu and his men.  Magellan died in eh battle that ensued.

The death of Magellan ushered more Spanish expeditions to the Philippines, this time, in order to secure the colonization of the islands.  In 1543, Villalobos reached the island of Leyte where Bernardo de la Torre, a member of the expedition named the Samar-Leyte region “Felipinas,” in honor of King Philip II of Spain who succeeded Charles I.⁹  Villalobos reached as far as Mindanao but the hostility of the natives and the threat of a mutiny forced him to retreat to Moluccas and surrendered to the Portuguese.

On April 27, 1565, Miguel Lopez de Legaspi arrived in the Philippines, made blood compact (an ancient Filipino method of sealing brotherhood) with Datu Sikatuna of Bohol and concluded a treaty of friendship with Rajah Tupas of Cebu.  The treaty was to signal the conquest of the Philippines.  It provided, among other things, for the prosecution of Filipinos who committed crime against the Spaniards with no reciprocity as far as Spaniards committing crimes against the Filipinos.  Using the strategy of “divide and rule,” both Legaspi and Fray Andres de Urdaneta engineered a systematic program to “Christianize and colonize” the natives.  For many historians, the colonizing process combined both the powers of the “cross and the sword.”¹⁰

Legaspi established the first permanent settlement in Cebu and later moved it to Panay due to the continuing hostilities of the Cebuanos and owing to the prosperity of Panay.  In 1570, he dispatched Martin de Goiti to explore further north.  De Goiti found a fortified town called “Maynilad” and made a blood compact with Rajah Sulayman, the town’s Muslim chieftain.  It was not long before the Muslim chief discovered the scheme of de Goiti to exact tributes from the Manilans and to make of them vassals of Spain.  A fight ensued and de Goiti, with a superior force and aided by the Visayans who accompanies him in the journey defeated and razed Maynilad to the ground.

With Maynilad (or Manila) now under his control, de Goiti summoned for Legaspit to come to the newly acquired territory.  Legaspi did better than that by making Manila his headquarters and a year later made Manila the capital of the Philippines.

From Manila, well-equipped and better organized expeditionary forces were sent ot secure the other Philippines islands.  The Spaniards met little opposition from the barangays of Luzon and Visayas.  The adroit use by the Spaniards of the “:Christianized natives,” the lack of cohesive political systems that connected barangays from the others, the extreme diversity of languages and sub-cultures in the manifold islands and the fascination of the natives to the Catholic icons coupled with their awe of Spanish military might, facilitated the Spanish conquest and colonization.

There was very little political organization or reorganization made by the Spaniards during the first three decades of their rule.  The Spanish colonial government appeared more interested in securing wealth and landed estates for themselves and making direct contribution to the Spanish Crown that in teaching the natives towards progress and self-government.  The Spanish colonial church likewise appeared more interested in securing “papal lands” and serving as agent of colonization than in promoting Christian stewardship and in serving as agents of social change.

The Spaniards divided the Philippines into jurisdictions called encomienda, and allotted them to Spanish citizens or religious as spoils of war or rewards for their role in the “pacification” of a “heathen” country.  The encomiendero, therefore, held a public office and was empowered with collecting taxes, protecting and converting natives to Catholicism.

When the corrupted encomienda system was exposed, the Spanish Crown replaced it with a system of provincial government, which was of two types.  The first one, alcaldia-mayor refers to a province where peace and order has been firmly secured.  The second one, corregimientos refers to territories that had not been completely pacified.  Offices to both provinces were appointive and open only to Spaniards.  The system allowed the alcalde mayors to exercise awesome political, military, judicial and financial powers that made them the forerunners of corrupt bureaucracy in the Philippines.  Because many of these appointive provincial governors were former sailors, hairdressers, lackeys, deserters, and adventurers who came to the Philippines only for gold and glory, they naturally became models of ineptness, stupidity, and brutality to their Filipino subjects who groaned in travail during their administration.

The Spanish authorities tried to assimilate the Barangay system of the pre-colonial government in the municipal as well as in the village units of Philippine society.  Under this scheme, pre-colonial datus and rajas were made as cabeza de barangay (head of Barangay) or gobernadorcillo (petty governor), thinking that they could serve as “buffers” to the hostility of the natives.  Like the alcalde mayor that became their exemplar, the cabezas and the gobernadorcillos became also corrupt and inept.  Because their positions were appointive and not elective, they did not represent the interest of their constituencies.  Instead, they became the middlemen and purveyors of the whims and caprices of their colonial masters.

The role of the religious orders of the Catholic Church in the Hispanization of the islands could not be underestimated.  The first religious order were the Augustinians who came with Fray Andres de Urdaneta and Legaspi in 1565.  They built the greatest number of churches and administered the largest number of parishes in the country.  They were followed by the Franciscans in 1578 who were assigned mainly in Southern Luzon and the Bicol regions.  They founded hospitals and asylums.  Then came the Jesuits in 1581 who dispersed over all Manila, Cavite, Negros, Samar, Leyte and Marinduque and the Dominicans in 1587 who occupied Cagayan Valley, Pampanga, Bataan and Batanes.  Both the Jesuits and the Dominicans excelled in education and built the best and the most number of Catholic schools, colleges and universities.  The last order to come were the Augustinian Recollects who were assigned to difficult areas or corregimientos in Zambales, Palawan and Mindanao.

Because many Spanish officials and civilians would rather be in the cities and big municipalities, it was the members of the religious orders who wielded great influence in the villages.  To a great extent, the imprint of Hispanization on the Filipinos were from the preaching, teaching and influence of the Spanish friars.  Aside from raising tributes for the building of churches and the Obras Pias (works of mercy and mission to Spain and other places), the religious orders were also the instruments of the state in collecting taxes and securing of tobacco and other monopolies.  They recruited workers for the Galleon Trade and subjected parishioners towards subservience and loyalty to Mother Spain and the Roman Catholic Church in Spain.

The union of the Church and State perpetuated the oppression of the Filipinos under the Spanish regime.  The archbishops of the religious orders occupied a crucial position in the colonial central government.  The friars dominated the “Permanent Commission on Censorship”¹¹ which controlled the press and entry of printed matter in the Philippines.  They competed with the civil officials in amassing wealth and influence.  Too often, they interfered with the political process of transferring, suspending and removing of officials, even including the Governor-General who technically represented the Spanish King in the colonial government.  So great and awesome were the powers of the Spanish religious orders in the social, political, and economic and spiritual life of the Spanish-colonized Philippines that the religious issue would later become an integral part in the struggle for Filipino freedom and independence.   

CHAPTER III

FILIPINO RESISTANCE TO SPANISH RULE

The Filipinos under the Spanish era were split into two camps with regards to their attitude to foreigners.  On the one camp were Filipinos who had a sense of unwavering hospitality as shown in their welcoming of strangers like the Chinese, Dutch and Arab traders---and the Spanish colonizers.  From Rajah Humabon who welcomed Magellan with a blood compact to Jose Rizal who advocated peaceful reforms within the context of assimilation to the Spanish Cortes, these Filipinos showed a high level of patience, tolerance and long-suffering virtues.  Pliant like the bamboo, they had the capacity ot humble themselves before the superiority of foreign forces and to sway with the winds of foreign influences.

On the other camp were Filipinos who had a revulsion to foreign tyranny and suspicious of any form of foreign intervention.  From Lapulapu who killed Magellan to Bonifacio who led a nationalist bloody revolution, these Filipinos would reject any form of colonialism or interference to their way of life.  They saw the Philippines in its pristine form and would stubbornly refuse to give up aspects of their pre-colonial philosophy, religion and cultural life to external pressures.  They would want expulsion of all foreigners who seek to subdue them.  They would prefer death in war and revolutions rather than a life of acquiescence to a colonial structure that would make them vassals or subordinates of another country or people.

Under the Spanish regime, Filipino society could be characterized as “partly Hispanized and partly Filipinized.”  This was partly due to the Filipino hospitality as well as hostility and partly due to the Spanish colonial government’s indecision (to teach all of Spanish civilization) as well as insincerity (to share all of Spanish good intentions).

The Spanish State and Church implemented a colonial structure that was designed to politically subjugate the Filipinos and exploit their natural resources to the utmost.  They instituted a crippling tax system, the forced labor, the slavish galleon trade, undue government monopolies of agricultural produce and harsh trade policies.  The result was a gross imbalance and distorted economy that further made the Philippines backward and underdeveloped.  Furthermore, the unjust colonial structure divided the Filipinos into social classes designed to keep them from uniting in their resistance against Spanish iniquities.

It took more than 300 years before Filipinos finally united in a national revolution to throw off the yoke of Spanish colonization.  Throughout those years, however, there were sporadic uprisings and intermittent revolts which dotted the Spanish-era in the Philippines.  Among the recorded uprisings and revolts with their causes and results were:¹²

1.  The Conspiracy of 1587-1588.  As mentioned earlier, Lakandula and Rajah Sulayman of Maynilad resisted the colonial advances of Legaspi in 1574 and were summarily defeated.  In 1587, relatives of Lakandula conspired to overthrow the Spanish sovereignty over Manila in order “to regain the freedom and lordship which their fathers had enjoyed before them.”  A native spy informed the Spaniards of the plot, leading to the arrest and execution of the conspirators.

2.  The Revolt of Tamblot in 1621-1622.  Tamblot was a babaylan (pre-colonial priest) who rallied hundreds of people from Bohol to abandon Catholicism and return to their old religion.  A Spanish expedition from Cebu composed of 50 Spaniards and 1,500 Christianized Filipinos subdued the revolt.

3.  The Revolt of Bankaw in 1622.  Unlike Tamblot, Bankaw was not a priest but a chief of Limasawa converted to Christianity.  Spanish abuses made him disillusioned with the newfound faith that he led a movement to restore the old religion.  It gained adherents throughout the villages of Leyte but again a Spanish-Filipino expedition from Cebu readily quelled the uprising.  The perpetrators were severely punished to elicit fear and awe among the other rebellious Filipinos.

4.  The Dagohoy Rebellion in 1744.  The immediate cause of this rebellion was the “refusal of a Jesuit priest to give a Christian burial to Dagohoy’s brother who was killed in a duel” but it won great following for people who had experienced being “humiliated, cheated and brutalized” by the Spaniards.  The Spaniards found it difficult to quell the rebellion which involved as many as 20,000 rebels and lasted for about 85 years.

5.  The Magalat Revolt in 1596.  Magalat led a revolt resisting the illegal collection of tribute in Cagayan “and other objectionable aspects of Spanish Rule.”  The Spaniards hired a native assassin who liquidated Magalat.

6.  The Sumoroy Revolt in 1649-1650.  Together with Juan Ponce and Pedro Caamug, Sumoroy led an uprising against Governor Diego Fajardo’s order requiring the polistas from the Visayas for the shipyards of Cavite.  The rebellion spread to Albay, amarines, Cebu, Masbate and Northern Mindanao.  A government expedition of Spanish soldiers and Filipino mercenaries captured the leaders of the movement and suppressed the rebellion.

7.  The “Pampanga-Pangasinan-Ilokos Uprising” of 1660-1661.  Taking place almost simultaneously in these provinces, the causes were largely the natives’ disenchantment with the harsh agricultural and trade practices of the Spaniards.  The Pampangans were forcibly made to cut their timber to haul them to Cavite for the construction of the galleons.  They also were not paid their arrears for the rice collected from them under the notorious polo and bandala systems (force labor).  The natives of Pangasinan and Ilokos led by Malong also rose up in arms against the government for the same causes.  Using many-pronged tactics, the Spaniards eventually suppressed the revolts.

8.  The Palaris Revolt in 1762-1764.  Led by Juan dela Cruz Palaris, the natives of Binalatongan, Pangasinan demanded the abolition of tribute and the expulsion of Joaquin Gamboa as alcalde mayor of the province.  Gamboa was removed but the rebellion was likewise suppressed with Palaris publicly hanged.

9.  The Revolt of Diego and Gabriela Silang in 1762-1763.  Taking advantage of the Spanish pre-occupation with the British invasion of Manila in 1762, Diego Silang rallied the Ilokanos in Vigan, Ilokos Sur and Pangasinan to revolt against the excesses of the Spanish governors and their anomalous collection of tributes.  In order to contain the Spanish massive force against his ill-trained army, Silang allied with the British.  This bolstered his might and for a while enjoyed a formidable force.  Realizing the government’s inability to contain Silang’s rebellion, the Church came to the rescue through the pulpits.  Bishop Ustariz issued an interdict against Silang and his followers and exhorted the Ilokanos to stop supporting the rebels.  Heeding the call, Miguel Vicos and Pedro Becbec assassinated Silang.  Gabriela, Silang’s wife took over the leadership of the rebel movement together with his uncle, Nicolas Carino.  A strong Spanish force would later crush the rebellion and execute the rebels.¹³

There were other revolts that happened on a smaller scale than the above.  The agrarian problems found their expression in sporadic revolts that rocked many encomiendas.  The landed gentry and the various religious orders aroused much resentment from the Filipinos because of their feudal exactions and “land grabbing,” arbitrary increases in land rents, unjust evictions of farmers, force labor and outright cheating and frauds.

There were revolts which were outright rejection of forcible Christianity.  In 1601, the Ilongots revolted against the insistent Spanish attempt to convert them to Catholicism.  In many parts of the Cagayan Valley and Northern Luzon, disenchantment with the “friars” resulted in the murder of priests and the sacking of churches.  Rebellions with religious understones were brought about as a reaction of the Filipino natives from the racial prejudice and maltreatment showed upon them by their colonial rulers and the religious orders.  Countless Filipinos were alienated from the way in which the Spanish Church and State appeared to have colluded in putting them under subjugation and foreign tyranny.

The most notable resistance to Spanish rule, however, came from the Muslims in southern Philippines.  From the inception of colonial rule, the Spaniards made various attempts to secure a foothold among the Muslims but the latter remained instransigient.  Obviously forged by a cohesive Islamic faith, the Muslims engaged the colonizers in continuous warfare.  While the fragmented pantheistic Barangays in Visayas and Luzon buckled down to the mighty Spaniards, the well-organized Muslims of Mindanao and Sulu successfully resisted all military, political and missionary efforts of the Spaniards.  The Muslim pirates also created havocs in many Spanish settlements in the Manila and Visayan coastlands.

In the 1860’s, the purchase of several gunboats and steamboats reduced Muslim piracy and enabled the Spanish colonial government to build fortified stations along the coast of Mindanao.  In 1876, the Spaniards concluded a treaty with the Sultan of Sulu in which the latter recognized Spanish sovereignty in return for an annual pension for the Sultan and his heirs.  The Muslims on the whole would, however, disregard the provisions of the treaty, thus, creating a precarious relationship with the Spanish regime.  Mutual suspicions and hostility continued to be raised up between what was perceived to be a religious conflict between the “Christian” colonial government on the one hand and the Muslim population on the other hand.  The seriousness of this alienation continued to fester even after the Spaniards have ceased control of the Philippines.  Distrust of the Muslims towards Christianized Filipinos who now occupy the helms of the Philippine government is carried over in its various ramifications until today.

 

CHAPTER IV

NATIONALISM AND THE PHILIPPINE REVOLUTION

OF 1896-1898

Nationalism or “devotion to or advocacy of national unity and independence”¹³ is considered the most important ingredient in forging a national consciousness.  It is a patriotic feeling developed in a people living within a contiguous geographical area, a sentiment forged by a common history, language, literature, customs, traditions, cultures and religions.  In the history of colonized peoples all over the world, no significant struggle for liberation and independence ever succeeded without the earlier development of national consciousness.

Nationalism embodies a deep conviction for socio-political change.  Socio-political change is buttressed by a nationalist premise.  The “nationalist” is, therefore, also an advocate or agent of socio-political change in the national level.¹⁴

There was no nationalistic sentiment in the Philippines prior to Magellan and even until the 18^th century.  While the different Barangays and ethnic groups shared racial and cultural features, the insular and mountainous character of Philippine geography limited social contact and communication.  Unlike the neighboring Japan which is an “island-nation,” the many-splendored Philippine Islands fomented tremendous fragmentation and religionalism that would prevent the native from forming a common language and identity-sharing that would have united them.

Ironically, the development of Filipino nationalism came only during the Spanish regime.  The Spanish misrule and exploitation coupled by the developments in the political and economic reforms in Europe opened to the Filipinos a gateway for revolutionary ideas and ideals.  The Philippine Revolution of 1896-1898 was the culmination of a nationalistic developmental process that was set in motion by the oppressive regime.  The three ingredients of a nationalist struggle namely: the common experience of pain; the common vision of hope; and the emergency of charismatic leaders or spokesperson of “the people;” were formed in the Filipino consciousness and brought about the decisive Philippine Revolution.

The Uniting Effect of Oppression

In the biblical history of Israel, it was the common experience of pain that made the people to cry out to God in search of deliverer from the hard bondage of Egypt.  From a distance, God heard their distress, saw their tears, and set them free through Moses who would later lead the exodus in the wilderness towards the “promised land.”¹⁵

In Philippine history, the intermittent revolts against the Spanish misrule were having the effect of uniting the Filipino people.  The Spaniards suppressed most of these little movements and pockets of resistance with ruthless severity.  As the populace became more embittered, their brutality increased by degrees and their abuses continued unabated.  The more they oppressed the Filipinos, however, the more that the Filipinos cried in protest.

The Spaniards learned to employ the classic strategy of “divide and rule”¹⁶ and to a great extent succeeded in channeling the Filipino discontentment towards each other rather than to the colonizers.  By using natives against other natives, they had re-enforced the tribalistic and regionalistic tendencies of the island-peoples and suppressed the natural tendency to develop a larger confraternity.

The use by the friars of religious threats of rebuke, excommunication and interdicts made many natives docile and resigned to the colonized life.  The teaching and preaching of the religious orders were designed to condition the Filipinos to political acquiescence and religious fatalism.  Wittingly or unwittingly, they taught Filipinos to accept the colonial status quo and offered no redress of their grievances except through beliefs in purgatory and emphasis of life hereafter.

Inspite of such union of State and Church in total subjugation, the sufferings of the people became of such magnitude that they reached out to each other.  The pain of the natives from one island was felt by natives of the other islands.  As a revolt from one region was readily quelled, a similar revolt from another region would begin to take place.  It was as if a protracted national struggle was actually taking place eve in the absence of a national design, strategies or communication.  The numerous revolts in various parts of the Philippine archipelago, when taken together, constitute a whole national reaction of the Filipinos to what they felt to be the common pain.

Historian and nationalist Renato Constantino pointed out this ironic twist in the “divide and rule” strategy of Spanish colonization and its effect in uniting the sufferings of the people, thus:

The fundamental aspect of Philippine history is the struggle of its people for freedom and a better life.  It was in the course of anti-colonial struggle against Spain that the native inhabitants of the archipelago gradually became conscious of their identity as one nation…Each successful uprising was a step in their political awakening.  Each local revolt was a contribution to the attainment of their national goals.¹⁷

The Common Vision of Liberation

When the Spaniards sought to conquer the pre-colonial Filipinos, they ysed their military and ecclesiastical might in order to inspire the awe, respect and fear of the natives.  The natives were conditioned to view the Spaniards not only as being superior in arms and intelligence but also invincible in battle.  Successive developments, however, began to unveil the weaknesses of Spaniards and exposed to the natives the truism that people are people the world over and that the Spaniards were no less superior or inferior than the rest of them.  Having repented of false ideals and misconceptions, the Filipinos began to entertain visions and dreams of freedom, independence, national identity and self-government.

The weakening of Spanish hold on the psyche of Filipinos began when Spain joined with France in its “Seven Years War”¹⁸ with the British over maritime supremacy.  To punish the Spaniards, the British invaded Manila, routed the Spanish army and occupied the city for two years (1762-1764).  This ignominious defeat lowered the stature of the Spaniards in the eyes of the natives and encouraged them to press on for their own emancipation.

In 1808, Spain itself occupied by France as part of Napoleon’s desire to gain undisputed control over all of Europe.  The French colonization of Spain caused widespread resistance and the reorganization of revolutionary juntas to unite the Spaniards against the French invaders.  These juntas later paved the way for the Spanish Cortes which allowed representations from different Spanish colonies in order to secure their support.  Although the Philippine “representation” to the Cortes was nominal (its delegates were Spaniards not Filipinos), it provided a rallying point for the Filipino reformists to clamor for “Filipino representation in the Spanish Cortes.”¹⁹

The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 which reduced the travel distance between the Philippines and Europe further opened the floodgates of ideas and ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity to the Filipinos.  Along with goods and industry came Western libertarian thoughts, the French revolution, secularism, anti-clericalism, humanism, masonry and nationalism.

