II. A Church established by missionary zeal
“The conquest of the Philippines,” the Dominican historian Fr. Lucio Gutierrez explains, “was due fundamentally not to the sword of the conquistador but to the cross of the missionary … it was the missionaries’ zeal and charity that brought the Filipinos into the fold of the Church.” This was because Spain’s military presence in its 333-year rule was “relatively insignificant.” Gutierrez quotes the Viceroy of Mexico who remarked: “In every friar the king of Spain had in the Philippines a captain general and an entire army.”
At the time of their arrival, the missionaries had the benefit of drawing from the experience of the conquest and evangelization of the Americas. The Synod of Manila reminded the encomenderos that their right to collect tribute carried a dual responsibility: administration of justice and preaching of the faith. In each encomienda there must be a missionary. Later on the Spaniards carried out a system of reduction. They had found the in Philippines, unlike in the Americas, scattered villages (barangays) where extended families lived together under a datu, the chieftain. To facilitate catechism, Filipinos had to be bajo la campana (under the sound of the bell). Today, the plan of the town plaza survives—town hall, market, school, and church. The Dominicans introduced the printing press in the islands, publishing the first book, the Doctrina Christiana, in 1593. The contents of the basic doctrine – the Our Father, Hail Mary, the Credo, the articles of faith – were usually recited before Sunday Mass. The norm for Confession and Holy Communion was once a year, during Easter season.
Doctrina Christiana, printed in 1593
Fr. Pedro Murillo Velarde’s map of the Philippines (1744)
Introduction of the First Christian Image by Carlos Botong Francisco
Missionaries corrected the initial practice of mass baptism and ensured that Filipinos underwent pre- and post-baptismal catechesis. Conversions started with the datus, called fiscales by the missionaries, who were tasked to spread the faith among their people. Evangelization made use of the existing structures, and engaged in true inculturation by retaining native practices while rejecting pagan ways. Drama, dance, and music accompanied the observances of religious feasts. An enduring Filipino devotion is the Misa de Aguinaldo, novena (“gift”) Masses held at dawn in preparation for the Nativity of the Lord. The Pasyong Mahal of Gaspar Aquino de Belen, first published in Tagalog in 1703, is a permanent pious practice during the Holy Week of the Lord’s Passion.
The friars were not just church-builders. With the help of the natives they built roads and bridges, replaced primitive farming with the wheel and the plow, constructed large-scale irrigation, and brought in new crops like tobacco, coffee, and cocoa. The opening of hospitals, asylums, and orphanages showed a concern for material, not just spiritual, welfare. The Franciscan Juan Clemente started in 1578 what became the San Juan de Dios and San Lazaro hospitals, two well-known social institutions. The Hospicio de San Jose traces its beginnings to 1778. Today the Daughters of Charity continue to operate the welfare institution at Isla de la Convalescencia, the island in the middle of Pasig River where the patients of San Juan de Dios used to convalesce.
Fr. Manuel Blanco, who published Floras de Filipinas, a marvel in Philippine lithography (1850)
The old campus of the University of Santo Tomas in Intramuros (Jonathan Best)
Education was an important component of evangelization. As soon as they arrived, the Augustinians and Franciscans put up schools for basic education. In 1595, the Jesuits opened a college that became the Universidad de San Ignacio in the Walled City. The oldest existing university, not just in the Philippines but also in Asia, is the Royal and Pontifical University of Santo Tomas, founded in 1611 by the Dominicans upon the bequest by Fray Benavides of his library and a seed fund of P1,500. For women, the Colegio de Santa Potenciana (later merged into the Colegio de Santa Isabel, now one of the oldest schools for girls in the world), was founded by the royal decrees of 1593 and 1594. It was followed by the Colegio de Santa Rosa (1750) and the La Concordia (1868). In Cebu City, the Colegio-Seminario de San Carlos opened in 1783.
At the close of Spanish colonial rule, no less than the Americans testified to the fruits of the labors of the Church and its intrepid missionaries. “In no other part of the world,” writes the military chaplain of the American army in 1899, “is Christian charity more flourishing and more wide spread than in the Philippines; the hospitals, the maternity houses, the arts and trade schools and other like institutions would bring honor to any nation.”
Churches at the center of civic life (Abucay, Bataan)
Churches at the center of civic life (Loboc, Bohol)
Churches at the center of civic life (Paoay, Ilocos Norte)
Churches at the Center of civic life (Taal, Batangas)