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Region 8: Eastern Visayas ••• Leyte LEYTE Separated
by the narrow San Juanico Strait, Leyte Province is easily accessible
by bus because it lies along the Pan Philippine (Maharlika) Highway. Tacloban is the transportation hub of
Leyte, where an airport is located.
From Tacloban coastal towns are accessible through a road
network follows the coastline, with a crossing from Baybay on the
west coast to Abuyog on the east.
Ecclesiastically, Samar and Leyte were treated as one territory
until the 20th century when in 1937, Leyte was separated
from Calbayog as a diocese with its seat in Palo.
Carigara Situated
on Leyte’s northern coast, Carigara is said to have been named
after a local chief named Gara.
In
1575, Carigara was established as a colonial town. It is one of
the oldest towns in Leyte.
In earlier times it encompassed Barugo, Leyte, and Samputan. Carigara was awarded to Juan de Truxillo as an encomienda. In 1580, the Augustinian Fray Alonso Velásquez
with Alonso Gimenez and Miguel Perpiñan had begun evangelizing
Leyte. However, Gimenez
was assigned to Bicol, Perpiñan was captured by slave raiders,
leaving Velazquez alone to do the heroic job of building a chapel,
laying roads between Dagami and Tanuan and establishing schools. But in a 1591 report by Gov. Dasmariñas to the king,
it is written, “Juan de Truxillo collects tribute along the
river of Carigara. It has justice, and is peaceful, but has no instruction.
It needs one minister.”
No instruction meaning that the Christian faith was not adequately
taught; no minister meaning no resident missionary.
Velasquez may have died or had been assigned elsewhere. The vacancy was to be filled by the Jesuits who arrived four
years later and remained in Leyte until 1768. 0n
16 July 1595, the Jesuits Pedro Chirino, Antonio Pereira, Juan del
Campo, and Cosme Flores landed at Carigara. After planting a cross
and celebrating Mass on the shore they proceeded to meet the encomendero
of Carigara. It was the feast of El Triunfo de la Cruz which commemorated
Christian victory over the Moors in 1212 in the battle at Las Navas
de Tolosa. Thereafter, the Jesuits turned Carigara into a central
residence. In
1600, the vice-provincial Diego García visited Leyte and
Samar and ordered that the Jesuits reduce their residences to two:
one at Carigara and the other at Dulag.
At this time the Jesuit mission in the Philippines was not
yet constituted as an independent province but as a vice-province
attached to Mexico. In
1601, Carigara, now a cabecera or central residence, had under its jurisdiction
Leyte, Jaro, Ormoc, Alang-alang, Baybay, Cabalian, Sogod, Pono,
and Panaon. Around
1608, Sanguils and raiders from Mindanao attacked Carigara and burnt
the Jesuit-built church and convento.
In 1608, Datu Bwisan and Raja Mura made sustained slaving
raids on the towns of Leyte, according to Chirino. In
1621–22, These were difficult years for the Visayan missions.
In Bohol the Diwata rebellion was raging.
Bankaw, the ruling datu of Limasawa (and who had helped Legazpi’s
fleet, thereby gaining honors from Philip II) was inspired by the
revolt in Bohol and went around inciting the Leyteños to
likewise revolt. He was by then in his seventies.
Pagali, one of Bankaw’s relative and a shaman, told
the people that by merely uttering the word “bato” all
the Spaniards would calcify and in this way they were assured victory.
The women could then mix their enemies, now lumps of hardened
clay, with water for making pots.
Pagali succeeded in persuading some leaders of Carigara to
join the revolt. Six towns participated in the revolt,
and Bankaw set up his stronghold in Carigara. The
rector Melchor de Vera left for Cebu and carried news of the rebellion
to Don Juan de Alcarazo the governor of Cebu who had just returned
from a successful campaign against the Boholanos.
Putting to sea 40 ships he sailed for Leyte. Bankaw
refused to surrender until he was killed in a skirmish. He and his
second son were killed, his daughter enslaved, and many other rebels
put to the sword. The rest fled in panic.
The survivors set out to rebuild Carigara. In
1625, Carigara was raised to the status of parish. In
1629, another Moro raid. After this incident de Vera, while in Carigara,
brooked the idea of securing churches by building defensive walls. In
1768, Carigara with the rest of Leyte was ceded to the Augustinians.
The townsite was moved more than once. An earlier settlement was
located a kilometer inland from the present site of Carigara, at
a place called Uyawan, Kuta or Canal. In
1967, Makabenta and Salazar claimed that “the ruins of two
old churches and the casa-real are still to be found there. One
of the ruined walls is a source of never-ending curiosity. On it
is the imprint of a big hand which legend says is that of a Kapitan
(chieftain) of the town. But who he was or why he left the mark
of his hand on the wall no one can tell.” In
1786, Redondo reports that as of 1884 the oldest parish records
dated to this year, the time of the Augustinians. In
1843, Carigara was ceded to the Franciscans. Huerta attributes Carigara to the Jesuits: “The church,
under the advocacy of the Triumph of the Cross, is of solid construction,
and built by the Jesuits, so too the parish house.” Pore
(corroborated by Macaventa [1995:75]) seems to contradict Huerta
for he reports that in 1859, the old church was so dilapidated that
Bishop Romualdo Jimeno of Cebu ordered Fray José Hilarión
Corvera to tear it down and build a new one. Maestro Remegio Tecson
supervised construction and changed the orientation of the new church
from a southerly one to a northerly. Special stones and hardware
came from China, Mexico, and Europe, tiles from Meycauayan, and
hardwoods from the forests nearby. The church took 20 years to build. In 1866, the altar was consecrated and
in 1879 the church was finally completed during the incumbency of
Fray Bernardino de Rebolledo. In
1896, The Franciscans left Carigara and the parish passed on to
the seculars in 1898. Fr.
Ignacio Mora was the first secular pastor of Carigara. If
Pore is correct, then Repetti has misidentified the church he reproduces
in his book as Jesuit. However, present church of Carigara has been
so drastically remodeled that its façade no longer bears
any resemblance to colonial architectural styles. The façade
is unusually thick, about three m. The original façade, it
is said, has been covered by new layers of cement. The present Carigara
church is single-naved. Heritage
sites: By all accounts the church in the Carigara
poblacion is a new construction.
So much renovations have been done on the fabric, especially
the façade which is about three meters thick, that meaningful
assessment of its historic architecture is difficult.
This poblacion church apparently has incorporated some of
the Franciscan built structure.
The old town site of Umyawan or Kuta was recently declared
a historic site and a marker from the National Historical Institute
was placed in the site. Balay:
Built in the manner of the colonial bahay na bato, a bipartite structure
of stone for the lower story and wood for the upper, are a number
of houses in Carigara. The
most notable are Bough residence, constructed by Gustavus Bough
an American doctor who was one of the early medical practitioners
in the town. More interesting is the early 20th-century residence
built by a Chinese merchant popularly called “gawas sa harigi”
for the unusual construction where the house posts, raised on stone
plinths and terminating in wooden capitals are positioned outside
the house such that the walls wrap around the posts, and posts form
a pleasing colonnade of wood. Watchtower:
Some five kilometers west of the poblacion is a watchtower of rubble. It stands between ricefields and mangrove
forests. Macventa (1995:
66) reports other watchtowers in Tangnan and Guindaponan, and a
third in Carigara itself, which has been demolished. |
