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It was the Jesuits who established Ugmok as one of its mission centers 20 years
later in May 1597, with Frs. Alonso Rodriguez and Leonardo Scelsi assuming the task
of planting the seeds of Christianity. Ugmok was the only settlement in the west
coast of the island privileged to become such a center along with Carigara, Palo,
Alangalang and Dulag in the east.
The surprised Jesuits found in Kaugmokanos willing converts. In fact during their
arrival, they were welcomed by a local chief (datu) who at once made arrangements
for his baptism. He had the prayers written down so that he might learn them. The
other chiefs followed his example, copying the prayers on bamboo strips that they
used as paper. Moreover they offered all their children, and the Jesuits built a school
for them as they did in Dulag.
Despite the eagerness of the natives to be baptized, however, the Jesuits proceeded
with caution and prudence, taking time to teach them catechism before giving them
the sacrament of baptism. They noted that those who were baptized had known for
many years matters of the Catholic faith judging by their knowledge of its
mysteries. They highly valued the confessional, and when they became sick, they
clamored at once for the missionary and found relief in making their confession.
It was here in Ogmuk that the Jesuits were able to develop the so-called ratio
estudiorum or pedagogical code in the teaching of catechism to children, a practice
that was later adopted in other missions. They divided the catechism course into
several grades. Each grade had to learn part of the catechism, progressively more
difficult, and pass an examination on it before going on to the next grade.
One major problem facing the missionaries however was the nature of the
settlement here. The natives tended to live close to their farms and their hunting
grounds, and the mission center would be populated only during Sundays when
they came to hear mass and chant the catechism. But with the mass over, they
dispersed at once to their microscopic settlements without the missionarys being
able to detain them for a few days instruction. To perform their mission, the Jesuits
had to travel continually from one settlement to another. This became the greatest
obstacle to their work.
This could also be one major reason why it took the Jesuits more than 30 years
before the Ormoc parish and pueblo was formally established.
Changes in assignments
The shortage of missionaries compelled the Jesuit superior at that time, Fr. Diego
Garcia, to reassign the missionaries in fewer houses, with some of their earlier
missions being turned into visitas which they would regularly visit. This happened
after their first conference in Palo in January 1600 attended by 26 priests. In that
month-long conference, it was agreed to merge Palo and Dulag at the latter, while
Alang-alang, Carigara and Ogmuk would have its center at Alangalang. But due to
Ogmuks peculiar location, it was going to be administered by a priest and a brother
in permanent residence, who were to be relieved from Alangalang every three or
four months. That year, the priests in Ogmuk had baptized 646 natives out of a
population of more than 4,000, covering two other neighboring pueblos.
Barely eight years after the Jesuits started their evangelization program, in 1605,
native warriors from at least three tribal groups from the island of Mindanao started
to pillage the thriving Ogmuk settlement.
The Karagas proceeded to Ugmok after they were through with Baybay and other
coastal towns which they left devastated. The Kaugmukanons were quick and that
was to their great advantage. Still their efforts were useless to counteract the
enemy's barbarism. The Karagas took 90 captives and they left the fields splattered
with human flesh and cadavers.
The next attack came in 1608, this time, by the Sanguils. They came in ships like
the Karagans, passing the strait of Panao island at a time when the sea current was
favorable. The Sanguils first attacked the settlement of Ogmuk, plundering and
destroying it
Finally, in 1634, the third group of marauders from Mindanao, the Maguindanaos.
organized an expedition headed by a young sultan named Cachil Korralat, with 22
vessels and some 1,500 fighting men. They attacked Ogmuk on December 4, 1634,
four years after it was formally established as a parish. The Jesuits here had started
to fortify the town, but only a small stockade of wood near the church had been
completed. While the townspeople fled, 50 warriors made a stand in this stockade
and the adjoining church. With them was the resident missionary Fr. Juan del Carpio.
The Magindanaus took the church at their first onslaught, penned the defenders in
the stockade, and set fire to it. Tormented by the heat and smoke, the gallant little
garrison surrendered. The visitors immediately began to divide them up as prizes;
but when they came to Fr. Carpio, Corralat ordered the Jesuit put to death. As soon
as he heard his doom, Carpio knelt to pray, and praying thus received the blow of
the kampilan.
Jesuit Expulsion
The vaunted success of the Jesuits in the conversion of natives to Catholicism did
not in any way deter the Spanish crown from expelling them from the Spanish
colonies. Ever since they started speaking against the abuses of the Spanish
authorities and the encomenderos, the Jesuits were marked. They were charged
that they preached against the government and that the Jesuit Provincial had
maintained illicit communication with the English general during their occupation of
Manila.
On the morning of May 19, 1768, after 187 years, Jesuit missionary work in the
Philippine Islands was finished.
A few months after the expulsion orders were signed, a commander of the royal
navy, Don Pablo Verdote, took charge of rounding up the Jesuits in Leyte. The first
residencia to be closed was that of Ugmok. In his report, he said he had with him
the Reverend Father Fray Francisco Martinez of the Order of St. Agustin. The
turnover ceremonies were witnessed by the local officials and principalia. He then
made an inventory of the gold and silver vessels and the arms belonging to the
church. Fr. Luis Secanell, the last Jesuit parish priest here, left with the boat.
The settlement had not changed much during the 171 years under Jesuit tutelage.
True, many Kaugmokanos had embraced Catholicism and its practices, and a lot of
them had become devotees of the faith. But there was little change in their way of
life. They were still aversed to living in the town.