The opening of the Philippines to international trade contributed to the rise of the “middle class” who imbibed on Western novelty and ideas.  Filipinos, mostly Chinese and Spanish mestizos prospered and would later became part of the ilustrados and forerunners of the struggle for political reforms.²⁰

The Filipino middle-class, seeking education in Manila and Europe became susceptible to the impact of European liberalism.  Seeds of new political thoughts began to be sowed in Philippine soil.  Under intense intellectual ferment, nationalist feelings grew rapidly among the educated Filipinos.  They began to appeal to the teachings of the Enlightenment philosophers, notably John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau in their struggle for local reforms.

In a matter of time, the novels, poetry, drama, and songs of the neo-colonial Filipinos began to reflect politicalization.  “No government is legitimate unless it represents the absolute and inalienable will of the people.”  “The people have the right to revolution, the right to overthrow the oppressive political order, the right to construct a new government according to their ideals as a people.”  The people, the “Filipino People,” the “Filipino Nation” began to be formed as slogans.²¹

The French Jacobin Revolution further provided a model for Filipino libertarian ideals.  Filipino patriots began to compare the situation of France in 1789 with the Philippines of 1896.  An unjust government ruling their subjects through threats, rebuke and iron fist.  A Church owning vast tracts of land and collaborating with the government.  An upper class holding a monopoly of political and administrative powers, unwilling to share such power with the middle class, let alone the poor and the oppressed.  The masses of people bearing the crushing weight of taxation, force labor and other impositions from both the Church and the State.  The context was indeed a breeding place for a revolution!

The Filipino ilustrados, who formed the vanguard of the Philippine Propaganda Movement exposed this unjust structure and called for far-reaching reforms warning that continued state-and-church oppression of the masses would make a Filipino version of the French revolution inevitable!

When liberalism triumphed in Spain itself following the Spanish revolution against France in 1868, Carlos Maria dela Torre arrived in the Philippines to become its most liberal and well-respected governor-general.  His demeanor made him popular among the Filipinos, particularly among the Filipino priests and ilustrados.  He dismissed his bodyguards, mingled with the natives and encouraged freedom of speech and the press.  He abolished flogging and proved his benevolence by subduing an agrarian uprising and pardoning the rebels.  His libertarian policies, however, antagonized the friars and cause the latter to agitate for his recall.  The friars knew that Dela Torre’s reforms encourage the further formation of national consciousness and would therefore undermine their entrenched positions.

Dela Torre was recalled to Spain after the collapse of the liberal regime in 1871 and was replaced by Rafael de Izquierdo (1871-1873).  The exact opposite of Dela Torre, Izquierdo announced upon his arrival that he would rule “with a crucifix on one hand and a sword on the other hand.”²²  Reversing all the policies and actions of his predecessor, Izquierdo restored the reactionary character of the colonial government and adopted terroristic measures to re-assert Spanish power and might in the colony.  His action in the restoration of forced labor and exaction of tributes from the workers of the arsenals and navy yard in Cavite caused the workers to mutiny.

The mutiny in Cavite on that fateful night of January 20, 1872 was nothing more than an action by disgruntled group of native artillery men, marines, soldiers and workers.  It was not a part of a supposed widespread rebellion.  The friars, however, saw fit to picture it as a plot that would involve the three priests---Burgos, Gomez, and Zamora---who were vocal against he religious orders.  Upon the friars’ instigation, the three priests, along with many leading Filipino patriots were arrested and accused of conspiracy to commit rebellion.  On February 17, 1872 following a mock trial, the three priests were publicly garroted.  The other patriots were sentenced to long prison terms or banished in the Marianas Islands in the southern Philippines.

The authorities had made the execution of the three priests as a public spectacle in order to instill fear and terror.  It, however, made a different effect as it brought about a flowering of nationalism among the Filipinos who saw in the blood of these martyrs the seed of a Filipino nation.  Edmund Plauchut, a French writer summed up the iornic twist of the execution, thus:

These convictions…was a very great mistake.  Up to then, the different Philippine races had lived in distrust of one another; but in their common fate, they learned the solidarity of their interests.  Future generations will be able to say that the old differences must completely disappear so that they can be one in accord and someday ably fight the common enemy---that is, the colonial master.²³

The unjust execution of Burgos, Gomez and Zamora was a turning point in the development of nationalism.  Jose Rizal, who would later become the national hero was so fired up by the martyrdom of  “GOMBURZA” that he dedicated his novel, El Filibusterismo in memory of the three Filipino priests.  Their martyrdom would later result in the flowering of many reform movements culminating into a decisive revolution aimed at complete national emancipation.

Emergency of Revolutionary Leaders

No revolution ever succeeded without the emergency of charismatic leaders who would embody the ideal of the masses and serve as spokesperson of their demands.  Philippine revolutionaries often started as reformers.  They would, in varying degrees, passionately press for fundamental reforms.  When the government becomes sensitive to the demands, the revolution is averted; when the government becomes reactionary and unheedful, the revolution becomes inevitable.

The Philippine Revolution was, in a sense, born out of the failure of the reform movements.  These movements were based on the assumption that society can be saved from dysfunction if fundamental reforms could be introduced in its political and economic structures.  Espoused by the Ilustrados, who were sons of wealthy Filipinos, the reform movements campaigned for the “assimilation”²⁴ of the Philippines as a province of Spain.  Reformers called for a Filipino representation to the Spanish Cortes and asserted that Filipinos were ill-equipped to engage the Spanish government in the arena of armed struggle.

Among the great reformers were Graciano Lopez Jaena, Marcelo H. Del Pilar, Jose Rizal, Antonio Luna, Mariano Ponce, Jose Panganiban and Eduardo de Lete.  Mostly young and well-educated, they championed the cause of political and social reforms.  They wanted equal rights with Spaniards but not independence from Spain.

Graciano Lopez Jaena and Marcelo del Pilar figured prominently as editors of La Solidaridad, an activist newspaper which served as mouthpiece of the Propaganda Movement.  Although published in Spain, the Soli was credited as having disseminated information and opinions which furthered the growth of the nationalistic fervor in the Philippines.

The greatest prime mover of nationalism, however, happened to be Dr. Jose Protacio.  Rizal of Calamba, Laguna.  At an early age, At an early age, Rizal began writing and reflecting upon the abuses of the Spaniards.  At age 26, he finished writing his first and celebrated novel, Noli Me Tangere, which greatly evoked intense nationalistic feelings.  Banned by authorities, the Noli inspired many revolutionaries, including Andres Bonifacio who would later lead the Katipunan, s secret society committed to national emancipation by revolution.

In 1891, Rizal finished his second novel, El Filibusterismo, which predicted the coming revolution.  In the novel, of course, he made that revolution a failure.  A man of peace that he was, he believed that the Filipinos were ill-equipped to engage Spain in armed struggle and unprepared to protect and keep the gains of the revolution.²⁴

Despite Rizal’s espousal of a “peaceful revolution,” however, the Spaniards saw his writings to be insidious and inflammatory.  He was arrested in 1892 and deported to Dapitan.  When the Revolution flared up in 1896, he was tried on trumped up charges of treason and sentenced to die by musketry.  On the dawn of December 30, 1896, he was shot in Bagumbayan filed in Manila, his death injecting fresh fuel to the torch of the nationalist revolution.

The bearer of the revolutionary movement was the Katipunan, a secret society led by Andres Bonifacio, a native of Tondo, Manila.  Under Bonifacio as Supremo, the Katipunan laid down three principal aims---political, moral and civic.  Politically, they would work for the separation of the Philippines from Spain.  Morally, they would teach new ethics and social behavior to counter the colonial endoctrination of the Spaniards.  Under civic aims, they would promote self-help programs, engage in mutual defense, and protection of the poor and oppressed.  Bonifacio, a plebian was aided, in the framing of the Kartilla or the teachings of the Katipunan, by Emilio Jacinto, a middle-class intellectual who was also dubbed as “the brains of the Katipunan.”²⁵

With their aims and teachings in place, Bonifacio requested Benita Rodriguez and Gregoria de Jesus (his wife) to make a flag as a symbol of the Katipunan’s authority.  He published a newspaper Kalayaan (Liberty) to disseminate their aims.  In a matter of time, the fame of the Katipunan spread like wildfire.  Night after night under cover, people would sign up for the movement swelling the rank and file of the revolutionaries.

The rapid increase of the Katipunan’s membership proved to be a great risk.  The new members becoming impatient would meet nightly arousing the suspicion of authorities.  The friars became jittery as rumors began to spread.  Governor-General Ramon Blanco was urged to act at once as the religious orders began to scout for more rumors exhorting churchgoers to refrain from supporting the movement.

Then on August 19, 1896, the secret of the Katipunan was betrayed no less than in the Catholic confessional by Honoria, sister of a Katipunero and a church devotee.  Upon hearing the confession, the friar Mariano Gil lost no time to ascertain its veracity.  The discovery of the Katipunan secret led to mass arrests, tortures and persecution of many Filipinos.²⁶

The premature discovery of the Katipunan spread throughout Manila and suburbs.  Many of its wealthy members denied knowledge of the movement and even denounced it.  Bonifacio and his loyalists, sensing the emergency nature, assembled at Pugadlawin, tore their cedulas (colonial certificates) and shouted “Long live the Philippines!²⁷  The revolution had begun.²⁸

The Revolution began as a “hit and run” with both the Spanish and the Filipino sides claiming victories.  As months passed by, the rebels gained more strength.  The Spaniards, unable to contain the seething discontent, executed Rizal and other revolutionary leaders.  To frighten the people into submission, they unleased a “reign of terror,”²⁸ arresting Filipinos on trumped up charges, torturing and executing rebels at will.  The friars agitated for the replacement of Governor-General Blanco by Camilo de Polavieja, who in the latter’s ruthlessness even ordered the massacre of civilians.  Hundreds died as martyrs in different parts of the islands as Spaniards wrecked vengeance on the native populace.

As the Revolution continued for a year, the demons of factionalism and power struggle reared its ugly head in the Katipunan of Cavite.  The rivalry involved the Magdalo and Magdiwang factions, with the former favoring the leadership of Emilio Aguinaldo, a native of Cavite and the latter adhering to the leadership of Bonifacio.  This factionalism led to a series of reverses and demoralization in the rebel camps.

After a series of internal squabbles and unhappy conventions, Bonifacio was deposed as leader.  Aguinaldo was elected as the new President of the Katipunan but Bonifacio refused to acknowledge the newly-constituted authority.  The power struggle finally ended with the trial and execution of Bonifacio, ending a sad chapter in the history of the Philippine revolution.

With Aguinaldo as president, the Revolution continued spreading to major parts of Luzon.  On November 1, 1897, a revolutionary constitution was signed in Biyak-na-Bato, reflecting among other things “the separation of the Philippines from the Spanish monarchy…with its own government called the Philippine Republic” and made “Tagalog as the official language.”²⁹

Despite its many setbacks, the Philippine revolution had now come a long way.

CHAPTER V

THE ADVENT OF AMERICAN IMPERIALISM

The Philippine Revolution which broke out in 1896 was definitely a “revolt of the masses.”³⁰  Although it was incubated by years of propagandizing by middle class, it was birthed, directed and led by a plebian, Andres Bonifacio.  Upon the untimely death of Bonifacio on May 10, 1897, the same Revolution was to take a new turn as Emilio Aguinaldo and a host of other Ilustrados took over the movement and gave it sophistication.  One wonders what really would have happened had Bonifacio lived and continued to lead the movement to completion.

Let it be reckoned, however, that Bonifacio’s role as the standard bearer of the revolutionary torch was forever to be etched in the canvass of Philippine history.  Aguinaldo’s role in taking over that torch and attempting to bring that torch to the finish line would have been ensured had not the Americans came and wrested control over the Philippine thus inaugurating another era of neo-colonialism or American imperialism.

When the Philippine Revolutin under Aguinaldo was gaining some victory, the Spanish authorities called for a truce on December 1897.  Based on the truce agreement, Aguinaldo and his aides were to go to Hongkong as voluntary exiles.  Governor-General Primo de Rivera paid the rebels the sum of $800,000 in exchange for the truce.  The truce was momentarily beneficial to both the Spanish and Filipino soldiers who needed a respite from the hectic fighting.

While Spanish-Filipino conflicts were enjoying a relative impasse, the Spanish-American relations abroad were turning for the worst.  The young and rising Western power was no engaging in its own territorial expansionism and a war with Spain would ensure a victory that would increase its hegemony.  When the Spanish-American War finally broke out, Commodore George Dewey taking command of the American Asiatic Squadron rushed to Manila and readily sunk and destroyed the Spanish flotilla in Manila Bay.³¹

News of the Dewey victory excited the Americans but worried the Filipinos who sensed an American design to take over control of the Philippines from Spain.  Aguinaldo had to cut his “vacation” in Hongkong and sailed to Manila in order to resume the Revolution.  The Filipino armed struggle was resumed amidst a stiff competition with the American forces who obviously was intending to oust Spain from the Philippines and put themselves in the eventuality of a power vacuum.  The competition ended with the liberation of the Philippines from Spain and its subsequent buckling down to the advances of American imperialism.

The Short-lived Philippine Republic

Aguinaldo’s return to the Philippines and the resumption of the unfinished Revolution engendered a fresher and more vigorous Filipino participation.  During the first phase (1896-1897) of the Revolution, many ilustrados had refused to join and even denounced it partly due to their revulsion to bloodshed and partly because they doubted whether the Filipinos could really defeat the Spaniards.  At this “second phase” (1898-1900), the Revolution was more or less assured of victory.³²

The Spanish armada had just been humbled by the United States naval forces.  The U.S. fleet stood ready to cut-off any outside reinforcements.  The Filipinos were not better-equipped than before.  The moneys given by Governor-General Primo de Rivera during the “truce” was used by Aguinaldo to procure arms while in Hongkong.  The Spanish arms which Admiral Dewey captured from the Cavite navy arsenal were turned over to Aguinaldo.

In the wake of his military victories, Aguinaldo decided that it was time to establish a Filipino government.  This was both to show to the Americans that the Filipinos were capable of self-government and at the same time to usher in the realization of Filipino aspirations.  Due to the emergency nature of the situation, Aguinaldo began with a :dictatorial form” of government on May 24, 2898 and issued a decree setting aside the proclamation of independence from Spain.

On June 12, 1898, Aguinaldo proclaimed the Philippine Independence before a huge crow in Kawit, Cavite.  The Philippine national flag, made in Hongkong by Marcela Agoncillo was officially hoisted as the Philippine National March, composed by Julian Felipe was played.  The Philippine Declaration was signed by ninety-eight persons, among them, an American officer who witnessed the proclamation.³³

The task of keeping the gains of the Revolution was f formidable one in view of the growing American scheme.  After the proclamation, Aguinaldo took a very intelligent paralytic by the name of Apolinario Mabini.  A former member of Rizal’s La Liga Filipina, Mabini proved to e an astute tactician and adviser that he was dubbed “the brains of the revolution” and “the sublime paralytic.”³⁴

Upon Mabini’s instance, Aguinaldo issued a decree on June 23, 1898 making a transition of the government from dictatorial to a revolutionary government.  It changed Aguinaldo’s title from “dictator” to “President” and defined the object of the new government as the complete recognition “by all nations, including Spain”³⁵ of Philippine independence and to prepare the country for the establishment of a true Filipino republic.

The new order further created cabinet offices and provided for the creation of Congress and election of delegates from each province.  In the morning of September 15, 1898, the first Filipino Congress was convened in Malolos amidst rejoicing from both delegates and spectators.

The first significant act of Congress was the ratification of the Independence Proclamation.  This was followed by the framing of the first Constitution, which decided among other things, the separation of the Church and State.  Drafted by a committee headed by Felipe Calderon, the Constitution provided a unicameral Congress, a legislative branch that is superior to either the executive or judicial branch, and a Permanent Commission to sit as legislative when Congress was not in session.

On January 23, 1899, the Philippine Republic was officially inaugurated with Aguinaldo taking oath as its first president.  As a gesture of conciliation, Aguinaldo granted pardon to Spanish prisoners of war and extended the rights of Spaniards and other aliens to engage in business within the bounds of the new Republic.  Revolutionary periodicals were published by the new government to make its ideals and aspirations known to all the world so that foreign powers would respect and recognize the Philippine independence.  The American power surely did not and proceeded to wrest control over the fledgling nation and aborted its desire for self-actualization.

The American Duplicity

Unlike that of the first Spaniards, the coming of the Americans to the Philippines was not an accident.  On the contrary, it was a planned action.  Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., who was then Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy in 1897 admitted in 1899: “It has been said that it was mere accident that Dewey happened to be in command of the Asiatic squadron when the war broke out.  This is not the fact.  He was sent to command it in the fall of 1897 because…it was deemed wise to have there a man who could go to Manila if necessary.”³⁶

The American desire to acquire the Philippines from the Spaniards came at the time when the Filipinos were already waging a winning revolution against their former colonizers.  Historian Teodoro Agoncillo enumerated the American motives in coming to the Philippines, thus:

(a)                                                      The American economic interest of expanding business in Asia;

(b)                                                      The naval and military interest of making the Philippines as their first line of defense in their wars of expansion; and

(c)                                                      The religious interest of making the Philippines as the base of operation for the American Protestant missions.³⁷

It was obvious from the beginning that the Americans never intended to help the Filipino revolutionaries attain their independence from Spain but not to wait for an opportune time to gain control of the country while appearing like friends of the Filipino people.  When Aguinaldo was in self-exile in Hongkong, the American Consul E. Spencer Pratt convinced him that the Americans were not interested in possessing the Philippines but in simply driving the Spaniards away.³⁸

When Aguinaldo came back to the Philippines from Hongkong, he was surprised to find Admiral Dewey and the American marines already in Manila.  When the Filipino revolutionaries were surrounding the walls of Intramuros (the last bastion of the Spanish army), Admiral Dewey was already negotiating with Governor-General Augustin over the surrender of Manila, the capital of the Philippines.

The most blatant duplicity of American neo-colonialists, however, was the “mock battle” of Manila Bay.  It was predicated on the assumption that the Spaniards did not want to lose face through an early surrender to the Americans.  They also would find it more humiliating to surrender to the “inferior” Filipino forces.  To save face and to satisfy the Spanish code of honor, a mock battle was agreed upon by both the Spanish and American forces with the exclusion of the Filipino revolutionaries.  So when the Filipinos laid siege of Manila, the Spaniards were already raising their white flag to the Americans.

To seal the American control over the Philippines, a treaty was signed in Paris on December 1898 between Spain and the United States.  In that infamous Treaty of Paris, the Philippines was given by Spain to the United States for the sum $20,000,000 as payment of Spain’s improvements made in its Philippine colony.  All throughout this negotiation, the Filipinos were neither represented nor informed.  The Filipino revolutionaries were nonetheless outraged for having discovered that their beloved Philippines “was sold like a sack of sweet potatoes.”³⁹

The Filipino-American War

The American duplicity gave way to the eventual hostility between the new imperial forces and the Filipino revolutionaries.  With the Treaty of Paris concluded to the satisfaction of America and Spain and the frustration of the Filipinos, U.S. President McKinley issued his so-called “Benevolent Assimilation” proclamation on December 21, 1898.  Expressly indicating their intention to stay in the Philippines, McKinley instructed his military commanders in the Philippines to extend American sovereignty over the Filipinos even by force.⁴⁰

As the Americans continued to pour in military men and supplies in the Philippines, a dividing line was being drawn.  The on February 4, 1899 an American sentry shot a Filipino soldier precipitating the Filipino-American War which would last for three years.

The war saw barbarity on both sides as the Filipinos fought a fanatical battle of frustration and anger.  Americans showed no mercy at taking revenge.  Like the Spaniards before them, they also resorted to extreme measures hoping to soften the Filipinos’ will to fight.  Murder of civilians and tortures of prisoners were employed.  In Samar islands, General James Smith retaliated to a Filipino ambush by burning villages and killing every Filipino soldier or civilian in sight.  In six months, the American soldiers transformed the village of Balangiga, Samar to a “howling wilderness.”⁴¹  The barbarity with which General Smith subdued the people of Samar touched the conscience of the American people.  After that campaign, Smith was court-martialed and retired from service.

The Filipinos fought at a great disadvantage with the American forces.  Tired and weary from their Revolution and overpowered by superior arms and well-trained American army, they fought one losing battle after another.  It was only the grit and the dtermination to take hold of the freedom they won from the Spaniards that kept them going.  One by one, their leaders were killed or captured.  Finally, General Aguinaldo himself was captured on March 23, 1901 thus ending the Filipino-American War and leaving behind the ashes of the Philippine Revolution.⁴²

The next fifty years or so (1898-1946) of American rule would see an “Americanization” of Philippine society and the advent of rapid American influence on the social, political and cultural life of the Filipino people.  All socio-political structures set up by the revolutionary Malolos Congress were dissolved as American neocolonialists labored to tutor the Filipinos into the American-brand of democracy and self-government.

Among the salient events that happened during the American imperial regime were:

(1) The formal proclamation of the Philippine Independent Church as an offshoot of the Revolution as well as schism from the Roman Catholic Church.

