DELA CERNA
It was a rare treat to have two lectures in one day (July 13) by a research scholar and an archivist. Dr. Christina Lee, a research scholar of the Spanish and Portuguese Studies of Princeton University, and Mr. Victorino Manalo, the director of the National Archives of the Philippines. The morning lecture of Dr. Lee was organized by the USC Museum to celebrate its 50th year and the National Archives of the Philippines, while the afternoon lecture of Mr. Manalo was organized by the Archdiocesan Museum and the National Archives of the Philippines.
Dr. Lee’s “Archival Sources on the Santo Niño de Cebu” generated interesting points. The founding of the Santo Niño was a miracle for Legazpi for it exonerated his disobedience of the Viceroy. Citing Pigafetta, Magellan’s chronicler and Rodriguez, Legazpi’s chronicler and the other Spanish and Portuguese and Italian scholars, claims of ownership ensued between the Spaniards who claimed the Santo Niño is of Spanish origin while the Cebuano natives insisted on the ownership of the statue.
One source cited that there was the practice of the natives to be baptized in the sea but later in the rain. Another source cited that the natives used “water torture” on the Santo Niño where the natives immersed the statue in the water when they needed water in the fields. They removed it only when the rain came. The Cebuanos made it immemorial because of the many miracles, making it their deity. It seems this practice of immersing the statue in water is still done at present. When there is fire people immerse the Santo Niño in a pail of water so that the fire will be put off.
The Santo Niño was used to justify colonization, and the Spaniards tried to keep the Santo Niño away from the natives. The Cebuano resistance to the Spanish administration made them claim that the Santo Niño is theirs because of the incoherence of the Spaniards who claimed that they were there to Christianize but forced the natives to pay exorbitant tributes by using torture and other inhuman means of persecution.
Mr. Manalo’s “Reading Boljoon: From Records to Retablo” focused on three points: the importance of church records, giving voice to the voiceless and reading against the grain. Reading the baptistery records gives us ideas of our past. Reading against the grain, the question raised by the natives is what did we or our ancestors do to you that you pillage us? This gives the idea of balos which has two meanings: to give back a favor or to fight back after being hurt. The question also gives the concept of history.
Mr. Manalo cited the four centuries of inventories of records and the retablo in Boljoon. The inventories included fabrics from different parts of the world and embroidery, motifs and designs of the statues including the benches, the pulpit with birds as symbol of power of the church and fruits like the pomegranate as the symbol of fertility. There was a variety of crosses as a product of doodling of the devotees. There were also tools for the annual cycle such as fiesta, Lent, Easter, Christmas and instruments for life such as the arras for weddings.
From records to relics, there was the aesthetics of intimacy as revealed in the embroidery. For the vestments, embroidery was bold to as to be seen from afar. Philippine embroidery is fine, see-through, transparent. The subtlety of embroidery is seen in the case of the statue of our Lady touched and carried by the devotee.
The image of sanctity is reflective of the Asian tradition of showing the faces of sacredness in the statues especially of the Virgin Mary.
The retablo is the main feature of the church. It can be found mainly behind the altar and the façade of the church. Chinese artisans were asked to make retablos, that’s why there are Chinese touches in some of the retablos in the country.
From Mr. Manalo’s lecture, it is clear records are a colonial tool, of realienation. They mold our minds as a record is made. Record keeping is part of colonization. They integrated us into the Spanish world while at the same time alienating us. What records do not show is the church as sacred, heavenly space. But the church is magical, which we do not understand, that is why other stories come out. Example of these narratives of loss is the baptistery which is lost.
Reclaiming the records is evident in the surfacing of Visayan words in the records. To get back what we had, Mr. Manalo urges three things: start remembering, start recording, start knowing again the stories.
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