One problem the Augustinians faced had to do with the communities that they were
supposed to preach to. The Jesuits' sudden departure had doubtless aroused the
natives' suspicion, forcing many of them to pack up their meager belongings and
leave the pueblos for the familiar forests nearby. Unlike the Jesuits who were
welcomed by the natives, the newcomers seemed to be unwelcome.
One other major cause for worry to the newcomers were the Moro raids that had
caused a lot of trouble for the early missions more than 150 years before.
Apparently, the Moro depredations had persisted even up to 1770s. The Augustinian
superior Fr. Victoria noted that in the recent years, that province alone counted two
thousand captives from the year of 68 [1768].
Despite their problems, however, the Augustinians had roads and schools built. Here
in Ogmuk, they built four rural schools. In agriculture, they introduced work animals
for plowing and the use of the plow.
The modern day towns became possible only because the early missionaries
assigned to preach in native settlements exerted utmost efforts to gather them into
the center of the town, with the church as the focal point. This is why the origins of
pueblos are always intertwined with the origins of parishes. This is especially true in
Ogmuk which became a parish as early as 1630 when the Jesuits were still
preaching here.
When the natives started to put up their residence in the town center, it became
necessary to have some sort of a governing body, with the local chiefs under it. At
the start, the encomenderos served as petty governors. Later, they were replaced
by local chiefs or principalia, and called as gobernadores, capitanes municipal or
gobernadorcillos. Even in the absence of a priest, Ogmuk continued to be governed
by them.
But a pueblo without its own priest could not have been complete because to
church authorities, it was just a visita, which would be administered only at the
whims of the priest of the mother parish. For all intents and purposes, a priest
played a very important role in the lives of the people not just in the administration
of sacraments. But even in civil matters, priests were often consulted. For instance,
in the election of town officials, the presence of the parish priest was often required.
In that petition, the residents argued that Ormoc already had enough tributos (tax
payers) to be able to support a parish. It had 1,907 tax payers, much bigger than
Palompons 626. Moreover, its distance from Palompon was about six to seven
leagues by sea (equivalent to 18 to 21 miles), which made travel difficult for the
priest.
But the petitioners main arguments centered on the attitudes of the priest
themselves, Don Mateo Samson and his coadjutor Don Florentino Antonio, whom
they obviously disliked.
Nothing was heard of the petition until 11 years later. On October 18, 1850, Bishop
Romualdo wrote to the governor general, making his final recommendation to
separate Ormoc from Palompon parish. The bishop also conformed to the request of
Fr. Luciano to be assigned to Ormoc by right of his being parish priest of
Palompon.
The altar of Sts. Peter & Paul Parish before its renovation in 2007.
Finally, the Superior Gobierno y Capitania General de Pilipinas, the official governing
body in Manila, in a resolution dated November 13, 1850 declared Ormoc to be an
independent parish. The parish was formally installed on December 21, 1850,
evidently with much pomp and celebration.
By then the church was already an imposing building of stone 240 yards long, 85
yards wide and 45 yards tall, and with a roof made of nipa. It had a parochial house
made of wood, connected to the church, 150 yards wide and 75 yards from its
foundation. The parish was under the Vicaria de la Costa Occidental de Leyte under
the Diocese of Cebu.
A harvest of vocations
The reestablishment of the parish could have prodded prominent families here to
send their sons to the Seminario de San Carlos in Cebu for their priestly education.
By the 1870s till 1904, Ormoc was blessed with producing at least eight native
priests, one of whom would figure out as a founder of a pioneer Catholic School in
the entire region in the person of Fr. Ismael Cataag who founded the St. Peters
Academy of Ormoc in 1914. The list does not include the ones who finished in other
seminaries, particularly, in Manila.
Note the names of the priests and the years that they were ordained.
Prospero Esmero September 28, 1873
Enrique Carillo August 13, 1876
Gregorio Ortiz June 3, 1882
Juan Miroy December 21, 1889
Flaviano Daffon December 17, 1897
Pelagio Aviles November 1, 1898
Ismael Cataag August 13, 1899
Sergio Eamiguel June 5, 1904
Succession
The list of secular parish priests ministering Ormoc is shown below as derived from
two sources.
The frontage was sparse in its ornamentation, and its door was made of unadorned
thick hard wood that had an iron bolt. But on each side was a gargoyle-like figure
that guarded the entrance, carved from stone. Above the door just below the roof
were three stone cherubs. To the left side of the entrance was the belfry. The
windows had stained glass of different colors. Church benches were donated by
Ormocanon families, in diverse designs, their names carved into each bench.
To the right of the entrance was the rectory that housed the priests. It was made of
wood and roofed with nipa at the turn of the 20th century until the outbreak of the
war. A circular stone structure served as the kitchen. This is now where the grotto
stands. At its side was a well that provided safe drinking water. It also served as the
starting point to measure distance as Km 0.
The present rectory used to be a convent of the German Benedictine sisters in the
early 1930 before they were able to build their own residence at the present SPC
site. When Fr. Ismael Cataag became parish priest, he donated his familys property
for the sisters to build their convent and to continue to administer the parish school
which Fr. Cataag himself founded in 1914.
All of these structures were surrounded by a stone wall designed to protect the
church and rectory from moro depredations.
But the second world was shattered all that. In November 1944, the Americans
rained bombs on the city, hitting the church and surrounding structures, apparently
mistaking it for the Japanese hospital. What remained of the beautiful stone church
was the frontwere the altar was located. Precious church documents that detailed
the births, marriages and deaths of Ormocanons likewise perished.
The priests assigned here after the war took it upon themselves to rebuild the
church and the rectory, year after year, initiating fund raising activities locally and
soliciting from other external sources. Since then, the church always seemed to be a
work in progress as each new parish priest introduced improvements.