(2) The arrival of American Protestant missionaries under the banner of “Manifest Destiny”.⁴³

(3) The Americans putting into effect the separation of Church and State and the secularization of public education.

(4) The Americans negotiated the sale of “friar lands” (or lands owned by religious corporations) that had caused much controversy during the revolutionary era.  This would have been a unique opportunity for an equitable redistribution of lands and property had not the Americans sold them to the caciques or private landowners.

(5) “Free trade” was initiated between the United States and the Philippines which eventually led to the Philippines’ economic and military dependence to American interests.

(6) The invasion of Japanese forces under the aegis of Japan’s “East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” and their subsequent occupation of the Philippines for four years.

(7) The end of World War II, the liberation of the Philippines from the Japanese forces and the formal declaration of Philippine Independence from American rule and the start of Filipino self-government.PART TWO

THE PHILIPPINE INDEPENDENT CHURCH IN HISTORY

The starting point of this section is anchored on the basic affirmation that the Philippine Independent Church cannot be understood apart from the history of the Filipino People.  The conception and birth of the Philippine Independent Church was closely linked with the struggle of the Filipinos for political and religious emancipation from the Spanish colonialist on the one hand and from the Friar-dominated Catholic Church on the other hand.

The Philippine Revolution of 1896-1898 was perceived to be a nationalist struggle to throw-off the yoke of Spanish “church and state oppression” and to achieve a complete socio-political and religious emancipation.  The visions of the Filipino revolutionaries were to set-up an indigenous Philippine Republic and to fee the Filipino Church from the abuses of the Spanish friars.  This bi-focal revolutions was carried by the revolutionaries as evidenced by the nature of their grievances and demands.

When the political struggle was aborted because of the coming of American imperialism, the Philippine Revolution did not die but merely assumed a new dimension, this time, a religious dimension.  Like a bamboo that was cut in the bud, it shot up again.  This new revolution, the religious revolution, succeeded in realizing its aim through the founding of the Philippine Independent Church.  In other words, the Philippine Independent Church of today is not only the “lone tangible product”¹ of the Philippine (political) Revolution of 1898 but also the “unfinished Revolution” itself!

In the following chapters, we will recount the saga of the Philippine Independent Church --- from the formative stages to its birth, growth, decline and contemporary situation.  Our presentation of his history will be in narrative form, associating historical events with persons who embodied the ideas and ideals of the religious revolution.  This is the way most Filipinos, especially the masses, would like to remember history.  In Filipino mind-set, there is no dichotomy between what a person is and what he does.  Almost always, a person does such things “because that’s the way the person is.”

In presenting the Philippine Independent Church, we must bear in mind that this Church is both a historical reality as well as a theological idea.  While it has a glorious past, it exists in the present and needs to continue charting its future.  We must look at the history of the Philippine Independent Church with a sense of expectancy that its glorious past can be renewed in our own time, and in a new way.

CHAPTER I

THE FORMATIVE FACTORS OF RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION

The historical antecedents of the Filipino religious revolution dated back from the time when the Filipinos realized the ambiguous nature of the Spanish colonial Church.  The use of the Cross together with the Sword in various forms of oppression, the rapacity of the religious orders in acquiring landed estates, and the harshness of the friars in dealing with their “flocks” developed in the Filipinos a deep resentment against a foreign Roman Catholic Church.

Because of the close union between the Church and the Sate in the administration of the Philippine colony, it was not easy to differentiate the Spanish political oppression from religious oppression.  There were, however, some issues which were akin to the specific struggle of the Filipinos in the religious front.  These issues were brought into focus by certain characters whose deeds or personalities served as catalysts for the development of “religious nationalism”, as distinct from the national socio-political and economic aspirations of the Filipino masses.  These personages, their protests and martyrdom embodied the religious as well as political ferment of the times.

1.  The Martyrdom of “Herman Pule”

The first significant protest movement happened in Tayabas (new Quezon Province) in 1841 under the leadership of Apolinario dela Cruz or “Hermano Pule” as he was later known.  A brilliant youth, Pule wanted to pursue seminary education leading to the priesthood but was refused by the Dominicans on the ground that he was a native.

With zeal and some knowledge of Catholic dogma, Hermano Pule founded a religious brotherhood called “Confradia de San Jose” and requested that the Church recognize it.  The response of the friars was to have Pule and his followers arrested.  In the ensuing resistance, Pule was killed along with many of his loyal supporters.  In order to discourage the masses from following the example of the self-styled religious leader, Pule’s body was dismembered and paraded in the Tagalog towns where his ideas and influence had spread.²

2.  Fr. Pedro Pelaez and the Secularization Controversy

The “Secularization Controversy” was, in effect, a conflict between Spanish and Filipino clerics over the administration of parishes.  On the one hand, were the Spanish “friar-curates” holding to their entrenched positions in Philippine parishes.  On the other hand, were the Filipino “secular priests” agitating for equitable representation in the administration of the said parishes.  The root cause of the problem was the racial prejudice of the Spaniards who considered the Filipinos as “belonging to an inferior race.”³

At the center of the Secularization issue was a Filipino priest by the name of Pedro Pelaez.  Although a mestizo, by blood, Fr. Pelaez championed the cause of the Filipino clergy.  In 1862, when the parish priest of Antipolo died, Fr. Pelaez who was then the Ecclesiastical Governor of the Archdiocese of Manila, appointed a Filipino secular, Fr. Francisco Campmas, to be the new curate.  The Augustinian Recollects objected to the appointment invoking the 1861 decree from the Queen Regent which allegedly allocated the Archdiocese of Manila to the Recollects.  The Filipino secular clergy lost in the dispute and the Recollects gained a very important, rich and strategic curacy.⁴

In 1869, the parish of San Rafael, Bulacan became vacant.  The church authorities annulled the competitive exam in which seventeen Filipinos had qualified because the Recollects (again invoking the degree of 1861), claimed that the parish was theirs by right.  Pelaez and the native clergy lost again.  Similar cases were repeated in Bataan, Zambales and Pampanga.  In anger, Fr. Pelaez wrote a protest letter to the Queen Regent stating that the Decree of 1861 was prejudicial to the Filipino clergy as well as a violation of the secularization provision of the Council of Trent.  He also launched a spirited campaign for secularization through El Eco Filipino, a nationalistic newspaper which he himself edited.  Through the newspaper, Pelaez was able to stir up the Church to the problems obtaining in the Philippine colonial church.⁵

In 1871, a sympathetic archbishop, Gregorio Martinez sent a memorial to the Queen Regent supporting Pelaez and advocating for the repeal of the 1861 decree.  Martinez also called for the establishment of a definite program for the training of Filipino seminarians commending their competence and faithful services to the Church.  In the same memorial, he warned that resentment of the Filipinos against the friars would have a contagious effect in their hatred against all Spaniards.

The Queen Regent largely ignored the memorial and the grievances of the Filipino clergy lead by Pelaez remained unheeded.  In June 1863, Pelaez died following an earthquake that his Manila.

3.  The Martyrdom of Burgos, Gomez and Zamora

After the death of Pedro Pelaez, a triumvirate of Filipino secular priests took up the secularization issue and veered it towards a more focused clamor for “Filipinization.”  From 1864-1872, Jose Burgos, Mariano Gomez, and Jacinto Zamora banded together to crystallize the issues raised by the late Pedro Pelaez.  They considered “secularization” as basically an issue of Filipinization and a struggle for “racial equality”.⁶  Emboldened by the liberal policies made during the administration of Governor-General Carlos Maria dela Torre in 1869, they criticized openly the abuses of the friars and called for reforms in the Catholic Church.

On January 20, 1872, the three priests were unjustly implicated by the friars in the mutiny of a marine battalion guarding the arsenals of Cavite.  The three priests were condemned to death upon the orders of the new Governor-General, Rafael de Izuierdo, one of the most-hated governors of Manila.  On February 15, 1872, Burgos (30 years old), Gomez (85 years old) and Zamora (35 years old) were publicly garroted.  Not unlike what they did to Hermano Pule, the Spanish authorities made the execution a public spectacle in order to strike terror in the minds of the Filipinos.  Ironically, it was the martyrdom of the three priests that ushered in the Filipino reform movement and the growth of intense nationalism.

4.  The Martyrdom of Jose P. Rizal

The Philippines’ national hero, r. Jose Protacio Rizal was a child when Fathers Burgos, Gomez and Zamora were executed but the memory of the three martyrs was deeply imprinted in him.  In a letter to a friend in 1889, Rizal justified his role as a propagandist for national reforms by citing the great impact of these martyrs.  In dedicating this second novel, El Filibusterismo, to the memory of the three martyrs, Rizal wrote: “As a child, my imagination was awakened by the martyrdom of the three priests.  I vowed to dedicate myself to avenge, someday, such victims…⁷

Although Rizal was not considered part of the Church establishment, unlike Pelaez and the three martyred priests, his writings reflected many Christian insights.  He was known to have inspired Filipino secular priests to continue pushing for ecclesiastical reforms.⁸  Rizal himself was publicly martyred in 1896, but then again, it was his martyrdom that eventually fanned the fires of nationalist revolution.

5.  The Leadership of Apolinario Mabini

Following the death of Rizal, a revolutionary movement called Katipunan led by Andres Bonifacio took over the torch of the nationalist struggle.  When Bonifacio died during the first phase of the revolution, General Emilio Aguinaldo took over the helm of leadership and succeeded in establishing a “provisional Revolutionary Government.”  One of Aguinaldo’s trusted advisers was Apolinario Mabini.  Considered to be the “brains of the Revolution,”⁹ Mabini was very sympathetic to the clamor of the Filipino priests for the “Filipinization” of the Catholic Church.  While he believed in the separation of Church and State, he likewise recognized the oneness of the struggle and was willing to swing his political weight towards religious emancipation as well as political independence.

Upon Mabini’s instance, the Philippine revolutionary government under General Aguinaldo refused to recognize the authority of Spanish Archbishop Bernardino Nozaleda over the Filipino clergy.  On October 1899, Mabini issued a Manifesto calling for a “national council of Filipino priests”¹⁰ who will pressure Rome for the rights of the Filipino clergy.  Moreover, upon Mabini’s advise, General Aguinaldo appointed a Filipino priest, Gregorio Aglipay as Military Vicar General of the Revolutionary movement.  Aglipay’s position in the provisional revolutionary government of Aguinaldo enabled him to rally and consolidate the forces favorable to the Filipino clergy.

The role of Aglipay in the Revolutionary Movement, thanks to Mabini, would later become the pivotal point in the founding of the Philippine Independent Church.

CHAPTER II

THE BIRTH OF THE PHILIPPINE INDEPENDENT CHURCH

The Philippine Revolution was in large part a conflict of nationalities.  On the one hand, were the oppressed Filipinos who were fighting to build a free and independent Filipino State and Church; on the other hand were the oppressor Spaniards who wanted to defend and preserve the colonial establishment.  When in 1898 American imperialism entered the scene as a dark horse, the Filipinos’ dream of instituting a national State was shattered.  They, or at least a significant portion among them, now turned to dreaming of a national Filipino Church.  This dream became a reality with the founding of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente, or the “Philippine Independent Church.”

The actual birth of the Philippine Independent Church had become a complex debate among historians and observers of the church.  Some believed that the Filipino “schism” from the Roman Catholic Church happened on October 23, 1899 when a group of clergy led by Father Gregorio Aglipay convened in Paniqui, Tarlac and proposed a “provisional Constitution of the Filipino Church.” 

The actual birth of the Philippine Independent Church had become a complex debate among historians and observers of the church.  Some believed that the Filipino “schism” from the Roman Catholic Church happened on October 23, 1899 when a group of clergy led by Father Gregorio Aglipay convened in Paniqui, Tarlac and proposed a “provisional Constitution of the Filipino Church.”  Juan A. Rivera wrote in 1937:

To all intents and purposes, a national Filipino Church was established at the Paniqui Convention.  Independence from the control of the Spanish prelates was declared in no ambiguous terms.  The church machinery was definitely established and organized.  Powers to negotiate with Rome was boldly assumed.¹¹

The Jesuit historians Achutegui and Bernad echoed the same position and maintained that the Paniqui declaration was indeed schismatic although not from the Rome pope but from the Spanish bishops.

Although the Assembly of Paniqui was not formally schismatic since it still preferred allegiance to the Holy See, nevertheless, it was schismatic in trend, and if the provisions of their Constitution had been implemented, it would have ended in a formal schism…The crux of the case lay in Canon VI: the refusal to recognize any foreigner as a bishop unless approved by the plebiscite among the priests.  That canon put the assembly on the brink of a formal schism…¹²

Other historians like Teodoro Agoncillo asserted that the actual founding of the Philippine Independent Church was on August 3, 1902 when Don Isabelo delos Reyes, leader of the Democratic Labor Union proclaimed at Centro de Bellas Artes in Manila, “the establishment of a Filipino Church Independent of Rome.”¹³  This was the date officially recognized by the Philippine Independent Church hierarchy as their “Foundation Day.”  Over the past decades until today, the PIC would celebrate Agusut 3 as its anniversary.

There had been other ideas as to the exact date of the formal break of the Philippine Independent Church from the Roman Catholic Church.  In retrospect, however, we could say that there were stages of religious revolutionary development.  At the beginning was the pressing for reforms aimed at the welfare of the Filipino clergy.  When left unheeded, the call for a national Filipino Church which would still owe allegiance to Rome; when all means for reforms have been exhausted, a total departure and schism from the Roman Catholic Church was finally made.

In this chapter, we will trace the birthing of the Philippine Independent Church through the principal actors and actresses who gave shape to this religious movement, namely: Fr. Gregorio Aglipay who gained national prominence as leader of the Filipino clergy; Don Isabelo delos Reyes, Sr., who founded the first labor union in the Philippines and formally proclaimed the schism from the Roman Church; and the workers, peasants and the women who composed the initial membership of the fledgling Philippine Independent Church and whose “people power” became the turning point in the Philippine religious revolution.

1.  Fr. Gregorio Aglipay and the Triumph of Filipinization

Born on May 8, 1860 Batac, Ilocos Norte, Gregorio Aglipay y Labayen had his first experience of Spanish oppression when he saw his father jailed by Spanish authorities for failure to pay his quota of tobacco leaves.  While studying to be a lawyer at Santo Tomas University in Manila, he met Jose P. Rizal who advised him to take up priesthood and work for the rights of the Filipino clergy.  Aglipay took the advice and became a leading advocate for the Filipinization of the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines.¹⁴

During the second phase of the political Revolution (1898-1900), while serving as Ecclesiastical Governor of the Diocese of Nueva Segovia under the headship of Spanish Archbishop Bernardino Nozaleda, Aglipay was offered a national leadership position as Military Governor General of the Revolutionary Government under General Emilio Aguinaldo.  Being a priest of the Roman Catholic Church, Aglipay found himself in a serious dilemma: to accept the appointment in the service of the Revolution and go against his Catholic superiors or to reject the appointment and lose the opportunity to serve his own country and people.  Agoncillo had this to say:

Aglipay’s position in the Revolutionary Government as Military Vicar General and his position in the Catholic hierarchy as Ecclesiastical Governor of the Diocese of Nueva Segovia were anomalous.  As a Filipino, he had to support the revolutionists, but as a Catholic priest, he had to back the head of the church (i.e., Nozaleda) who, as a Spaniard, was naturally for the colonial government.  Aglipay chose to be a Filipino first and a Catholic second.¹⁵

Aglipay’s appointment as Military Vicar General took effect upon Aguinaldo’s instance on October 20, 1898.  On October 21, a day after his appointment, Aglipay issued a letter to the Filipino clergy urging them to organize themselves into a cohesive body geared for national emergency.  He also urged the priests to create a Council which would ask the Pope in Rome to appoint Filipinos in “all church positions from archbishops to the lowest parish priest.”

As Ecclesiastical Governor of Nueva Segovia, Aglipay also ordered the Filipino priests under his jurisdiction to support the Revolution and to consolidate all the forces favorable to the cause of the Filipino clergy.

Aglipay’s actions surely angered Archbishop Nozaleda who was caught off-guard at the sudden turn of events.  Earlier, he had expected Aglipay to win the side of the revolutionists in favor of Spain n its competition with the new colonists, the Americans.  Nozaleda thought that Aglipay would be more sympathetic to the Spaniards than to the Americans who were now poised to take over the control of the islands.  Nozaleda could not understand how a Catholic priest like Aglipay would disregard the wishes of his religious superiors and would choose to be on the side of the Filipino revolutionists.  At the same time, he was getting alarmed and jealous of the sudden popularity that Aglipay seemed to be enjoying from the masses of the Filipino Catholic people.

Thus, on April 29, 1899, Archbishop Nozaleda accused Aglipay of usurpation of power and of inciting the Filipino clergy to rebel against the Catholic church.  With the consent of the Spanish-controlled ecclesiastical tribunal, Nozaleda issued a decree excommunicating Aglipay.  The decree, which was to take effect on May 5, declared Aglipay “a usurper and a schismatic.”¹⁶

Instead of cowering in fear before the Spanish prelate and asking for pardon, the obstinate Aglipay used his own power as religious leader of the revolutionary government.  Laughing off the excommunication decree, he returned the compliment by likewise declaring Nozaleda excommunicated!  In his own version of excommunication, Aglipay accused Nozaleda of being an agent of Spanish oppression and as a collaborator in the new American imperialism.¹⁷

On October 23, 1899, upon advice of Apolinario Mabini, Aglipay gathered a group of clergy in Paniqui, Tarlac to discuss the “Filipinization of the Catholic Church.”  A constitution was framed outlining the composition of the new national order.  Reflecting the fierce nationalistic fervor of the time, it expressly forbid the entry and recognition of foreign bishops without the approval of the Filipino clergy.¹⁸

The formalization f the schismatic constitution drawn-up by the Paniqui Convention was aborted by the deteriorating Filipino-American War.  General Aguinaldo’s revolutionary government was already on the verge of collapse.  He had to flee to the mountains north of Manila.  Aglipay, who by now was known as “General Aglipay” had to hurry to the hills in order to protect Aguinaldo and to wage a guerilla warfare against the American forces who had taken over the Spaniards in a new policy of repression.

On May 1901, realizing the futility of armed resistance against the American forces and having heard that Aguinaldo himself had already been captured in Palanan, Isabela, Aglipay surrendered to the American authorities.  Being one of the last generals to surrender (with his own unit remaining unvanquished), Aglipay returned to the limelight as a hero.  The diplomatic American welcomed his surrender with festivity, giving Aglipay and his men immediate amnesty.

The favorable American receiption made Aglipay forget the political aims of the Revolution but not the religious one.  On May 8, 1902 at his 42^nd birthday, he convened an assembly of Ilocano priests in Kullabeng (now Pinili), Ilocos Norte and resumed the plans for Filipinization which they begun in the Paniqui Convention.  This new assembly arrived at a consensus “to secede from Rome if Vatican persisted in ignoring the rights of the Filipino clergy.”¹⁹  Again, their clamor was for the recognition and appointment of Filipino clergy at all levels of the Church hierarchy---from parish priests to bishops and archbishops.

Historians Achutegui and Bernad believed this “Kullabeng Assembly” was actually the one that gave shape to the Philippine Independent Church, asserting, thus:

In Paniqui, the was cry was “Not with the Bishops but with Rome.”  The essential thing was to appeal to Rome for redress, with an explicit declaration of adherence to Roman authority and doctrine.  At Kullabeng, the cry was “Not with Rome.”  It was a declaration of Independence from Roman authority, and the beginning of the abandonment of Roman doctrine.²⁰

It remained debatable whether Aglipay did indeed abandon Roman doctrine at the Kullabeng Assembly.  As far as he was concerned, he was simply fighting for the legitimate rights of his people and race.  His leadership and those of the other Filipino clergy inspired the masses to look towards a more visible form of Filipinizing the Catholic Church in the Philippines.

2.  Isabelo delos Reyes, Sr., and the Proclamation of Schism

The second actor in the drama of the Philippine Independent Church was Don Isabelo delos Reyes, Sr.  Born in Vigan, Ilocos Sur on September 1864 from prominent parents, Delos Reyes grew up to be a radical student.  Studying to be a lawyer, he became a voracious reader, a prolific writer and propagandist of the Reform Movement.  At the first phase of the Revolution (1896-1897), he was one of those arrested for complicity.  He was exiled in Barcelona, Spain along with other illustrious propagandists of the Reform movement.  In Spain, he continued writing passionate articles concerning the conditions obtaining in the Philippines.

