Toledo in the eyes of Juan Climaco, 1886

Jobers Bersales

(Conclusion)

Before I proceed to connect with last week’s column again, let me invite everyone to the Book Talk and Signing of “The Feast of the Santo Niño: An Introduction to the History of a Cebuano Devotion” tomorrow at 3:30–5 p.m. at the Aula Magan of the Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño. This 140-page softcover is latest work by acclaimed writer, essayist and social historian Dr. Resil Mojares, the lone professor emeritus of USC and founding director of the USC Cebuano Studies Center.

USC Press and the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño are co-hosting the event which will be predicated by the 2 p.m. Mass in celebration of the annual “Hubo” ceremony, with Fr. Pacifico Nohara, OSA, prior of the Basilica as main celebrant. After a brief pause following the Mass, people can proceed to the Aula Magna where the book talk and signing will happen. Copies of the book, selling for P350, will be available at the venue and, later, at the Basilica Gift Shop, among others.

* * *

Let me conclude this series of articles on Juan Climaco and his brief sketch of the town of Toledo, which he submitted for the 1887 Philippine Exposition in Madrid. For a backgrounder on this, I refer you to the other week’s column in this space.

Climaco located the town’s future in the development of agriculture, but in the same vein, he warns of the obstacles that lie ahead. Among these is one that he clearly and in much detail identifies is the problem with tenant farming, where tenants easily leave the farm if they do not like and instead opt to carry out “caingin” on public forest lands. Thus, Climaco adds pointedly: “The lack of labor or the absence of work is the first barrier encountered by those who are engaged in this branch of industry and the few who pretend to do it do not seem to be the cause of the ruin of farmers…No one can get tenants or day laborers without advancing payment in coins that they ask for…More than one have the conviction that those who are hired do not comply with the commitments made, appealing to escape to get rid of them — That is, to address these, the authorities will enforce them and correct the abuses committed.”

To address this, Climaco provides one solution carried out by landowners that remind you of illegal recruiters, thus: “The only measures taken by the landowners, which until now have been successful in countering these frequent abuses, is to hold the personal cedulas of the respective tenants and day laborers, giving them instead a little piece of paper which says that the landowner is responsible for the presentation of the respective cedula (residence certificate) of the bearer and therefore, prays to the ministers of justice of the locality not to stop the undocumented from within the jurisdiction in which the property is located where he works.”

Unfortunately, Climaco reports a related perennial problem with this: “…the bearers of those documents are the ones most apprehended, although the guarantors are well-known and responsible people.”

From here on, one finds Climaco writing dangerously to the point of being almost subversive if not subtly questioning of colonial authorities. In a lengthy portion of the article, he laments the failure of the authorities to curb the destruction of forestlands illegally, through the aforementioned “caingin,” where vast tracts of land, 100 hectares a year according to him, are burned to give way to just one round of planting corn or camote after which cogon grasses take over, the trees now just a memory.

“The various decrees of the Governor-General of these Islands absolutely prohibit the felling of forests or ‘caingin.’ In addition to this measure defending the interests of the State, the climatic, hygienic or hydrological conditions of the people or place are favored the same time. Although indirectly to agriculture in relation to the element of labor, if only the spirit of those executing this had the energy to rigorously impose the penalties available to the offenders.”

Then he makes a suggestion, aware that he is treading on dangerous ground: “In order to ensure that protection is decisive, in our humble opinion, we believe that these provisions are not sufficient to favor the development of the agricultural industry but that it is necessary for the State to recover all the land whose owners have not so far applied for to legitimize the possession in accordance with the legislation in force, to enact these in public auction. In this way those who acquire these properties for their own convenience would be encouraged to improve them so that the benefits that are obtained are proportionate to the capital invested in the purchase. But this has not happened nor will it happen as long as it continues under the dominion of the present owners for the reasons that we have just exposed.”

Unfortunately, once again space will not allow me to continue, but I am currently writing more of this sketch for a future scholarly article. In the few books written about the “Tres de Abril” (April 3) 1898 incident that finally brought the Katipunan-led anti-Spanish Revolution to Cebu, Juan Climaco is patently absent. What emerges are speculations that his position in Toledo — first as a young gobernadorcillo (today’s mayor) prior to 1886 — to perhaps that of Capitan Municipal (following the promulgation of the Maura Law reforms on the local government system in the Spanish colonies in 1893), may have prevented him from breaking away from the Spanish authorities.

Perhaps his commentaries on this 59-page handwritten document will help shed light on the way he looked at his town vis-a-vis the failure of Spanish authorities to help it, at pain of being labeled subversive and thus help us rethink his supposed “absence” during the revolution as it unfolded in Cebu 12 years after this document was written.