As the second phase of the Revolution (1898-1900) was coming to an end and the Filipino-American War was taking over, Delos Reyes heard about the new ferment in the religious front with Aglipay being appointed as Military Governor-General.  Renewing his anti-friar campaign, Delos Reyes began advocating for a radically separatists Filipino Church.  In his newspaper, Filipinas Ante Europa, Delos Reyes wrote:

Enough of Rome!  Let us nor form without vacillation our own congregation, a Filipino Church, conserving all that is good in the Roman Church and eliminating all the deceptions which the diabolical astuteness of the cunning Romanists had introduced to corrupt the moral purity and sacredness of the doctrines of Christ.²¹

In June 1901, Delos Reyes returned to the Philippines and campaigned relentlessly for the establishment of a national Filipino Church.  In July of the same year, he founded the first labor Union in the Philippines, the Union Obrera Democratica and used it to drum up his vision of a Filipino Church.  The on August 3, 1902, Delos Reyes called a rally of his labor union in Centro de Bellas Artes, a theatre in Manila.  In that rally, Delos Reyes lambasted the friars as well as the new American Apostolic delegate to the Philippines, Mons. Placido Chapelle, calling him “pro-friar and enemy of Filipinization.”  In his speech, Delos Reyes proclaimed the establishment of the Philippine Independent Church and announced the name of Fr. Gregorio Aglipay as “supreme head”, declaring, thus:

I am authorized, by the General Council of the Union…to declare without vacillation, that from now on, we definitely separate ourselves from the Vatican, forging a Filipino Independent Church…we propose as the supreme head of the Filipino Independent Church the most virtuous and greatest patriot, Father Gregorio Aglipay.²²

Known for his radical temperament and precipitous actions, Delos Reyes made several blunders in this proclamation event.  First, in his zealous desire to lend credibility and dignity ot the new Church, he included the names of leading Illustrados like Trinidad H. Pardo de Tavera, Fernando Ma. Guerrero, Martin Ocampo and Manuel Artigas and other notable priests like Adriano Garces, Jorge Barlin, Manuel Roxas and oribio Domiguez into the Executive Committee---even without consulting them.  Second, he was too abrupt in proclaiming Aglipay as Supreme Bishop even without the latter’s prior knowledge or consent.

The first blow to the fledgling religious body was naturally the understandable denial of the proposed members of the Executive Committee.  While the Illustrados had no apparent objection to the Filipinization movement, they were not willing to go that far was to secede from the Roman Catholic Church.  Consequently, they refused to be connected to the Philippine Independent Church.  Some of them publicly denied and disavowed any involvement in it.

The second and most serious blow was one coming from Gregorio Aglipay himself who apparently did not approve of that precipitous schismatic declaration.  The reason for this was that, at the time, Aglipay was in a conference with the Jesuit leaders at Ateneo University in Quezon City who were desperately trying to prevent the Filipino priests from proceeding with the impending schism.  At that particular moment, Aglipay still believed that far-reaching reforms were still possible under the aegis of the Roman Catholic system.

3.  The Workers, Peasants, Country-priests and Women in “People Power”

Delos Reyes was obviously humiliated by the loss of support from Aglipay and other leaders from the middle class, but he could not blame them for their reaction.  He was, however, rejuvenated when at the succeeding days, he witnessed the dramatic outpouring of support from the masses who heard of the proclamation and wittingly or unwittingly joined the schismative movement.

Perhaps they did not understand fully the doctrinal implication of the separation from Roman Catholicism.  Or perhaps, they fully understood the meaning of religious freedom.  Whatever their motivation was, it appeared that the workers, peasants, country-priests and women, had arrived at a critical point by which there was no turning back.  In joining the new Church, they had nothing to lose except their long subservience to the Spanish friars.  After all, it was they, not the middle-class, who bore heavily the weight of Spanish oppression.

Initially, some working-class residents of Navotas, Rizal sent-in their affiliation papers.  Then the days following would see priests from Northern Luzon lining-up to register their affiliation.  A big break came when Father Brilliantes of Ilocos Norte publicly announced his “defection” from the Roman Catholic Church and sent-in his affiliation papers with the Philippine Independent Church.  The action of Brilliantes inspired similar “defections” from priests in other parts of the Ilocos region and throughout the whole country.

Meanwhile, the conference in Ateneo University between Aglipay and the Jesuit leaders proved to be a failure and was even characterized by a threat of violence.  The Roman Catholic negotiator, Fr. Francisco Foradada insulted the Filipino priests before the face of Aglipay calling them “vicious and hopelessly inefficient.”  Aglipay, unable to bear this Spanish insensitivity, lost his temper.  He lunged at the Jesuit, held him by the nape and demanded an immediate apology.²³  The Jesuits tried to apologize and to repair the damage done to the negotiation but it was too late.  Aglipay released Foradada but was already convinced of the futility of reformation within the Catholic system.  He went back to Manila and accepted leadership in the Philippine Independent Church.

With Gregorio Aglipay assuming leadership, the new Church was infused with a great energy, vigor and strength.  On October 25, 1902, the first mass of the Philippine Independent Church was held in Tondo, Manila.  Virtually, the whole of Azcarraga Street, where the event took place, was filled with people.  As the Bred and Wine were consecrated, a brass band played the anthem of the Revolution.  Aglipay preached an eloquent sermon where he explained the reasons for the break with Rome, thus: “to reestablish the true worship of the true God and to restore the purity of the Word of God.”²⁴

In his sermon, Aglipay also spoke of the evolutionary process of the schism and how they exhausted all means to achieve reforms but to no avail.  He testified to his “drinking from the cup of humiliation” and the ultimate decision to accept leadership in the “revolutionary Church.”  He also exhorted the faithful to “forget completely the injuries” they received at the hands of the friars saying that he himself “would consider them as brothers, like all men.”²⁵

As the first mass fo the new-born indigenous Church became front-page news in the Manila dailies, the popularity of the Philippine Independent Church (also called “Aglipayan Movement”) spread like wildfire.  All over the country, whole congregations turned schismatics.  Wherever Aglipay and the other leaders went, they were welcomed with triumphal music from brass bands and the unabashed adoration from the masses.

The euphoria of the religious “people power” revolution was expressed in various ways in the context of local parishes.  One such expression came from the church women of Pandacan, a suburb of Manila.  At his Sunday sermon, the parish priest (a Spaniard), discredited the revolutionaries and uttered insulting remarks about Aglipay and the Philippine Independent Church.  The sermon of the said priest so enraged the women that they drove him out of the church building, took possession of the keys to the church, and for several days and nights camped in and around the church to prevent the Spanish priest from coming back.²⁶

These “women of Pandacan” led by no less that the great granddaughter of Jacinto Zamora (one of the three martyred priests in 1872) continued their vigil and invited Father Aglipay to conduct the Holy Mass with them.  This particular aspect of “people power” was significant in the light of Spanish colonization where women were considered inferior and were often victimized sexually and emotionally.  In contract to the woman who betrayed the Revolution in a Roman confessional, the women of Pandacan showed that the “feminist awakeing” in the Filipino Church had begun.

Support for the Philippine Independent Church in the ensuing years was not confined to defecting church members.  Labor unions and their entire membership affiliated to the new Church.  Igorots and other cultural minorities from the Mountain Province, untouched by Roman Catholicism went down to Narvacan, Ilocos Sur to receive Christian baptism from Aglipay himself.  Then they went back to their mountain villages and formed basic Christian communities.

In the wake of such religious uprising, the membership of the Philippine Independent Church was found to be extensive and pervasive in the Philippine islands.  The population in 1902 was around 8 million Filipinos.  Of such number, Aglipay claimed in an interview with Manila Times on December 23, 1902 that the Philippine Independent Church had “two hundred committees and three million adherents.”  Don Isabelo delos Reyes, being a propagandist, put the number to “about five million.”²⁸

Independent observers like Stuntz, Le Roy, Cameron Forbes, Alip and Buencamino estimated the PIC membership from two million to four million Filipinos.  Roman Catholic writers like Achutegi and Bernad, despised this “fantasy of numbers” but conceded that the spread of the fledgling Church was extensive enough to gain adherents from “one-fourth of the Catholic population”…and “one-third of the Catholic clergy.”²⁹

Whatever was the actual membership of the Philippine Independent Church at the first year of its inception remains a question.  There was no official census that actually determined the number of adherents in the parishes and outlying areas of the country.  What was undeniable was the fact that the Philippine Independent Church really captured the imagination of the Filipino people.  They saw the movement as the embodiment of their ideals and aspirations for religious freedom, identity and sovereignty.  It was the Church that they longed and hoped for, the symbol of freedom and independence they can behold and hold on to.  After years of frustrating struggles and defeats, now there was a Church they can claim to have won or have achieved.

Like the German and English Reformation, the Filipino religious revolution touched the entire population of the country.  Like most popular movements, it gained tremendous outpouring of emotional and moral support from the people.  Like the morning star in the East, the birth of the Philippine Independent Church shone as a beacon of religious freedom and national emancipation.  It also became a tangible proof that the Filipino clergy and faithful under the join leadership of Fr. Gregorio Aglipay (a clergy) and Don Isabelo delos Reyes (a laity), had now come of age.

CHAPTER III

THE AGLIPAYAN ERA: CHALLENGES AND RESPONSES

All living things, whether plants, animals, people or groups of people exhibit patterns or cycles of development moving from period of vitality and growth, to periods of decay and disintegration.³⁰  In the next forty years---from its founding to the death of its founders---the Philippine Independent Church underwent serious challenges that nearly caused its demise.  It could be said that only the grace of God and the innate resiliency of the Filipino People that prevented the fledgling Church from being relegated ot the dustbin of history.

In this chapter, we will discuss the more specific and most serious problems that beset the Philippine Independent Church as it went through stages of its own development.  We will also attempt to understand how its leaders---particularly Gregorio Aglipay and Isabel delos Reyes, Sr.---behaved or responded to these challenges.

The readers must bear in mind that the period from 1902 to 1940 were periods of rapid “Americanization” of Philippine Society.  The Philippines was under the control of American imperialists who were in the process of “tutoring” the Filipinos towards the American-brand of democracy.  It was also a period of physical restoration as people struggled to put their life back together and to repair the material damages done by years of raging protests, revolts, revolution and war.

The Philippine Independent Church, has as its leader, Fr. Gregorio Aglipay, a revolutionary against the Spanish colonization, a guerilla-fighter in the Filipino-American War, a rebel priest excommunicated by a Roman Catholic Archbishop.  Along the lay leaders of the Philippine Independent Church was Don Isabelo delos Reyes, Sr., an overzealous labor leaders, a radical politician, and a prolific propagandist.  At the base of leadership were the huddled masses the poor, the working class, the peasants, the country parish-priests, the ethnic minority---strong in numbers but weak in material resources and social standing.

The composition of the Independent Church was good for a fairy tale but not in reality where power came from the barrel of the American military and from the glitter of gold and brilliance of the intelligent in the new Americanized Philippines.

Throughout, the next forty-years, which we will arbitrarily call “The Aglipayan Era”, we will discuss how the Philippine Independent Church as a whole managed to handle the various challenges or trials that came its way:

1.  The Roman Catholic Counter-Measures

As the schism in the Philippine began to take disastrous effect on the Roman Catholic Church, the Vatican frantically attempted to make meaningful reform in its Philippine policy.  The Philippines was the only Catholic satellite, the “only Christian nationa”³¹ in Asia and the volatile conditions existing in the country greatly worried the Pope in Rome.  The founding success of the PIC had shaken the Catholic tree and now the American Protestant Missions began arriving and were starting to pick the fallen fruits.

On November 1902, the unpopular Archbishop Placido Chapelle was replaced as Apostolic Delegate by an Italian, Archbishop Giovanni Baptista Guidi, who brought with him the Pope’s own solution to the Philippine ecclesiastical problems:  the Apostolic Constitution Quae Mari Sinico.³²  The Constitution was promulgated from Manila Cathedral on December 8 and in effect marked a Papal reformation of the Roman Church of the Philippines.  In its introduction, Pope Leo XIII acknowledged the end of Spanish sovereignty over the islands, the end of the patronato of the Spanish Crown, and called for the reorganization of the church.³³

Probably acceding to the earlier reforms proposed by the Filipinization movement, the Constitution provided, among other things; the creation of additional dioceses, the development and better education of Filipino secular clergy, the suppression of the ancient privileges of the regular clergy and religious orders, and the enforcement of ecclesiastical discipline.

The Quae Mari Sinico was to have far-reaching effects on Philippine Catholicism but it failed to arrest the seething discontent or suppress the growth of the Aglipayan movement.  For one thing, although it urged the promotion of Filipino priests to better positions in the church, it did not appoint any Filipino to be a bishop.  The suspicion grew that the creation of more dioceses would only mean the increase of positions for alien bishops.

Meanwhile, the Spanish bishops started to resign.  Some died and other left the country.  In 1903, the vacant dioceses were beginning to be replaced by American bishops.  The aristocratic Archbishop Nozaleda was also replaced by a diplomatic Archbishop Jeremias Harty.  Bishop Dennis Dougherty, an affable American prelate was appointed to the Diocese of Nueva Segovia, the diocese where Aglipay was once the Ecclesiastical Governor.

Similar affable bishops were likewise assigned to the Diocese of Cebu and the Diocese of Iloilo.  Then in 1905, Fr. Jorge Barlin was elevated to the position of Bishop of Nueva Caceres (Naga), the first Filipino to be consecrated to the position.³⁴  It appeared from the outset, that the Roman Catholic Church was intent on winning the disgruntled Filipino masses back into their fold by attempting to answer some of the issues raised by the leaders of the Philippine Independent Church.

2.  The Americanizing Factor

As the Roman Catholic Church was beginning to make outward changes in the administration of its dioceses, the Philippine Independent Church found itself in an awkward position in view of the growing Americanization of the political and justice systems of the country.  The Independent Church was conceived under a revolutionary climate where some clergy dreamt of replacing their Spanish counterparts.  They had hoped of a Filipino government which would support them politically, socially and economically.  They had thought that the American imperialists would leave the Philippines sooner so they could work again for the restoration of the union of Church and State, the Church being the Philippine Independent Church.

As the Americans began replacing its military rule in favor of a civil government, the Filipino people began to notice a marked change in the policies and behavior of their new masters.  The Americans were obviously less severe in their dealings with the Filipinos.  While they maintained calculated repression of nationalism, they gradually allowed Filipinos to take over positions in the municipal, provincial and later, the national government.  Public education and limited Filipinization were now being promoted.

The American policy of “pacification”³⁵ was started by Governor William Howard Taft (who now replaced the Spanish governor-general in the Philippines) back in 1901 readily won the hearts of the conservative elements in the defunct Revolutionary Government and successfully dissipated the energy of the former revolutionaries.  The former revolutionaries became sorely divided between those who were vying for positions in the new colonial government (the “conciliables”).  The former were rewarded with leadership positions while the latter were silently deported.³⁶

When the Filipino “guerilla warfare” against the American Rule completely died down with the capture and hanging of the last remaining Filipino general, Macario Sakay in 1906,³⁷ the American colonial government stepped up its own propaganda for the eventual Filipinization of the government.  Filipinization, which was the issue of the revolutionaries, and on which the Philippine Independent Church rode on, was now taken up, ironically, by the American colonizers.  On October 16, 1907, former Governor Taft, who was now U.S. Secretary of War inaugurated the first Philippine Assembly.³⁸

In the face of such increasing American benevolence and political astuteness, the leader of the Independent Church began to feel that the nationalistic issues on which their existence depended, were falling on deaf ears.  They seemed to have lost their reason for being as they continued playing the same game in a context where the rules had changed.

3.  The Economic Terrorism

The most crushing problem that plagued the Philippine Independent Church had been, and still is, its debilitating poverty.  From its inception, it was identified as the “church of the masses.”  The poor were the ones who had severely felt the oppression of the friar-dominated Catholic Church.  The laborers, the farmers, the “unimportant people” were the first “converts” of the fledgling national church.  They became the backbone of the “Aglipayan movement.”

Very few of the rich nationalists joined the Philippine Independent Church.  The Ilustrados which Delos Reyes earlier wanted to involved in the Executive Committee had already denied their support.  When the likeable American bishops took over from their much-hated Spanish counterparts, these prominent Filipino politicians and intellectual went back to the fold of the Roman Catholic Church.

In the old regime, many of the Spanish clergy were supported by both the State patronage as well as by the rich produce of papal lands obtained during the encomienda system.  Being members of multi-national religious corporations, the Dominicans, Franciscans, Augustinians, and Jesuits were not lacking in funds for missionary work as well as for personal necessities and conveniences.  Being celibate, many of these clerics did not have families to care for.  The offerings, fees, tithes as well as their commissions from collecting tributes were sufficient to meet their needs.

The Philippine Independent Church, unable to foresee the economic aspect of development, failed to provide a viable financial system.  Instead, it adopted the old Roman Catholic’s “stole fee” system.  Under this system, the parish priests would provide sacraments for a fee, often at a rate lower than their Roman Catholic counterparts.  Baptisms, confirmations, weddings, funerals, house blessings and Fiesta masses were conducted by priests and bishops at affordable amounts.  The Philippine Independent Church was known for its “cheap services” that if Roman Catholics could not afford the burial fees in their own parishes, they would avail themselves of those in the Philippine Independent Church.

As the Roman Church began revitalizing itself and the American Protestant Missions feverishly building their own churches, hospitals, schools and seminaries, the Philippine Independent Church was existing on bare minimum. 

The worst blow to the poor and fledgling Church came in 1906 when the U.S. Supreme Court, in unprecedented decision, ordered the Independent Church to return their buildings to the Roman Catholic Church.³⁹  These were the building occupied by the PIC priests and people following their “defections” in 1902.  The basis of the Supreme Court’s decision was that these buildings of stone, although built by the parishioners, were under the ownership of the Pope of Rome.  When Spain ceded the Philippines to America, the terms of agreement involved only the properties belonging to King of Spain and not to the Pope of Rome.  When Spain ceded the Philippines to America, the terms of agreement involved only the properties belonging to King of Spain and not to the Pope of Rome.  Thus, when the Spanish colonial government left the Philippines and sold their properties to America, they did not and could not include those belonging to the Roman Catholic Church.

Aglipay and the other leaders of the PIC desperately appealed the Supreme Court’s decision claiming those churches were built by the blood, sweat and tears of the Filipino people who had decided to create their own Church.  Their appeal did not gain headway.  Legality and not justice triumphed in the American judicial system.

He 1906 Supreme Court decision was a nightmare or baptism of fire for the Aglipayan movement.  All of a sudden, its clergy and people awoke with no churches, rectories and cemeteries.  Poor and dispossessed of political influence in the American-controlled government, they could not replace what they lost.  The pride of the Aglipayans in being the Filipino Church was shattered.  All over the country, there was stunned silence and mourning from the Aglipayan followers.

The loss of the stone-churches greatly demoralized the PIC members who had been accustomed to liturgical pageantry in concrete church halls.  It polarized them between those who wanted to stick it out with Aglipay and those who wanted out of him.  He “loyalists” joined the Aglipayan exodus and began building chapels out of bamboo trees and nipa leaves.  The “compromisers” remained in their concrete buildings and reconciled with the Roman Catholic hierarchy.  Others joined the Protestant churches and the rest dropped out from Christian worship completely.³⁹

As the Philippine Independent Church began to reel in that most painful blow, the revitalized Roman Catholic Church began preparations for its coup de grace.  On December 1907, Archbishop Ambrosio Agius, succeeding the late Guidi, convened the first Provincial Council of the Archdiocese of Manila with three aims, namely: (a) to revive the Catholic faith of the Filipino people; (b) to restore the Catholic Church in the Philippines to its pristine vigor and glory; and (c) to inspire in the clergy a spirity of apostolic zeal.⁴⁰

Among its many decrees, the Manila Council condemned the Philippine Independent Church as “the synagogue of anti-Christ,” declared its sacraments invalid, warned the people against association with Aglipay, and appealed to the followers of the Philippine Independent Church to return to the Roman Catholic fold.  Five Catholic bishops, including the first Filipino Bishop, Jorge Barlin (who initiated the 1906 property case against the Philippine Independent Church), were present as the “Fathers” of the Council.⁴¹

Many thought the “1906 decision” would be the end of the Aglipayan Movement.  This was proven wrong.  For while its dream of grandeur was shattered, it still retained a significant portion of the masses who became even more committed.  Episcopal Bishop Lewis Whittemore aptly observed:

It was humiliating to abandon the great churches where they and their parents had worshipped, and the wonder is not that so many abandoned the Independent Church but that so many stayed in it…these people tasted the gall and bitterness of defeat and humiliation.  But they did not give up, whether before of native courage or something better.  My own theory is that they felt, as no other group, identified with the Philippines and carried an ark of the covenant with them in the wilderness.  That covenant was with the heroes of the past who had seen visions of a fairer Philippines---and had suffered.  They could not see the future but they knew something previous had been entrusted to them.  Like Abraham, they ventured forth into the unknown.  Confused and homeless, they started to rethink and to rebuild.⁴²

4.  Political Adventurism of Aglipay and Delos Reyes

Although the Philippine Independent Church did not die following the 1906 Supreme Court decision, it never fully recovered as a powerful Church.  The following years would see a losing “psychological warfare” with the Roman Catholic Church who would disparagingly refer to clergy of the Independent Church as “pari-parian” (pseudo-priests).⁴³

As the Aglipayan followers became pre-occupied with dealing Romanist attacks, they began to see many of their members falling by the wayside and being picked up the American Protestant Churches which had steadily increased in membership and influence.

Unable to reverse the process of decline in its membership and the waning of its enthusiasm, the leaders of the Philippine Independent Church decided to enter into the mainstream of American-style politics.  Gregorio Aglipay and Isabelo delos Reyes though that by affiliating with the American policy-makers, the could gain upward social mobility and thereafter work for the bouncing back of the Independent Church.  The target of their strategy was to capture seats in the first Philippine Assembly of 1907.

Under the American regime, the Filipinos were given limited opportunities to advance towards self-government.  With some limitations, they were allowed to form political parties.  The leading party, the “Federalist Party” were composed of former Ilustrados and known to be representing the Roman Catholic interests.  This party soon became a dominant force in Philippine political affairs.⁴⁴

In order to rally their own forces, Delos Reyes and Aglipay temporarily laid aside the important church management and decided to form their own political party, the Republican Party”.  With Delos Reyes as party president, the Aglipayan “adventurers” stood on the platform of nationalism.  They opposed the ownership of lands and mines by foreigners as well as the immigration of foreigners into the country.  They favored social welfare, public works and protective legislation for the laborers.  In reference to the Philippine Independent Church, they also included in their platform, an appeal to the Supreme Court to reconsider its devastating “1906 decision.”⁴⁵

In the election that followed, Mr. Santiago Fonacier and a number of other lesser-known candidates of the Republican Party won seats in the Philippine Assembly but not enough a majority to influence ground-breaking decisions.  Aglipay and Delos Reyes persuaded many Independent Church priests and laymen to run for election as mayors, governors and representatives in local and regional districts of the country.

Although experiencing some relative successes in politics, the Philippine Independent Church did not recover in stature and power.  As a matter of fact, many of its members felt nothing but ennui as they saw their leaders being engrossed in politics neglecting their much-needed pastoral and evangelistic functions.  Here was hardly any Church convention to discuss the problem of its dwindling membership.  There was no concerted effort to establish seminaries and training centers to supply the needed clergy.  There was no attention given to the youth.  There was no innovative response to the problem of church management, Christian education, liturgy and mission.⁴⁶

Failing to read the “signs of times,” Aglipay and Delos Reyes continued their pursuit for political clout.  Then in 1935, the first national election for President of the Philippine Commonwealth was held.  An Ilustrado, Manuel L. Quezon of the Tagalog region was expected to win easily for he was young, popular and with strong financial and polticial backing.  Nonetheless, Gregorio Aglipay, believing that he still had the support of the masses, likewise announced his candidacy.  Election came and Quezon won with an overwhelming majority.  The election left Aglipay, now aged 75, unable to recapture his youthful days and revolutionary glory.  His defeat added to the burden of his already fatigued Church movement.

5.  The Theological Wandering

It was observed how reluctant Father Aglipay was in actually breaking with the Church of Rome.  As a priest trained in a Dominican seminary, he was greatly steeped in Catholic orthodoxy.  It was only the exigencies of the times and his irreconcilable differences with Archbishop Nozaleda and the other Spanish friars that made him accept leadership in the schismatic Church.  Even as he led the Independent Church, his theology was still Catholic and he took great care of basic Trinitarian dogmas.

In contract to Aglipay, Delos Reyes was a passionate advocate of separation from Rome.  As a mason and propagandist, Delos Reyes was motivated only by a strong sense of patriotism and vision of a political religion that would embody the hopes of the oppressed Filipinos.  His knowledge of the Bible, theology and ecclesiology were mixed with liberal philosophies and management theories which resulted from his voracious reading of every book and material available.  To say the least, he was an amateur theologian with radical and unorthodox views.

How the two leaders could work together in forming cohesive and uniting theological statements is a matter for experts to ponder.  Suffice it to say, however, that the years following the inception of the Independent Church would be characterized by a kind of “wandering I theological wilderness.”  It was a period when theology was used as an instrument of survival, where theological positions changed constantly as the Church faced the problem of its own existence.

Initially, for Aglipay and for the majority of his priests, the schism of the Independent Church was only in ecclesiology and not in doctrines.  They still conveniently referred to the PIC as “Iglesia Catolica Filipino Independiente” to stress the point that while they were “independent from Rome”, they were still “Catholic in doctrines.”  Their idea of religious nationalism was a Church that is truly Filipino in composition, leadership and character; catholic in dogma but not subservient to the Church of Rome.

The nature of the conditions obtaining in the Independent Church surely did not favor such a Catholic adaptation.  When Aglipay and others left the Roman fold, there was not one bishop among them.  So the first theological issued that confronted the new Church was the doctrine of “apostolic succession.”.⁴⁷

In orthodox Catholicism, there is a belief in an unbroken line of apostolate, from the Apostle Peter (believed to be the “first Pope”) down to the bishops who from generation to generation would lay down their apostolic seal through laying-on of hands in the rite of consecration.  Even if a national Church would separate from Rome, so long as there are bishops, they could still claim their catholicity.  This was true in the case of the English schism in the 16^th century.  The ticklish issue of an Apostolic Succession was not in question because when the Anglican Church proclaimed its separation from Rome, there were already English bishops.  That was not the case with the Philippine schism.

In the absence of a Philippine bishop, Aglipay was faced with some dilemma.  The first option for Aglipay and the leaders of the Independent Church would be to follow the way of the Protestant Reformation like Martin Luther, John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingly who solved such predicament by completely abandoning the doctrine of apostolic succession.  Under that condition, Aglipay had to ally himself with the Methodist, Presbyterian or Baptist denominations now present in the country.  The second option open for Aglipay would be to seek Apostolic Succession from the bishops of the American Episcopal Church.  Under that condition, Aglipay had to swallow his nationalistic pride as it would be tantamount to leaving one master (the Roman Church) to accept another (the American Church).

Rejecting both options, Aglipay advanced an argument for a kind of “para-Apostolic Succession” and allowed himself to be consecrated by his schismatic church.  This argument was contained in one of his “Six Fundamental Epistles,”⁴⁷ thus:

If a layman, in emergency, can administer Holy Baptism, why cannot a priest administer Holy Orders in case of necessity?  St. Thomas Aquinas had the opinion that necessity makes licit what is illicit by law.  And if the priest can consecrate the bread and wine to become the Body and Blood of Christ, why cannot they consecrate a bishop?  The priests who can do the greater thing (of consecrating holy communion) can do the lesser thing (consecrating a bishop).⁴⁸

With such an argument, the priests of the Independent Church gathered on January 18, 1903 and consecrated Aglipay and other leading priests as Bishops in the Church of God with Aglipay himself being the “Supreme Bishop” of the Philippine Independent Church.⁴⁹

As the years passed, Aglipay’s theology coupled with Delos Reyes’ propensity for experimentation further led the Filipino Church away from the orthodoxy of the Catholic Church.  While they minimized the veneration of saints, the PIC leaders “canonized” the three martyred priests (Gomez, Burgos and Zamora) and Jose Rizal as “saints” of the church.⁴⁹  They also rejected the veneration of the Virgin Mary and made the vow of celibacy voluntary.

In 1906, Delos Reyes published an official book The Oficio Divino which became the hallmark of his theology of “religious Philippinism.”⁵⁰  Approved by the PIC Supreme Council of Bishops, the Oficio Divino sought to combine pre-colonial religion with modern philosophies.  It was a mélange of indigenous theology, Gnostic writings, and Western rationalism.  While Christ’s incarnation was retained, the crucifixion was interpreted in a docetic manner.

In its treatment of original sin, the Oficio Divino rejected the sacrificial atonement.  The canonical gospels were harmonized in a way that rid them of apparent contradictions.  Most of the miracle accounts in the Bible were omitted.  The prayers contained in Oficio Divino revealed a rather pantheistic than Christological language.⁵¹

It must be noted that at the time when the PIC leaders were groping for a theology that would express their longing, there had been the absence of any cordial relation with the mainline Protestant Churches.  The Protestant ministers, absorbed in their own programs of expansion considered the Aglipayans as potential converts.  Aglipayans were suspicious of Protestants whom they considered snobbish opportunists.

While the Protestant churches failed to offer the PIC any encouragement, a great interest and deep friendship developed between Aglipay and some leaders of the American Unitarian church.  This friendship started between Aglipay and Governor William Howard Taft who was an avowed Unitarian.⁵²

It was to be recalled that Taft was named “honorary president” by Delos Reyes in his 1902 proclamation.  He, of course, politely refused for obvious political reasons.  Nevertheless, he maintained personal friendship with Aglipay and introduce the latter to Unitarian literatures and contacts with leading American Unitarians.  In 1907, when Taft became U.S. Secretary of State, the Unitarians sponsored trips for Aglipay and the other leaders to America and Europe, thus, creating bonds between the two churches.

The friendship between Aglipay and Taft would later bear fruit in the reshaping of Aglipay’s theological formulations.  In some of his writings, Aglipay revealed the extent to which he had been influenced by Unitarianism.  In his later writings, Aglipay abandoned the doctrine of the “incarnation,” called the Holy Mass as a “brotherly meal” and the Bible became an object of scientific knowledge.⁵³

It has to be noted that even at this confused state of theological wanderings, the great majority of the Independent Church members remained unpertubed in their practice of “folk Catholicism.”  Devout churchwomen of the parishes still occupied themselves with counting rosary beads and some priests continued using the Latin masses.  As the American Missionary Frank Laubach commented: “The Aglipayans were ‘too Roman’ in ritual; ‘too rationalistic’ in theology; ‘too Spanish’ in ethics; and ’too indepentista’ in politics.”⁵⁴

6.  Alienation of Some Members and Death of Leaders

Very little indeed, if any, of the teachings from the Oficio Divino or the epistles and writings of Aglipay and Delos Reyes permeated to the people in the pews.  Either their teachings were too complicated or the people really did not care about theology.  This “communication gap”, however, created an alienation between the leaders and members of the Filipino Church that it would issue out in the alienation of some leaders and threatened the unity of the Church.

On September 29, 1929, Don Angel Flor Mata, a distinguished Independent priest returned to the Roman Catholic fold.  In the same year, Father Federico delos Santos followed suit.  In 1930, a PIC Bishop, Rt. Rev. Servando Castro of Ilocos Norte openly declared that the Independent Church was “being led away doctrinally and should return to the affirmation of the Trinitarian faith.”⁵⁵

On the strong and powerful personalities of Bishop Aglipay and Delos Reyes prevented any major split in the Filipino Church owing to these alienations.  Theon on October 10, 1938, Isabelo delos Reyes died while under the care of his daughter who happened to be a Roman Catholic nun.  The Roman Catholic authorities did all in their power to exploit the purported “retraction”⁵⁶ of Delos Reyes and used it to further discredit the Philippine Independent Church.

On September 1, 1940, his 80^th birthday, Aglipay himself died---two years after the death of his co-leader, Delos Reyes.⁵⁷  A strong and robust fighter, Aglipay remained true to his convictions and never wavered in the face of unrelenting pressures from the Roman Catholic authorities that he retract the Independent Church and return to the fold of Rome.  The Manila press praised his loyalty to the ideals of the Philippine Revolution and compared him to Martin Luther as a religious reformer.  The aging General Aguinaldo and the young President Quezon were among those who paid their last respects as his body laid in state at this cathedral in Tondo, Manila.  Aglipay was buried as a hero in his hometown in Batac, Ilocos Norte.

In 1977, the Philippine Independent Church constructed and inaugurated a beautiful edifice in Batac and named it the “Bishop Gregorio Aglipay National Shrine.”  The project was part of the PIC’s “Diamond Jubilee Celebration” and undying reverence for the man chosen by God to make the dream of the Filipino faithful a reality.

CHAPTER IV

AFTER AGLIPAY: CONFLICTS AND RETURN TO CATHOLICITY

The history of revolutions have shown us that a revolutionary movement begins to take tangible forms where there is a common experience of pain, a common vision of hope, an identification of enemy and an emergence of charismatic leaders who provide a vision and rallying point for unity.  The history of the Philippine Independent Church as a revolutionary movement was woven from the fibers of these factors.  As these factors begin to fade away, the foundations that give shape to the movement flounders.  Then the vision becomes blurred, unity begins to loosen, and fragmentation begins to creep in.

With the death of the two PIC “strong men”, Aglipay and Delos Reyes, the next generation of leaders would now be faced with shoes none of their feet could fit.  It seemed as if the memories of the founders haunted, rather than inspired the would-be leaders of this religious movement.

Enthusiasm or excitement of the Church mission was also ebbing.  The vacuum of leadership and the apparent loss of vision would eventually give way to internal strifes and power struggles that would rock the Church indefinitely and threaten to decimate its remaining membership.

In this chapter, we will discuss the emergency of internal dissension and factionalism that rocked the Church after the death of Aglipay.  We will also discuss the historic signing of the Concordat of Full Communion with the American Episcopal Church.  Finally, we will present the state of the Independent Church obtaining today.

1.  The Rise of Factionalism

Soon after the death of Bishop Aglipay, Bishop Santiago Fonacier, an ex-senator in the Philippine Assembly was elected Supreme Bishop of the Philippine Independent Church following a tumultuous General Convention which also limited his term to only three years.⁵⁸  The outbreak of World War II and the subsequent invasion of the Japanese forces intervened to prevent the next election in 1943.  Bishop Fonacier continued to function as head of the Independent Church throughout the turbulent war years.

Immediately, after the War, Roman Catholic and Protestant churches began rebuilding and reconstructing their churches and institutions ravaged in the War.  The Independent Church was again left in desperate condition.  There was no massive relief provided for it and there was no international connection to assist its recovery.  Many of its buildings, especially those made from bamboo and nipa (palm) leaves were completely burnt.  Many of its clergy and people, nationalistic as they were, fought in the war and were executed in the Japanese atrocities.  The Church needed new priests to supply the vacant parishes.

Faced with insurmountable tasks, Bishop Fonacier called for a meeting of the Supreme Council of Bishops to offer his retirement but owing to the lack of quorum was prevailed upon to stay in office.  Within a few months, however, disagreement over his manner of transferring or expelling some bishops; his failure to render financial accounting during the war years; and his arbitrary transfer of the Central Office from Manila to Pangasinan had reached a crisis.⁵⁹

Bishop Manuel Aguilar, president of the Supreme Council of Bishops called for an emergency meeting of bishops.  In that meeting, the S.C.B. indicted the Supreme Bishop, Fonacier, on charges of malversation of funds as well as in “unjustly” expelling some bishops.⁶⁰

On January 22, 1946, seven of the fifteen bishops of the S.C.B. met and summarily deposed Fonacier.  In his stead, the elected Gerardo Bayaca of Ilocos Norte.  Fonacier and his followers refused to accept this state of affairs and the church was split into two factions.  By September 1946, there were two Supreme Bishops and two Supreme Council of Bishops in separate sessions.⁶¹

In the 1946 S.C.B. sessions, the “Fonacier Faction” elected Bishop Juan Jamias as its new Supreme Bishop while the “Aguilar-Bayaca Faction” elected Bishop Isabelo delos Reyes, Jr., son of the late Don Isabelo, co-founder of the Independent Church.

In July 4, 1946, the Americans granted full autonomy to the Philippines.  The Philippine government now operated with three branches: the executive, headed by the President of the Philippines; the legislative, headed by the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Congress; and the judicial, headed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.  For the next ten years following the granting of Philippine autonomy, what characterized the Filipino Church was its internal strifes and countless court litigations involving the two factions.

The legal battle reached the Supreme Court.  The issues included the contest over Church property, the use of official Church name, and the right to define Church doctrines.  In 1955, the Supreme Court of the Philippines finally handed down the decision.  It adjudged Bishop Isabelo delos Reyes, Jr., as the legitimate Supreme Bishop and therefore the Aguilar-Bayaca Faction as the officially-recognized Philippine Independent Church.⁶²

Upon his election., Bishop Isabelo delos Reyes, Jr. made some efforts towards a reconciliation with the Fonacier faction to do not avail.  The wound cut deep for immediate healing.  The Fonacier faction deteriorated into a sect.  In 1963, with twelve bishops and sixty-five priest, it registered itself with the Securities and Exchange Commission under the name of “Independent Church of Filipino Christians.”  The I.C.F.C. adopted Aglipay’s Oficio Divino, making some minor revisions and accepting its Unitarian position.⁶³

The “split” of Fonacier encouraged the separation of other disgruntled priests who formed their own sects and purported to be following the authentic teachings of Aglipay and Delos Reyes, Sr.  Among these sects were:⁶⁴

1.  The Philippine Unitarian Church.

2.  The Filipino Christian Church.

3.  The Iglesia Catolica Apostolica Nacional.

4.  The Iglesia Filipina Reformada.

5.  The Iglesia dela Libertad.

6.  The Iglesia Filipina Evangelica Idependiente.

7.  The Iglesia Nacional Filipina.

As factionalism and sectarianism deteriorated, the Independent Church found itself as a body afflicted with cancerous cells.  There appeared to be no hope for recovery until such time Supreme Bishop Isabelo delos Reyes, Jr. attempted a doctrinal surgery by decisively steering the Church back to the Trinitarian Faith.  This “surgical operation” would involve the PIC reception of the “gift of apostolic succession” and its subsequent concordat of Full Communion with the Episcopal Church of the United States of American (ECUSA).

2.  The Concordat with the Episcopal Church

The relationship between the Philippine Independent Church and the Episcopal Church of American would have had started way back in 1903 when the fledgling Filipino Church was plagued by the issue of “apostolic succession.”  Nationalistic pride from Aglipay prevented him from seeking the help of Episcopal Missionary Bishop Charles Henry Brent.

In the same manner, prejudice from Bishop Brent also prevented him from voluntarily assisting the Independent Church.  Brent considered Aglipay to be a “dangerous ultra-nationalist.”⁶⁵  Moreover, he did not want to antagonize the Roman Catholic hierarchy whom he had great respect.  In order to salve his conscience and to avoid misunderstanding with the Aglipayans, Brent devoted his time and energy planting churches among the cultural minorities in Mindanao and the Mountain Provinces of Luzon as well as among the American expatriates and the Chinese immigrants living in Manila and suburbs.

Oblivious of the factionalism going on in the Independent Church, the young Supreme Bishop Delos Reyes, Jr. began taking concrete steps to steer the church back into the mainstream of Trinitarian faith.  In fact, even before the court cases with Fonacier, he was already initiating changes and continuing negotiations to secure the “gift of apostolic succession” for himself and other bishops who, though discreetly, had already repudiated their Aglipayan consecration.⁶⁶

From August 4-6, 1947, the new Supreme Council of Bishops and the General Assembly under Delos Reyes, Jr. met with Bishop Norman Binsted of the Episcopal Church.  Bishop Binsted authorized and encouraged Delos Reyes to petition the Episcopal House of Bishops for their consecration.  The make this feasible, he suggested that the new PIC must adopt the Articles of Faith, the Constitution and Canons approved by the Episcopal Church and to make thereto, a Trinitarian declaration of faith.  The ECUSA General Convention itself would convene in Winston-Salem, North Carolina on November 4-7, 1947 and they needed assurance that the vestiges of Unitarianism had been wiped out from the PIC declaration of faith.⁶⁷

With Bishop Delos Reyes himself eloquently testifying to the Americans that “never at anytime did more than five percent of Aglipayans depart from their Trinitarian faith”⁶⁶ the Episcopal House of Bishops unanimously approved the petition.  On November 6, 1947, the said House authorized the Presiding Bishop Henry Knox Sherril to bestow the gift of apostolic succession to three PIC clergy-leaders: Isabelo delos Reye, Jr., Gerardo Bayaca, and Manuel Aguilar.  On April 7, 1948 at St. Luke’s Pro-Cathedral in Quezon City, Philippine Bishop Norman Binsted as Consecrator and Bishop Harry Kennedy and Bishop Robert F. Wilner as Co-consecrators, consecrated the PIC leaders as “bishops in the Church of God,” according to the rite of the ECUSA.⁶⁹

With Delos Reyes legitimately in control over the Independent Church, the ties with the ECUSA grew stronger.  PIC seminarians began schooling at St. Andrew’s Episcopal seminary; PIC priests began availing themselves of medical services from St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital; and PIC children patronized the Trinity Episcopal College---all in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines.

On May 1960, a formal request for a concordat of full communion was sent by the PIC to the Episcopal House of Bishops who approved the petition without delay.  Consequently, during the 60^th General Convention in Detroit, Michigan, USA on September 17-29, 1961, the Concordat establishing full communion between the two churches was approved by both houses of Convention.⁷⁰  By virtue of the Concordat, the PIC and the ECUSA became “sister-churches.”  The Orthodox and Catholic churches in England and Europe acknowledged the Philippine Independent Church to be a true part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

The Concordat is unique and unprecedented in its provisions.  It is an agreement between the two churches on the basis of mutual acceptance of the following:⁷¹

(a)    Each Communion recognizes the catholicity and independence of the other and maintains each own;

(b)    Each Communion agrees to admit members of the other Communion to participate in the Sacraments;

(c) Full Communion does not require from either Communion the acceptance of all doctrinal opinion, sacramental devotion, or liturgical practice characteristic of the other, but implies that each believes the other to hold all the essentials of the Christian faith.

As the PIC became internationally recognized, it entered into similar concordat with other churches of the worldwide Anglican Communion (England, Canada, Australia, Africa, and Asia), the Holy Catholic Church of Japan, the Reformed Catholic Churches of Spain and Portugal, the Old Catholic Church of Europe, and the Polish National Catholic Churches.

The PIC also became a leading member of the East Asia Christian Conference (now Council of Churches in Asia) and the World Council of Churches.  In November 1963, the PIC became a charter member of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP), with Bishop Delos Reyes being elected as the first Chairman of its national council.  The return of the Philippine Independent Church to Catholicity or orthodoxy had indeed given it a fresh wind of spiritual renewal.  Like the homecoming of the prodigal son,⁷² it saw a celebration f new life and higher stage of its growth and development.

3.   Trend Towards Losing Identity

The Delos Reyes, Jr. administration had seen joint ventures with the Philippine Episcopal Church, a missionary district of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America.  Through the Joint Council PIC-ECUSA, both churches engaged in various forms of cooperation in liturgical, stewardship and educational programs.  For the benefit of the PIC, the Joint Council assisted in the development of Zambales Academy and San Mateo Independent High School in Luzon and Placer Institute in Mindanao.  More important of all, was the building of the PIC National Cathedral at Taft Avenue in Manila.  For the benefit of the Philippine Episcopal Church, the Joint Council had brought the Episcopal mission close to the Filipino people.  

As Bishop Delos Reyes, Jr. was lavishing attention to the Joint Council PIC-ECUSA, nothing was being done to plug the holes of the PIC’s internal foundation.  The Supreme Council of Bishops continued to be plagued by rivalries, power struggles, and regionalistic politics.  Some staff of the Joint Council became objects of jealousy and resentment because of their lavish lifestyles.  Diocesan bishops competed in asking for “stateside” funds.

The nationalistic aspirations which were latent in its foundations were likewise forgotten.  The new Philippine Independent Church stopped singing its nationalistic songs in favor of the songs from American and English hymnals.  The so-called liturgical renewal became translations and adaptations of American Prayer books which were too stiff, too formal and too intellectual for the average Aglipayans.  As contacts with the Episcopal and other churches deepened, the uniqueness that characterized the PIC as “the Filipino Church” started to fade.  Instead, it has become like “one of the churches.”

On October 10, 1972, while officiating at a wedding in his Chapel in Maria Clara, Sampaloc, Manila, Bishop Delos Reyes succumbed to a heart attack.  He died leaving the Independent Church that is doctrinally and ecumenically restored but internally unreconciled.

4.  New Ferment and Backsliding

Soon after the death of Bishop Delos Reyes, Bishop Macario V. Ga of the Diocese of Negros Occidental was elected the fifth Supreme Bishop.  For the first time, the leadership had shifted from the North (Ilocos Bloc) to the South(Visayas-Mindanao Bloc).

Supreme Bishop Ga expanded the National Cathedral offices which were started by Bishop Delos Reyes.  He worked for the return of one of the separatist groups (the “Philippine Unitarian Church”) and succeeded.⁷³  He also labored for the eventual reconciliation of the Fonacier Faction and succeeded.  He likewise paved the way for the building of the Bishop Gregorio Aglipay National Shrine in Batac, Ilocos Norte and the development of two minor seminaries in Pangasinan and Iloilo.

Inspite of its relative success in diplomacy and economic recovery, the administration of Bishop Ga was also riddled by rumors of graft and corruption.  While these rumors remained unsubstantiated, they clearly dissipated the energy of the church.  They produced a hostile group of lay leaders in the National Cathedral who complained about Bishop Ga’s friendship with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos.  They helped cause the dissolution of the Joint Council PIC-ECUSA owing to endless bickering over the use of funds coming from the United States.

The most crucial legacy left by the Ga Administration, however, was the calling of a Constitutional Convention that framed a new PIC Constitution and By-Laws.  Approved on May 8, 1977, the new Constitution marked the transition of the PIC structure from a papal polity to a democratic system.⁷⁴

Authored by Dr. Arturo M. Guerrero and supported by Justice Calixto O. Zaldivar, Judge Florentino Flor, Judge Placido Ramos, Mrs. Malay de Guzman and by many other lay, youth and clergy leaders, the new PIC Constitution provided for an Executive Committee representing the different sectors of the Church.  Although it retained the powers of the Supreme Council of Bishops, it also created a National Priest Organization.  In order to prevent the Supreme Bishop from using his office to campaign for his re-election, the Constitution limited the term to “six years without immediate re-election.”⁷⁵  The debarment of Bishop Ga from seeking election under the new Constitution betrayed the critical climate of the Constitutional Convention.

The approval of the new Constitution created some ferment in the Church as laymen, laywomen and youth became represented in the parish, diocesan and national councils.  Decisions and implementations of programs ceased to be the sole prerogative of the clergy.  Church Treasurers became elective positions.  Some clergy welcomed with joy the “re-awakening of the laity;” others reacted with rage as laymen, laywomen and youth began asserting their power and sometimes dominated their parish priests.

On May 8, 1981, the first election for the Supreme Bishop under the new Constitution was held in Manila.  Bishop Ga encouraged his own nephew, Bishop Dionisio Vilches of the Diocese of Negros Occidental and former staff of the defunct Joint Council PIC-ECUSA to run for the position of Supreme Bishop. His vaunted opponent was Bishop Abdias dela Cruz, the incumbent PIC Secretary-General.

The election became a “test case” of the viability of the new PIC Constitution.  It also brought into focus a nascent political conflict: the Ga-Vilches Faction who supported the martial law administration of President Marcos against the Dela Cruz Faction who opposed it.

In a rather rowdy election, Bishop Dela Cruz won over Bishop Vilches and the other candidates.  Like Bishop Ga, Dela Cruz also came from the Visayas.  His election also marked the entrance of top leadership coming from the graduates of St. Andrew’s (Episcopal) Theological Seminary.

As Dela Cruz and his followers were celebrating their victory, a restraining order was filed by Bishop Ga in the Manila Court of First Instance charging the election of illegality.  Bishop Ga also revealed that although the new Constitution was approved in 1977, it was never submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission.  In other words, the old Constitution was still in effect and the new Constitution remained a mere proposal.  Bishop Ga cited the apparent disillusionment of some clergy to the laity-domination that made him covertly withhold the submission of the papers to the Philippine Securities Commission as required by law.

Bishop Dela Cruz, with the support of the National Priest Organization fought with Bishop Ga in a series of court litigations which finally ended in another Supreme Court decision reminiscent of the Fonacier-Aguilar conflict.  In this new Supreme Court decision, penned on 1984, Bishop Dela Cruz was adjudged the rightful Supreme Bishop.  The aftermath of the Supreme Court decision saw the new Constitution being upheld.  It also brought about a new factionalism that continues to fester the Church until today.

5.  Quo Vadis, Philippine Independent Church?

Throughout his six-year term as Supreme Bishop under the new Constitution, Dela Cruz spent his time mainly in battling the Ga-faction with practically a little attempt to steer the church back to its nationalist orientation.  He paved the way for the establishment of an activist “Labor Center” in Negros Occidental but failed to give support to the “peaceful revolution” that toppled the Marcos dictatorship and catapulted Cory Aquino to the presidency of the Republic of the Philippines.

The Dela Cruz’s administration also left the Central Office treasury bankrupt as many parishes and dioceses failed and refused to submit their national apportionments.  He attempted to revive the regional seminary in Pangasinan and named it the “Aglipay Central Theological Seminar (ACTS)” but later closed it for lack of funds and problems of mismanagement.  He had consecrated a bishop in the United States and formalized the “PIC Missionary Diocese in U.S.A. and Canada”⁷⁶ but his subsequent consecration of another bishop for America gave confusion rather than provided responsive leadership.  He also failed to improve relations with the Episcopal Church and showed hostile attitude to the “charismatic renewal” sweeping the nation.

On May 8, 1987, in the midst of a new factionalism, worsening financial problem and political confusion, a new election for Supreme Bishop was held.  The assembly elected Bishop Soliman Ganno, a seasoned Ilocano prelate with a passionate sense of history, nationalism and liturgy.  In his installation, he showed keen interest in nationalist reorientation.

Bishop Ganno’s administration, however, did not last long.  Beset by economic problems, unrelenting factionalism, fatigued and uncooperative constituency, Ganno succumbed to a heart attacked while conducting a morning prayer at the PIC Cathedral on June 3, 1989.  At the time of this writing, the Executive Committee was meeting to appoint the incumbent Secretary-General, Bishop Tito Pasco.  A youthful prelate and former Diocesan Bishop of Romblon, Supreme Bishop Pasco will serve the unexpired term of Bishop Ganno until a new election will be held on May 8, 1993.

PART THREE

PRESCRIPTIONS FOR RENEWAL

The Philippine Independent Church is in crisis.  The period of recovery that characterized the administration of Bishop Delos Reyes, Jr. enabled the PIC to be recognized abroad but failed to arrest its internal dissension and fragmentation.  The success of Bishop Ga in effecting reconciliation with the Fonacier faction failed to propel and sustain a positive change.  The victory of Bishop Dela Cruz in making the “democratic Constitution” upheld by the Supreme Court failed to achieve a new resolve.  Bishop Ganno died before implementing any reform.

The Supreme Council of Bishops remains divisive.  The National Priest Organization has become more bureaucratic than prophetic.  The Laymen, Laywomen and Youth organizations are demoralized.  The parishes and dioceses are riddled with gross inefficiency, lack of enthusiasm and debilitating poverty.

In liturgy, worship, mission, ministry, church administration and theology, the Philippine Independent Church has backslidden.  Not only did it go back to following the Roman Catholic Church liturgically and theologically.  It follows the Roman Church far behind.

Most Protestant Churches in the Philippines today have increased in numbers significantly.  The indigenous Iglesia Ni Kristo has grown in both membership and influence.  Recent evangelical and charismatic groups have mushroomed.  The Philippine Episcopal Church, which was only a missionary district of the American Episcopal Church and had only 47,874 members during the signing of the Concordat in 1961.  In 1989, it has grown to about 150,000 in members, with five dioceses and 150 clergy.  By May 1990, the PEC will achieve its full autonomy form the American Episcopal Church.¹

In contrast, the Philippine Independent Church remains stagnant.  While it is true that it is still the largest non-Roman Catholic denomination in the Philippines, it does not register a steady growth in proportion to the growth of the Philippine population.  Although there have been new dioceses added to it, the PIC’s parochial, diocesan and national offices remain caught up in the cycle of poverty and lack of direction.

How can the Philippine Independent Church of today, move from decay to renewal, from disintegration to wholeness?  What are the factors that will enable its renewal and reconstruction?

In the following chapters, we will attempt to think aloud some of the factors that may enable renewal to take place in the contemporary context of the Philippine Independent Church.  We will attempt to identify some “core symbols” that ran through the gamut of history and the dynamics of the revolution.  While attempting to be specific on some issues, we trust that the leaders and people of the Philippine Independent Church will discern for themselves the new movement of God in history and feel the fresh wind of the Spirit.

CHAPTER I

INTERNAL RESTRUCTURING

The whole world was recently amazed at the development taking place in Russia---the bastion of communism.  A new revolution is taking place and catching everyone by surprise.  It is a peaceful revolution, characterized by openness and far-ranging self-criticism of the communistic visions, philosophies and reason for being.  It has opened the Russians to the vast potentials for dialogue and partnership with America and other capitalist nations.  It has likewise debunked the myth that Russia would be incapable of being loved and admired by the citizens of the “free world” or non-communist bloc nations.

The key to this new awakening and positive reception of Russia was Premier Mikhael Gorbachev’s program of perestroika or “restructuring.”²  This great Russian leader consider perestroika not as a whim of his administration but an urgent necessity arising from the profound development of human society.  Referring to the socialist society of Russia, Gorbachev explained:

This society is ripe for change.  It has long been yearning for it.  Any delay in beginning perestroika could lead to an exacerbated internal situation in the near future, which to put it bluntly, would have been frought with serious social, economic and political crises.³

What Gorbachev has described is true with the Philippine Independent Church today.  This church is ripe for change.  It has long been groaning for it.  What is needed is perestroika, a restructuring, a serious assessment of its structures, systems, cultures, vision, mission and reason for being.

For the Philippine Independent Church today, restructuring would mean nothing less than a new revolution, a fresh renewal of religious thinking and doing.  The Filipino church needs far-reaching dialogues within and without, but primarily within.  It must begin with an internal restructuring, a comprehensive analysis of its internal problems so that it can move forward to a more qualitative ways of doing and knowing the will of God.⁴

Revolution, as we learned from the Philippine Revolution of 1896-1898 is primarily an action for construction.  Construction, however, requires destruction, the destruction of all that is obsolete, stagnant and those that hinder progress.  Without demolition, you cannot clear the site for construction.

We are not thinking of violence and war.  We are thinking of change, and resistance to change.  Inaction, indifference, laziness, irresponsibility, mismanagement, shortsightedness and lack of initiative are all resistance to change.  These old structures must give way for initiative, courage, moral fortitude, spiritual discipline, and determination to be of service to God and human beings.

The Philippine Independent Church today must learn the lessons from history and strive towards setting in motion a new future and a new hope.  The time for renewal is now.

1.  Renewal of Leadership

The most obvious indicator of the PIC’s present decline is not the loss of membership and the continuing poverty of its clergy.  It is not its lack of concrete church buildings, rectories, seminaries and cemeteries.  These factors were age-old problems since that fateful Supreme Court decision in 1906.

The most damning factor in the Independent Church appears to be the lack of creative energy among its leaders.  It is this lack of inspiring leadership that perpetuates boredom and demoralization among its members.  It is this absence of a fulcrum that makes the PIC unable to balance itself and to encourage its well-meaning clergy and laity. 

The failure of leadership to inspire is often the result of a failure to understand and harness the movement’s internal strength.  The internal or spiritual power is the creativity of its people, their strength of social purpose, the development of competence, and their ability to act with unified and determined effort.

In the early period of its history, the PIC and its leaders had a high spiritual energy even though the material assets were few.  They were propelled by a force stronger than themselves and motivated by a vision bigger than life.  Thus, they were able to capture the imagination of the people and attracted a lot of attention and support.

In the latter period, the movement became institutionalized.  Its systems became bureaucratic, its veins and arteries became clogged.  The institution began to crumble.  The primary causes were the social disintegration from within, a decline in spirit among the leaders and the subsequent loss of vision and external influence.

The first task of “restructuring” is therefore the renewal of leaders to the vision and mission of the Church.  What is needed is a revolution from the top down.  In the context of the Church, it means the revolution of values, ideas and commitment must start from the Supreme Bishop, the Bishops, priests, deacons and laity.  The reverse would be more costly and devastating.

The first task of creative and renewed leadership is to clarify and restate its vision.  The Bible says, “without vision, a people perish.”⁵  It is futile to urge people to climb the mountain without showing them where the mountain is.  Vision requires goals, objectives and strategies.  It is the function of leadership to respond to the challenges and to create energy to its members by instilling in them the common vision and sense of purpose.

The second task of leadership is to give proper attention to the followers, the Filipino people  The people, human beings with their diverse gifts and abilities, are the makers of history.  The function of leadership is to “wake up” those people who have fallen asleep and to inspire them towards a higher level of commitment and social responsibility.  The bishop, the priest, the deacon, or the layman or laywoman belongs to the People of God.  Everyone needs to be assured that he or she is the make of the church.

The third task of leadership is to reflect deeply and challenge courageously the structures that breed corruption, injustice and disunity.  A leader should not be afraid of his own people.  Openness and transparency are attributes of Christianity.  Criticism and self-criticism are characteristics of Reformation.  Criticism may be a bitter medicine but it becomes a necessity because of sickness.  One may make a wry face but one must swallow it.

In the context of the Philippine Independent Church, many bishops and priests have become ossified.  The need renewal and spiritual revival.  In fact, everyone needs renewal so as to gain a new vitality that will sustain life in a world of change.  The new PIC generation needs its own revolution and creative leadership must function to help in shaping it.

2.    Renewal of Structures

The renewal of leadership must be followed by the renewal of structures so that they assist, rather than prevent, progress.  One of the pressing needs is to develop an educational system that utilize the resources of both the Bible and Philippine history.  The Church must learn from the heritage and tradition of their founding fathers not as abstract past but as living guides for the future.  The Bible says, “people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6).  People also respond to teaching and the Church must take seriously its teaching ministry.

In the light of its depleted financial resources, the Philippine Independent Church must assess or re-evaluate its present resources.  How many indeed are the present and active members in the parishes, in the dioceses, in the national level?  Is it possible to gather a group of learned lay people to study and map out a long-range financial plan for the Church?  And how can the clergy harness the spiritual energy of members to bring about purposeful stewardship of their resources?  What about the youth?  How do we tap their talents, skills, attitudes and habits of the mind to assist in developing a financial system that is workable and in line with their own economic vision?

The success of Pentecostal and charismatic churches in evangelism and Church Growth must challenge the Independent Church.  The Filipino Church must respond to the challenge of Christian mission, conversion and spirituality.  It must address itself to the human alienation, to the question of human sin and salvation in Christ.  It must develop a system of discipleship that equips the laity for the ministry of prayer, spiritual support and inner conversion.  Nationalism, alone, is not sufficient to make the PIC grow.  The people of Israel were not “chosen by God” for their own merit.  God chose people so that people may choose God.

The new democratic PIC Constitution which replaced the old “papal” or autocratic Constitution was a significant step towards the direction of broadening the base of leadership in the Filipino Church.  It must continually be upheld, even it if is resisted by a few.  As products of the Revolution, the PIC members are also trail blazers.  They have non to learn from, except for their own mistakes.  If there are some mistakes in the new Constitution, then they must be corrected.  But the baby should not be thrown with the bathwater.

Democracy in the Church as well as in any society, cannot develop without the rule of law and without adherence to the Christian standards which are contained in the bible.  For a long time, some leaders in the Church have tried living in personality cults and vested interests.  By renewing its democratic structures, the Independent Church would also be opening new vistas for behavioral change in members of the Supreme Council of Bishops, the National Priest Organization, and the various lay committees of the Church.

The structure must be loosened up to allow the learning of managing the Church’s instrumentalities.  Recent studies on the decline of many mainline Protestant Churches in Western countries, for instance, indicate that people get tired of churches that are preoccupied with theology and doctrinal debates.  People today are going to “pastoral churches,” or churches that ask “what do people need that we can give?”⁵  People, especially the youth, need something to balance their life and maintain their sanity, not something that will further confuse and burden them with more stresses.

3.  Reassessment of Resources

According to its recent “profile” published by the Aglipayan Heritage, the PIC has 5.2 million members, 63 active bishops, 650 clergy, 39 dioceses, 200 mission chapels with no clergy, 12 schools, 2 minor theological seminaries, a national cathedral and a labor center.⁶

The primary resource of the Philippine Independent Church remains to be its people.  Doubtless, the place to begin is here.  People, with all their diverse abilities and gifts are still the makers of history.  There needs to be a reassessment of the level of commitment and capabilities of the members.  How many of the 5.2 million are active and how many are nominal?  How does the Church go about the greater number of members to a higher degree of commitment?

It is not enough to estimate the Church membership and to guess its profile.  The leadership must find ways to gain an accurate picture of the Church, parochially and nationally.

The leadership needs to gain the awe and respect of the people by developing faith in them and inspiring them towards excellence.  What distinguished Aglipay as a leader in his time was that he had a great respect to the country-priests, regardless of their poor academic background.  Shortly after the “Paniqui Assembly”, two Filipino priests were sent to the Vatican to present to the Pope the real situation of the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines.  These delegates were not entertained.  An American survey of the religious situation at that time wrote of a certain Bishop Hevia’s statement that the Filipino priests were “very weak, very frail, with low intelligence and a disgrace to the priesthood!⁷  These accusations did not affect Aglipay’s attitude to the Filipino clergy but instead challenged him to help improve their lot.

The great contribution of Don Isabelo delos Reyes, Sr. to the Philippine Independent Church was his role in introducing and propagating unionism in the Philippines.  From the time he returned to the Philippines after his exile in Spain, his first move was to organize the working class.  His Union Obrera Democratica became a federation of 150 labor unions with over 20,000 members in 1902.  The proclamation of the PIC was done in the context of a labor union meeting to emphasize the fact that Christ is on the side of the poor and the oppressed.

The Independent Church today needs to take an inventory of its peoples’ skills and the present material resources available to assist in developing and enhancing these skills.  Parishes, chapels, schools, and other buildings need to be transformed as both worship places as well as workshop for training in farming, industry and in trade unionism.  The Church needs to reclaim its place in advocating for the rights of peasants, workers, the low-income and the unemployed.  It needs to incorporate liturgies that speak of the yearnings of the masses.  It needs to re-develop the “theology of liberation” which was nascent in its developmental history.

The financial condition of the Church is oftentimes dependent upon the financial condition of its members.  If the members are very poor, it is futile to ask them to give monetary offerings.  While there have been instances of some denominations becoming rich out of the poverty of their members, for the PIC, the norm has always been that the Church lives on the same level as its members.  If the PIC has the hope of extricating itself out of extreme poverty, then the answer lies in helping and assisting its members win the war on poverty.  This requires tremendous efforts, creativity and prayer from the clergy in the parishes who are facing the problems day to day.

In assessing its resources, it would be necessary for the PIC to keep and update its membership records in the parishes, dioceses and the national level.  These records need to contain the occupation and skills of members to that an inventory of resources can be obtained.  Parishes need to be organized based on the democratic provisions of the new PIC Constitution and needs to have a vision of numerical as well as qualitative growth.  A commitment for community, a vision for peace and prosperity, and a direction for mutual responsibility, interdependence and unity need to be stressed among and within the 39 dioceses in the Philippines and abroad.

The minor theological seminaries of the PIC, must be grounded and rooted on balanced biblical teaching, clear discipleship and practical theology.  It must take an unabashed presentation of PIC history and must sharpen and market the vision of the Independent Church.  Its evangelism and pastoral training must be characterized by both nationalism, sound Christian doctrines and effective management theories.  The PIC clergy need to compete in a world of ideas.  They need to take up leadership roles in the community where their parish is situated.

In order to marshal the forces of renewal in the Philippine Independent Church, the leadership needs to gather the brightest and the best among its clergy and laity in every diocese.  They must be organized as cohesive teams who will provide training and produce materaisl designed to renew parishes.  The people need to develop a sense of pride for their clergy.  The clergy need to upgrade their preaching, teaching and ministry abilities.  They must strive for higher standards of excellence and moral integrity.

The Philippine Independnet Church needs to invest heavily on the education and re-education of its people.  If ever there are programs that need funding, priority must be in education.  Bibles and PIC history books need to be supplied every parish.  Printed, audio and video materials relating to the enhancement of Church life, liturgy, devotion, as well as sociological disciplines, whenever and wherever possible, need to be at the disposal of parish priests.

Human resources available from government and civic institutions must be tapped by the clergy.  Lay leaders must be trained to preach as well.  Government and community leaders known for their erudition in areas that could help uplift the plight of the poor need to be hear in the Church.  Ecumenical groups as well as leaders from other churches who share common interest and who can help motivate the laity needed to be invited to preach.  Writers and singers who can compose and sing new songs that speak of the Christian struggle of the poor need to be encouraged.  The PIC must provide a forum for the dialogue of the Church and Society.  Worship and work must be one.

CHAPTER II

ECUMENICAL RELATIONS

The Philippine Independent Church cannot withdraw in isolation from other Christian bodies, if it is to hasten its renewal.  When it re-entered into the Trinitarian faith following the bestowal of “apostolic succession” in 1948, the PIC also rejoined into the communion of world Christendom.  By virtue of being in this worldwide communion, the Independent Church becomes part of an ongoing “globalization” or a wider circle of Christian fellowship.

Max Stackhouse, in the Christian Century, identified three phases or dimensions of this growing globalization of Christianity, which are: (a) the experience of deprovincialization, (b) the fact of internationalization and (c) the search for universality.⁸  He suggested that the project for the churches is to have their theological perspective large and supple enough to comprehend the social and religious pluralism of the globe.

Ethnocentrism in faith is no longer possible with the shrinking world.  Deprovincialization occurs not only through the immersion in ideas but in actual experience of having a member of the family marrying a member of a different race, nationality, denomination or one belonging to another religion, e.g. Islam or Buddhist.

The fact of internationalization is brought about in our living room through the power of television.  During the “people power” revolution in the Philippines, millions of people all over the world were “participants” and “spectators” in the “live telecast.”  It is just as much possible for people in Manila to watch the televised report about the civil war going on in El Salvador.

The search for universality is an explicit vision in biblical Christianity.  The Old Testament prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah visualized the whole oekomene, as a world where peace and justice embrace each other and where justice rolls down like rivers and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.  The vision of John in the Book of Revelation speaks about a communion of saints from every tribe and tongue and language and nations.⁹

If the Philippine Independent Church has to sail into the mainstream of biblical Christianity, it must rid itself of any trace of narrow nationalism or parochial ethnocentrism.  Rather, while maintaining a Filipino identity, it must join with the rest of the churches all over the world in an exciting world of pluralism and ecumenism.

The place to start enhancing this march towards the future is the wider denominational spectrum in the Philippines.  The Philippine Independent Church must be set free from its own religious bigotry or “reverse religious discrimination,” a form of counter-hostility to other churches.  Like its great Master and Savior, Jesus Christ, the Church must empty itself of whatever residue of resentment from its colonial experience.  He Filipino Church is no longer an orphan.  It is an equal partner with other churches in the family of God’s peoples.

1.  “Sister-Relation” with the Episcopal Church

The historical ties between the Philippine Independent Church and the Episcopal Church of the United States of America which had its beginning in 1948 was sealed in the Concordat of Full Communion established in 1961.  This relationship is unique and unprecedented in the history of the world Christendom.  It puts the two churches shoulder to shoulder in Christian fellowship, mutual responsibility and interdependence.

The terms of the Concordat provide for the mutual recognition of each other’s catholicity and independence and the mutual admission of members in the participation of each other’s sacraments.  Without requiring each other to accept all other doctrinal opinions, sacramental devotions or liturgical practices, each Church implies the other to hold all the essentials of the Christian faith.  Those essentials are: the Old and New Testament Scriptures; the Apostles’ and Nicene Cress; the Biblical sacraments of Baptism and Holy Eucharist; and the Episcopate.

The Concordat was not without its critics.  Some elements in the Roman Catholic Church desirous of seeing the PIC dissolve in “utter ruin”¹⁰ were implicitly hoping that the Concordat would fail.  Some elements in the Philippine Episcopal Church who considered the PIC as a competitor for American funding, were silently resenting the Concordat.  Some ultra-nationalistic elements in the PIC who were suspicious and uncooperative, thought that such a Concordat is a betrayal to the nationalistic ideals of the Aglipayan movement.

For the majority, however, the Concordat is one of the best things that ever happened to the Philippine Independent Church and the Episcopal Church.  Through the Concordat, the PIC became recognized and accepted through the world through its participation in the “worldwide Anglican communion.”¹¹  Through the Concordat, the PIC was enabled to avail itself of theological education from the Episcopalian seminary in Manila.  Through the Concordat, many PIC parishes were able to obtain financial assistance, especially in the 1960’s, for the needed repair and renovation of their dilapidated chapels.

For the Episcopal Church, it has given their Philippine mission a cordial welcome and war reception from the Filipino people.  The present expansion of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines could not be divorced from the moral and spiritual benefit it received from its association with the Philippine Independent Church.

In view of its historical significance and pragmatic consideration, the present PIC generation need to make new and bold initiatives to further enhance its Concordat relationship with the Episcopal Church and with the wider Anglican Communion.  Rather than setting back the clock by a rigid and narrow nationalism, it has to test the limits of its ecumenical boundary by opening new dialogues with the Episcopal Church in matters of common interest.

Nationally, the PIC must initiate talks with the Philippine Episcopal Church in the enhancement of theological education, liturgical renewal, evangelistic strategies, stewardship and lay-training.  The forthcoming autonomy of the PEC from the ECUSA would provide an equal partnership status for mutual missionary enterprise.  One of the potent areas that need to be tapped would be the development of a common Pension Fund for the clergy of both churches.  While maintaining their own identities, both churches can explore ways of dealing with national problems affecting their common life.  With their special ties, they can provide a stronger input into the National Council of Churches and can jointly provide responses to the challenges of the Roman Catholic Church.

Internationally, the PIC needs to avail itself of the many resources from the ECUSA and the wider Anglican communion in England, Canada, Africa and many parts of Asia.  It must offer its own manpower resources for joint missions abroad.  The nations themselves have become interrelated and governments are reaching out for each other.  The church, the Body of Christ can do no less.

These are the times that people are in concert with other peoples in search for anew global economic order as well as for more inclusive and uniting faiths needed to sustain life in a “global village.”  Instead of an attitude of isolation and parochialism, the new nationalistic policy of the Philippine Independent Church must be injected with a fresh, informed and pragmatic internationalism.

2.  Cordially with the Roman Catholic Church

 From the beginning of the Aglipayan movement, there was no intent to separate from Rome.  The schism of 1902 was brought about the exigencies of the times and by the obstinate refusal of the Catholic hierarchy to grant the demands of the Filipino clergy.  In its Declaration of Faith and Articles of Religion signed on August 5, 1947, the bishops and priests of the Philippine Independent Church declared:

When this Church withdrew from the Roman Catholic Church, it repudiated the authority of the Pope and such doctrines, customs and practices as were inconsistent with the Word of God, sound learning and a good conscience.  It has no intention of departing from Catholic doctrine, practice and discipline as set forth by the Councils of the undivided Church.  Such departures as occurred were due to the exigencies of the times, and are to be corrected by official action as opportunity affords.”¹²

By its decisive separation from Rome, however, the PIC was able to apply pressure to the Vatican to implement meaningful reforms and to cause the Catholic Church in the Philippines to institute its own renewal and reconstruction.  The action of Fr. Aglipay and other nationalistic priests, and the exodus of more than one-fourth of the Catholic population to the PIC, had awakened the Roman hierarchy to recall the despised friars, replaced them with well-qualified and amiable prelates, and appointed Filipinos as parish priests, bishops, archbishops and cardinals.

To understand fully the nature of Aglipayan schism, we need to look back into Church History.  The word “Catholicism” was first linked to the stages of reformation and dissent in the early Church.  Ernst Troeltsch coined the term “primitive Catholicism”¹³ to express the decline of the Gospel already evident in the New Testament communities.  The formation of Catholicism as a system came at the early second century when the Church was facing a challenge from the Gnostics.

The struggle against Gnosticism and against the threat of heresy obliged the Church to fix its doctrine, liturgy, and discipline in formulas and rigid laws and to exclude all who refuse to obey it.  This “early Catholicism”¹⁴ reached its completion with the advent another great formative force, the encounter of the Judeo-Christian message of the early Church with Greek philosophy and culture.  The theologian Adolph Harnack observed:

Dogma, in its conception and construction is the work of the Greek spirit on the terrain of the gospel.  The essence of Catholicism…is as much the transformation of Christian faith into revealed doctrine, made up of philosophical-Hellenistic ideals and historical elements, confirmed by the apostles and ratified in power through the sacrament of orders, thus, becoming tradition and it is the identification of the Church of Christ with the empirical church, the juridical body, led by the apostolic episcopus.¹⁵

The organization of the Catholic Church was therefore the by-product of a life-cycle of Christianity.  There is a reformation element in Catholicism itself through judicious adjustment and adaptation to the cultures in which it found itself.  In its accommodation of Western cultures, however, the Catholic Church developed its own pathological tendency.  Avery Dulles, a Jesuit theologian, called this tendency “catholicistic,”¹⁶ a decayed form of Catholicism as opposed to it’s the healthy “catholic” tendency.

Dulles believed that the Roman Church’s rejection of Protestantism in Europe during the 16^th century was a “historical mistake” not only because Martin Luther was excommunicated but because any possibility for true criticism or questioning of the system in the name of the Gospel was also expelled.  Dulles explained:

Catholicism became a total, reactionary, violent and repressive ideology.  There is nothing further from the evangelical spirit than the catholicistic system’s pretension to unlimited infallibility, to unquestionability, to absolute certainty.  There is nothing further from the Gospel than the encapsulation of Christianity in one exclusive expression…Christian experience is replaced by indoctrination in the existing system---a system that lives in the inferno of terms and doctrines that are reinterpreted ideologically, again and again, in order to maintain power.  The emphasis on the form (rather than the spirit) within Catholicism is responsible for its historical ecclesiorosis and in slowness in reading the signs of the times and, in light of them, newly translating and incarnating the liberating message of Christ.¹⁷

Needless to say, this same mistake was committed by the Catholic hierarchs through their excommunication of Aglipay and through their stubborn refusal to accede to the demands of the Filipino clergy.  The Aglipayan movement was not against the “catholicistic” tendency of the Roman Church.  When the PIC was being conceptualized, it had no desire to renounce the essential Catholic doctrines but only to reform the friar-abuses and to contextualize the message of the Gospel to the Filipino aspirations.

Over the years, there appeared to have been major improvements in the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines.  One of its recent achievements was the leadership of Jaime Cardinal Sin of Manila.  In the “people power” revolution of 1986 that toppled the martial law administration of Ferdinand Marcos and catapulted Cory Aquino to the presidency, Cardinal Sin placed the Catholic Church at the service of the people.  Catholic priests, nuns and seminarians joined the devotees in acting as “buffers” between the military and the reformists and prevented a bloody confrontation.  By his sterling leadership, which he described as “prophetic collaboration,”¹⁸ Cardinal Sin has helped redeem the confidence of the masses to the servant-Church.  It was as if the Cardinal Sin of 1986 had the spirit of Father Aglipay of 1896-1898.

The need for the PIC today is the need for bold and daring initiatives in seeking ways for cooperation and joint programs with progressive and nationalistic elements of the Roman Catholic Church.  There are many poor and oppressed who belong to the Catholic Church.  They too, are struggling for survival, for peace based on justice, for liberation from the oppressive social and political conditions.  There are many awakened Catholic clergy and laity who are in the forefront of the new revolutionary movement.  They too, are working to introduce and establish meaningful changes in Philippine society.

3.  Partnership with Protestant Churches in Evangelism

Historians like Lewis Whittemore and Achuegui and Bernad agreed on a point that there were times when the PIC could have been brought over to the Protestant denominations the early period of its history rather than driven to the Unitarian Church.  Upon separation from Rome, Aglipay and Delos Reyes, Sr. were open to friendship from the evangelical missionaries that started coming to the Philippines.

Aglipay himself helped in the promotion of the Bible.  John Bancroft Devins, an evangelical missionary, declared that Aglipay was “loosening the power of Rome in the islands” adding that the Bible Society were having their greatest sales (of the bible) in the provinces where the (PIC) movement were strongest.  The Rev. J.C. Goodrich of the Bible Society, confirmed it in his report saying: “We are circulating thousands of copies through him (Aglipay) and his priest.  He also helped to distribute an address of President Roosevelt commending the study of the Bible.  Already, 100,000 of the said address, together with Aglipay’s letter commending it, have already been circulated in Spanish, Tagalog and Ilocano.”¹⁹

It can be said that through the PIC, the Protestant missions in the Philippines received proper hearing.  James Rodgers, head of the first Presbyterian mission in the Philippines testified to the friendliness of  Aglipay and the inspiration he gave to the mission:

The daring and courage he (Aglipay) and his colleagues showed in breaking away from humble subservience to the Roman Catholic Church encouraged thousands to do so who perhaps would never have joined our communion.  In fact, some of the more prominent leaders of the Aglipayan movement were members of our church in Tondo.  They saw in this movement a real national revolution.²⁰

Whittemore suggested, however, that Aglipay was disillusioned with the kind of “evangelicalism” that confronted him and instead favored the friendship of the nitarians.  He suggested four reasons, thus:

First, because the movement of populations to evangelical faith was not “missions” to evangelical leadership, they were immersed in individualistic process…Second, each American Church was reproducing its (Western) denominational pattern rather than creating a free, biblical Philippine church…Third, between Filipinos and Americans there was a maximum degree of mutal suspicion, with American missionaries looking on these Filipino ex-insurectos with many misgivings…Fourth, the (PIC) was an Aisan revolt against European domination and the Protestant leaders did not appreciate at all the degree to which it wants to be guided, i.e., not by superiors but by friendly equals.²¹

The individualistic conversion that characterized evangelical Christianity in the Philippines was one which Aglipay was hesitant to accept.  New Testament Christianity favored “oikos” evangelism, the conversion of extended families rather than singling out an individual and molding him into a “lone ranger.”  In the Book of Acts, whole villages were converted.  The early Church thrived on “oikos”²² evangelism, more than individualistic conversion.

Stunz, an American Protestant leader, said he urged Aglipay to “throw his strength into the Protestant movement.”²³  Had Aglipay done so, accepting Protestant missionaries as mentors, he would have found them insisting on standards of individual conversion before incorporation which would have embarrassed even Luther when he broke with Rome.  Like Luther, Aglipay was leading a people’s movement.  The Protestant churches in the Philippines were establishing denominational churches based on the American spirit of competition and private enterprise.

Aglipay, who was more perceptive than Stunz and more familiar with the cultural traits of the Filipinos understood that the Filipino people was nourishe by two enduring traditions: religion and family.  The two traditions are inseparable.  A member of the family who transfers religion without family approval becomes an outcast.  On the other hand, if the whole family becomes converted, the new-found religion becomes the uniting force that bind them in crises.

Over the years, the Protestant churches in the Philippines have learned their mettle and are proving formidable in the area of evangelism and church growth.  In the spirit of enterprise, innovation and criticism and self-criticism, which are hallmarks of the Protestantism, the Methodits, Baptist, Presbyterian and other denominations have learned from the Aglipayan movement and are leaders in the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP).  Many of them have colleges and universities which are propagating new and progressive ideas as well as useful research into the various aspects of the Filipino life.

One of the areas where the PIC can learn from the Protestant and evangelical churches will be on “assertive” evangelism and Christian stewardship.  Anchored on the “American way” of innovation and enterprise, the various Protestant denominations are making success in church planting and missionary expansion not only in the Philippines but in many parts of Asia unreached by former missionaries.  Peter Drucker, an Episcopalian layman considered as “the father of modern management”²³ wrote about the value of the American entrepreneurship, thus:

It is precisely because innovation and entrepreneurship are not “root and branch” but “one step at a time,” a product here, a policy there, a public service yonder; because they are not planned but focused on this opportunity and that need; because they are tentative and will disappear if they do not produce the expected and needed results; because, in other words, they are pragmatic rather than dogmatic and modest rather than grandiose---that they promise to keep any society, economy, industry, public service, or business flexible and self-renewing.²⁴

The Philippine Independent Church, in order to eliminate all the residue of its own “catholicistic” decay and succeed in the marketplace of the modern world, must, on the one hand, learn from these working concepts.  No one can ever kick out an outdated system without, in some way, using the boots of the new one.  On the other hand, it must continue to place its footing in its “catholic” legacy and not be unduly “tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine or the cunning of men”²⁵ knowing that those who marry the spirit of one generation will become a widow in the next.

In other words, the PIC must hold up both the Protestant spirituality and Catholic integrity in balance.  Without biblically-sound spirituality, the PIC clergy will be no better than the “friars” whom their fathers loathed.  Without Catholic integrity, the PIC laity will be no better than some Fundamentalists tempted by personal cultism and spiritual arrogance.  Without learning from both traditions, the PIC will continue to weaken and decline.

It is the holding of these complementary traditions---in an authentic Filipino style---that the hope of PIC renewal will be insured.  It is this total spiritual and ecclesiastical dimension that is the missing link in the PIC revolution.  It is this aspect of revolutionary change which religious nationalism alone cannot provide.  It is this vision of God who creates and renews, who gives life abundantly, who suffers with people but who also provides a way out, who allows failure but gives illumination, guidance and success, who saves and redeems, who died and rose again---that can truly bring lasting renewal and needed transformation of the PIC in all aspects of its life and at all levels of its activities.

CHAPTER III

MISSION TO THE WORLD

The Philippine Independent Church stands in history not only as an explicit emancipation from Roman Catholicism but also as an implicit resistance against all forms of colonialism and tyranny.  Its ideals of national independence, identity, and integrity²⁷ correspond with the aspirations of the socio-political revolution.  Its historical experience of poverty and factionalism mirror the experience of the Philippine society.  Its yearning for socio-economic liberation and political-religious freedom is the same yearning of the oppressed masses of the world.  Thus, the Philippine Independent Church, has a mission to the world.

The first part of the PIC Mission is to share its theology of “religious nationalism.”  This is the prophetic dimension.  The second part is to struggle for the “empowerment of the poor.”  This is the social dimension.  The third part is engage in the “contextualization of Christianity.”  This is the teaching dimension.

In this chapter, we will discuss these dimensions of the PIC’s Mission to the world.  They are the “core symbols” by which the historical struggle of the PIC can be a service to the world as well as to the community of faith.

1.  The Theology of Religious Nationalism

The theology of religious nationalism is a spiritual gift which the PIC can share with the political world.  This gift is valuable because the aims and aspirations of the Philippine Revolution of 1896-1898 remain unrealized.  The hoped-for freedom, prosperity and peace have not been achieved in view of the current worsening social and economic problems obtaining the Philippines.  When there is massive poverty and crippling social injustice, the task of the Church is to be prophetic.  The late Bishop Aglipay summed up his vision of human freedom, thus:

Man is born free like the bird in the boughs of the trees, like the plants which sweetens the valleys with the perfume of its flowers, like the stars that lighten the darkest night.  Man is born with the right to think freely and to express our sentiments according to the light of reasons which God has given us.  We are born with the right to associate ourselves with those whom we choose.  We are born with the right to govern our right to govern our person, our family, home and native town.  We are born with the right to do freely what we please provided that we do not usurp the liberty or the right of others.²⁷

In his pastoral message of June 29, 1987, the late Supreme Bishop Soliman F. Ganno, reiterated this view and expressed the hope that the Independent Church would revive the spirit of Aglipay that once rallied the masses in support of the Filipino Church.  He wrote:

Let it be our prayer and hope that the ministry of Bishop Aglipay’s presence which brought Filipinos together as liberated Christian congregations in countless parts of the Philippines and abroad be resurrected as the dynamic force that must keep alive the (Aglipayan) mission to nurture Filipino religious nationalism and freedom.  With the grace of consecrated service for God and Country, we in the (PIC) will carry on with determination the struggle for liberation and fulfillment in Christ.  We will carry on the religious, political and economic struggle waged by Bishop Aglipay and his compatriots until their vision of peace based on Divine Justice shall have been fulfilled in our beloved Philippines.²⁸

Bishop Ganno had wanted to deliver something of national proportion.  He had started making overtures for both the Ga and Dela Cruz factions to gather in a conference table and to reconcile.  He had a great backing from the young, idealistic and activist clergy who are leaders of the National Priest Organization.  An Ilocano himself, he was an ardent admirer of the late Bishop Aglipay.  He knew the rigors of pastoral work, being himself from a poor background.  He had associations with both the leaders of the National Cathedral in Tagalog region; as well as the National Aglipay Shrine in Ilocos region.  He was a priest in Marinduque, close to the Visayan region.  Unfortunately, death had intervened to whatever programs or nationalistic policies he had in mind.

What needs to be stressed now is the renewal of these avowed visions and ideals.  It is to give meat and substance to the proclamations of the past.  It is to re-interpret the spirit and intent of those statements so that they fit into the contemporary setting.  It is to reformulate and rearrange them so that they get clarified and understood by the present generation.

What are the essential presuppositions of the theology of “religious nationalism”?  Firstly, it is based on the historical assumption that foreign domination or colonialism of a country is a total oppression.  It holds a people as slaves in body, mind and spirit.  The oppressed people must struggle to be free politically and spiritually.

Secondly, religious nationalism is the praxis of incarnation.  As God chose to reveal Christ in the particularity of the Jewish history, so God has chosen to reveal the Church in the struggle of the oppressed Filipinos for political freedom and social justice.

Thirdly, religious nationalism is a conviction that the Church is “the Body of Christ”, the incarnation of Christ in a culture that believe and live in God.  In Church, “there is neither Jew nor Greek; neither slaves nor free; neither male nor female.”²⁹  Every member is equal, every member is free.  Religious nationalism is neither an exclusivist formula nor an instrument of isolation.  It sees the Church as both universal and particular, not either-or.  The Church is universal because it is local; it is local because it is universal.

In the context of contemporary situations, religious nationalism is the PIC’s version of Latin American “theology of liberation.”  Such liberation themes as Jesus being the liberator from hunger, misery and oppression; Christian challenge to colonialism and capitalism; the Church’s need for “conscientization: and “preferential option for the poor”; the correlation of peace and justice; the theory of “dependency” on inhuman economic systems; and the reality of “institutionalized violence” are all issues of concern for religious nationalism.³⁰

To look at religious nationalism as equal to “liberation theology” is tantamount to some form of aggiornamento, the “bringing up-to-date”³¹ of the unfinished Philippine Revolution and applying it to the contemporary struggle against oppressive socio-economic conditions.  Throughout history, the PIC masses have lived in eh cycle of poverty.  They have seen how fellow Filipinos belonging to other denominations improve in their social standing.  They have seen how PIC members left the Church, once they improve economically and rise to the level of the middle class.  They have seen how their clergy were denigrated for reasons that they could not obtain higher academic training because of poverty.

In their poverty, the people discovered the gift of community.  Poverty is dehumanizing but in their poverty, they reach out for each other in suffering.  Because they are suffering, they are open to change.

Religious nationalism, as a theology, responds to the longing of a sovereign people to realize their economic and political destiny without foreign dictation.  It has no choice but to oppose the presence of any foreign military, political and economic power that prevent its people from achieving self-sufficiency and self-respect.  It has no recourse but to cooperate with forces that seek to accelerate the country’s economic recovery, political maturity and social standing.

As “religious nationalists,” the PIC leaders must therefore keep alive the vision of national sovereignty, independence, and identity.  Revolution is essentially “change.”  The Church as an agent of the Revolution must appeal to the progressive conversion of the Filipinos to accept that they are one people, one race, one nation under God.  The PIC must be at the forefront of movements seeking to transform unjust social, economic and religious structures that hinder that unity.

Religious nationalism today calls for a decisive national leadership that shall formulate policies relating to participation of the Church in challenging the structures of injustice and in shaping national consciousness.  There are no more “friars” today and no more brutal colonial masters.  There are, however, new forms of “friarism” and “colonialism” in both the ecclesiastical and political structures.  The “colonial mentality” of Filipinos continue to be an obstacle to national progress and human development.  

Religious nationalism is a double-edged sword.  On the one edge, it is a fight against colonial mentality but not against progress; on the other edge, it is a struggle for nationalism but not for isolation.  Synonymous with the concept of the “Pilgrim Church,” the theology of religious nationalism must always be on the way, always marching on, and constantly holding up the vision of freedom and unity in Christ.

2.  Social Empowerment of the Poor

The revolution that gave rise to the Philippine Independent Church was primarily a revolution of the masses.  The PIC owed its existence and survival from a peasants and laborers.  They were the makers of PIC history and therefore their empowerment becomes a concern of primary importance.  In its “statement on mission,” drafter in 1977, the Independent Church unequivocally declared its “preferential option” to the poor, thus:

In order to carry out her task of evangelization, the PIC must seriously consider the joys, anxieties, aspirations and sufferings of humankind and must scrutinize the signs of the times and interpret them in the light of the gospel, so that she maybe able to respond to the questionings of humankind and ever make present the saving work of God by her charity, service and solidarity to the world, especially with the poor, the oppressed and those afflicted.³¹

This statement further said that the Church should focus on educating the conscience of people, especially those who have more than enough that they may learn to share with the poor.  It issued a call for a continuing struggle against poverty and oppression “which are the direct results of greed in all its protean forms.”

In calling for the liberation of the poor, the PIC statement hastened to clarify that “we do not equate or confuse temporal progress with the Kingdom of God” but believe that “to the extent that it contribute to the better ordering of human society,” temporal progress is of “vital importance to the Kingdom of God.”³²

Loyal to the cause of her Founders in promoting the welfare and dignity of the human being, especially the peasants and laborers, the PIC must at all times and in all places, extend its pastoral ministry ot the poor with whom she was identified from the beginning.  This demands of her an organizational social action institution in order that this concern may be carried out.³³

A key to liberation is the empowerment of the people in the parishes into “basic Christian communities.”³⁴  Penny Lernoux, in People of God: The Struggle for World Catholicism³⁵ was of the opinion that the experience of the poor in Latin American base communities are often their first experience of genuine democracy at the local level.  Lernoux observed:

Fundamental to the experience is the freedom to think, speak, decide and create.  In discovering their own worth, the poor frequently move to a new level of awareness that leads them to participate in neighborhood associations, such as the milk program in El Salvador, and, eventually, to become part of larger movements, such as labor unions and political parties.  Religious empowerment thus encourages democratization of everyday life.³⁶

Empowers of the poor is made more tangible through the development of base communities similar to those in Latin American countries.  The Philippines share some common experience with Latin American countries in their experience of Roman Catholicism and Spanish colonization.  Together with other countries in the Third World, the Philippines and Latin American countries suffer from gargantuan debts, staggering economy and increasing hopelessness.  The development of base communities will split the consciousness of the poor to their plight and energize them to fashion or change their future.

In the Philippine Independent Church, the development of base communities is implicit in the new PIC Constitution.  Its democratic character would allow more leeway for parishes to experiment with effective ways of dealing with their socio-economic problems.  The participation of all sectors: clergy, laymen, laywomen and youth in the affairs of the Church would give them on-the-job training as well as bring to the Church valuable input.

Historically, the development of base communities is also implied in some of Bishop Aglipay’s writings.  The Aglipayan “epistles” called for “the creations of new organization”³⁷ that should meet any emergency.  While it was set in the context of Filipino-American War and in anticipation of an eventual schism from the Roman Catholic Church, it was also an allusion to other “emergency” that is a felt-need of the whole community.

What is needed in the Philippine Independent Church of today should be the improvisation and innovation of the base communities of Latin America using the historical resources nascent in PIC historical struggle.  It is unlikely that the Roman Catholic Church as well as the other Protestant Churches in the Philippines can consistently and sincerely advocate for the transformation of Philippine society.  The Roman Church and the many Protestant Churches tat that not autonomous from foreign funds are still allied with vested interests.  They have a lot to lose.

In contract to the riches and privileges of other churches, the PIC remains to be a “church of the poor” and hence malleable.  It has relatively nothing to lose except its “catholicistic” or decayed tradition inherited from Roman Catholicism.  Once rid of its colonial vestiges, the PIC can ally itself with other revolutionary forces in a “coalition: to advance the mission to the poor.  In the final analysis, it is not the institutional Church per se, but “ecumenical” groups of base communities working together that can effect meaningful changes to Philippine Society.

The development of base communities in the PIC should deserve attention from the present leaders not only because they are an effective form of people-empowerment but also because they are effective vehicles for authentic Church renewal.  Base communities in Latin American mean at least three things in church life, namely: (a) A community marked by a significant degree of group participation and leadership; (b) A religious life usually noted for its intensiveness and liturgical informality; and (c) Collective political action based on biblically-inspired systematic criticism of the communities ongoing experience of the larger society in which it is situated.  In the words of Leonardo Boff, referring to the base communities in Latin America:

Theologically, the (BC) signify a new ecclesiological experience, a renaissance of the very church and hence an action of the Spirit on the horizon of the matters urgent for our time.  This shift of ecclesial axis contains a new seed, a new principle of birthing a church or starting the church again.  It is not a new beginning because it does not come from scratch or nothing but rather it means new birth in terms of revival and new life.³⁸

The present situation in the Philippines with the return of democratic fervor following the rejection of an autocratic government presents an optimum environment whereby this shift of ecclesial axis can give a rebirth to the Church.  In concert with the “awakened” segment of the Roman Catholic Church, the “politicized” Protestant denominations, the “evangelized” leaders of the government, civic and military sectors, as well as with other forces of renewal and reconstruction, the PIC can herald a uniting stand for economic justice, social equality, political integrity and religious freedom.

Social human rights are the rights of a people to food, clothing, shelter, health care and employment.  As long as parents cannot get decent housing and health care for their children, as long as children become malnourished and unschooled because their parents cannot get a job, then human rights are being violated.  Such violation of human rights become the social concern of the Church.

The proclamation of the “Kingdom of God” breaking into Philippine society is a social responsibility for the Philippine Independent Church.  From re-reading its history, the PIC must move towards re-making it by empowering its poor people.  This social action of the PIC must be inspired not only by the remembrance of its past but also by the prophetic voices of the present.  For it is not the remembrance of the past alone that gives birth to renewal.  Preoccupation with past success often gives a condition of ease that leads to decay.  Yesterday’s solutions are not necessarily applicable to today’s problems.

It is fitting for PIC leaders today to stand on the shoulders of the past Founders but not to live under the shadow of their ghosts.  There is always something new available because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church.  Even if sin abounds in new forms of injustice and corruption, grace abounds all the more to give people the power for new insights to inspire them to struggle and to win.

4.  Filipino Contextualization of Christianity

In recent years, Asian theologians have been doing “contextualization” or “the capacity to respond meaningfully ot the Gospel within the framework of one’s total situation.”  In the 1970’s, the Theological Education Fund of the World Council of Churches encouraged the rediscovery and exploration of nascent and incipient religious and theological thinking and movements.  The TEF leaders defined contextualization, thus:

Contextualization has to do with how we assess the peculiarity of Third World contexts.  Indigenization tends to be used in the sense of responding to the Gospel in terms of traditional culture.  Contextualization, while not ignoring this, takes into account the process of secularity, technology, and the struggle for human justice, which characterize the historical movements of nations in the Third World.³⁹

In summary, contextualization is the reflection of Holy Scriptures in the context of one’s particular historical, cultural, social and religious situation.  The late Asian theologian, D.T. Niles, reflecting on the need for indigenization and contextualization of Christianity in Asia, said:

The Gospel is like a seed that must be sowed.  But our temptation is to bring along not only the seed of the gospel but our own plant of Christianity, flower pot included.  The need now is to break this flower pot and let the seed grow as it should be in its own soil.⁴⁰

The Philippine Independent Church has, within it, seeds of contextualization.  In its forty years of wandering in “theological wilderness,” the PIC was seeking for a faith that has a deeper meaning to their life.  When it departed from the Roman Catholic Church and experimented with all kinds of doctrines, the PIC was actually searching for an authentic expression of its Filipino soul.

By not going back to the Roman Catholic Church, against all odds, the PIC was hoping to “incarnate” the Gospel in Philippine soil.  The PIC wanted to Filipinize Christianity; it wanted to make the Filipino Church the incarnation of authentic Christianity.  Not a transplanted flower pot, but a naked seed growing in Philippine soild.

Catholicism as brought to the Philippines by Spanish missionaries failed to bring peace, freedom and prosperity to the people but instead became an instrument of oppression and poverty.  The liberating message of Christ was muted.  The message of the Spanish friars condemn the people to a fatalistic view of history.  The medieval teaching in purgatory and indulgences only added to the superstitions of the poor.  The resurrection and triumph of Christ over sin, evil and death were buried in the graveyard of colonial abuses.  The religious revolution led by Aglipay and Delos Reyes gave the Filipino people an opportunity to visualize a Christian Church that will be truly free, humane, and Filipino.

One of the first acts of the PIC was the use of the vernacular n preaching and liturgy.  Don Isabelo delos Reyes, Sr. translated the Bible in Ilocano.  Aglipay canonized Rizal and the three martyred priests---Gomez, Burgos and Zamora---as saints.  The flag was flown in the PIC churches; the PIC banner display “Pro Deo et Patria” (For God and Country).  The national anthem was played by a brass band during the Eucharist.  Special prayers were said for the Filipino Revolutionary Government as well as for the labor unions in the country.  Hymns reflected the struggles and the yearnings of the people.

It is unfortunate that during the advent of the Concordat, the Independent Church laid aside its indigenous liturgy and copied the Episcopalian liturgy indiscriminately.  Devoid of nationalistic passion and spontaneity, the new Liturgy muted the spirit of contextualization.  Written from the Anglican tradition of “English stiff upper lip”, the prayers are too intellectual and lacking the flexibility and versatility which are characteristics of the pliant Filipino temper.  For many years until today, the said Liturgy booklet introduce “For Trial Use” continued to be used by PIC parishes producing neither liturgical innovation nor spiritual renewal.

The PIC had fallen prey to American domination at St. Andre’s Theological Seminary when it comes to its own liturgy, worship, forms of prayer, and theology.  Not only have the seminary-trained PIC clergy allowed Western theological writings to dominate their minds but they joined their Roman Catholic and Protestant counterparts to denigrate the older PIC priests who did not have the benefit of coming to this Westernized seminary.

There was no concerted effort to re-read and re-interpret PIC history; there was no encouragement to research the hymns, stories and poems of the past generations; there was no advocacy of Filipino cultural values and distinctive way of life.  In contract, there was heavy teaching on Western thought and plethora of materials from German, English and American theologians.  Filipino theology, as it developed from concrete revolutionary experience, remains buries in the dust of the seminary library.

The re-establishment of PIC “regional seminaries” by Supreme Bishop Macario V. Ga was explicitly for the purpose of supplying vacant parishes with rural-trained clergy.  Implicitly, it was a result of the PIC’s frustration over the failure of St. Andrew’s Theological Seminar to provide training that is directly relevant to Philippine situations.  Unfortunately, their haphazard planning, inadequate funding, incomplete faculty and staff, and mismanagement created a sordid state of affairs.  Consequently, these minor seminaries produced half-baked graduates.

The PIC needs to continue its partnership with the Episcopal Church in theological education and to look at St. Andrew’s Seminar as an arena for higher scholarship and for training teachers.  The minor seminaries need to network with colleges and universities and to engage in dialogue and sharing of resources with Roman Catholic and Protestant seminaries.  The PIC needs to assert its contextual contribution.  Its historical struggle in the context of Philippine society will bless the seminarians with liturgical, theological and cultural diversity.

The PIC scholarship needs to research and reflect on the analogy between the beginnings of the Philippine Independent Church and the “Jesus Movement” in biblical studies.  The earliest Aglipayan movement began as a renewal movement in Catholicism in the same manner that earliest Christianity began as a renewal movement within Judaism.  Aglipay challenged the political and religious order of colonial Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines in the same way that Jesus challenged His context.

In the history of the “Jesus movement,”⁴¹ we found three elements, namely: (a) a charismatic leader with a band of zealous disciples; (b) a revolutionary response to the problems of life; and (c) a condition of socio-political and religious injustice.  The same elements were present in the Aglipayan movement.  This is not to say that Aglipay and Jesus are equal or the same.  This is to say that the historical character of the Philippine Independent Church has a touch of God.  The Filipino Church is an incarnational event.

The Jewish historian Josephus described the nature of the Jewish colonial society as a “theocracy.”⁴²  Literally and theoretically, theocracy is a system of government where God reigns.  In actual fact, the “rule of God” in Jewish-Palestine was the rule of priestly aristocracy.  This Jewish aristocracy were the natural allies of the colonizing Roman government.  These aptly descried the position of the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines during the Spanish colonization.

In perpetuation of its rabbinic and levitical traditions, the Jewish aristocracy did not form a polis or an inclusive society, but an ethnos, an exclusive “state” with the Sanhendrin or Supreme Council as its head.  The Sanhendrin consisted of three groups: the high priests, the elders and the scribes.  The high priests were the aristocracy of worship, the elders the aristocracy of the rich, and the scribes the aristocracy of the educated.  Only through education in law and religion could new groups enter the Sanhendrin, but even that, the aristocratic groups had protected themselves against the intrusion of the poor by means of hereditary (for high priests) and economic (for the elders) privileges.  These same conditions pervade the colonization process of the Spanish colonial rule with the collusion between the Church and State and the power of the friars.

The status quo of the Jewish aristocracy was indeed oppressive for the ochlos, the disorganized masses of people.  It was to these---the poor and oppressed, the marginalized, the outcasts that the liberating message of Jeus movement was addressed.  In Luke’s gospel, Jesus promised the “preaching of Good News to the poor and setting free of the captives”⁴³ and in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus was moved with compassion for the ochlos, for “they were like sheep without a shepherd.”⁴⁴  In Aglipayan religious movement, it was also the Filipino ochlos who responded to the proclamation of schism from the Roman Church.

The Jesus movement, which began as a reform movement within Judaism, culminated into a religious revolution.  After the death, resurrection and ascension of its Master, the Christian religious movement became a community of faith.  Its followers were so caught up with its vision of love and reconciliation.  They were supremely inspired.  Their lives and relationship were so transforming.  Their message was so compelling that it took even the Gentile world by surprise: from Jerusalem, to Judea, to Smaria---to the ends of the world.⁴⁵

The Philippine Independent Church today, need to harness the theological resources nascent and incipient in its history and contextualize the Gospel in the concrete struggle of its people.  God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Peter and Paul as well as Aglipay and Delos Reyes and the present Church.

There is a continuity of God’s identification with His people and a continuity of God’s People.  The People, are “the people” then, now and in the future.  There is also a connection between sin and redemption; between death and resurrection.  Because the Philippine Independent Church, like any other people’s movement has experienced corruption, it can be renewed; because it has experienced death, it can rise again.