Second election as provincial of our father Fray Alonso Quijano; conversion of the villages of Aclán and Vera; the undertakings of Admiral Pedro Durán against the Igolotes; death of our father the ex-provincial Fray Diego de Ordax; and other events.
(1665–67)
Our father Fray Alonso Coronel having completed the term of three years of his government—which was filled with fears and hardships, because of the unfortunate events that we have just related in the threats of the pirate Kuesing Pompoán—the time assigned for the celebration of the chapter in the convent of Manila arrived, namely, April 25, 1665. The senior father definitor, Fray Luis de Medina, presided at that chapter, in which our father Fray Alonso Quijano was elected for the second time, as he was a person of whom this province had experienced the worthiness of administering the government of it; for he had ruled so efficiently during the triennium when he was provincial the first time. As definitors were elected the following fathers: Fray Tomás de Villanueva, Fray Cosme de Hiz,[69] Fray Francisco del Moral,[70] and Fray Enrique de Castro.[71] The visitors of the past triennium were present, fathers Fray José de Mendoza,[72] and Fray Francisco de Medina de Basco;[73] and as new visitors were elected the father lecturer Fray Cristobal Marroquí[74] and Fray Carlos Bautista.[75] They passed very useful acts for the efficient government of the province, and such that one recognizes the care and vigilance that were taken in preventing the slightest neglect in matters pertaining to the regular observance, and in the care for better administration in the office of parish priest. In that chapter was renewed once more the urgent request of the governor for the list of the appointments of prior-ministers. But it was resolved not to establish such a precedent and they were aided in that by the fathers of St. Dominic, who also held their chapter on the same day—when they elected as their provincial father Fray Juan de los Ángeles, who was worthy of that name because of his many virtues.
The new provincial, seeing the lack of religious from which this province was suffering, on account of its failure to receive large missions, which would furnish abundant workers for the maintenance of so many and remote convents and missions as were in its charge—for, although diligent efforts had been made to remedy that lack, three procurators who had been sent to España had died; and the third, father Fray José Botoño, after having been forced to put back to port twice, died during the voyage, the third time when he embarked—appointed for that duty father Fray Isidro Rodríguez, a native of Madrid and minister of the province of Pampanga, of whom we have given a memorial in the [relation of the] insurrection of the said province. That was an excellent appointment, for he made his voyage successfully, having embarked on the galleon “Nuestra Señora de la Concepción,” under command of the commander José de Zamora. He brought back the most numerous mission that had thus far entered these islands.
On June 17, 1665, the fortunate galleon “San José” arrived at the port of Cavite, with the most illustrious bishop of Cebú, already consecrated, the master Don Fray Juan López, of the Order of Preachers, native of Martín-Muñoz de las Pasadas. He was a prelate who gave great consolation to the Christian people of these islands—both in the bishopric of Cebú, where he remained for seven years; and in Manila, where he died archbishop-elect in the year 1674, after having suffered many cares. He was a very learned and affable prelate, and was accordingly greatly beloved by all. In the same galleon came also the auditor Licentiate Don Juan de Peña Bonifáz, a native of Segovia, of whom there will be much to say in due time, because of his beginning to govern the military department in the year 1668, which was the origin of great disturbances.
Near the boundaries of the province of Ilocos, in the mountains of Cape Engaño, near the province of Cagayán, belonging to the mission of the convent of Bacarra, the conversion of the natives of the villages of Aclán and Vera (now Bangbanglo) was commenced that year by the ardent zeal and diligence of father Fray Benito de Mena, a native of Manila and son of our Manila convent San Pablo; he was a religious of great virtue, and one very fluent in the tongues of Ilocos and Cagayán. Those villages are more than twenty leguas distant from the central town Bacarra; and their people are a barbarous and spirited nation, and for that reason are feared by the Indians round about. They are known by the name of Payaos.[76] That nation had not received the light of the holy gospel, because of the ruggedness of their mountains. They were living in the darkness of their blind paganism, protected by the inaccessibility of those lofty mountains, and exempt from the yoke of subjection—the only means by which one is able to introduce the evangelical preaching among barbarous nations. For since they are the last nations whom the Celestial Paterfamilias invites to the banquet of glory, which so many noble and civilized nations have despised, in them is verified the command to make them enter by means of force: Compelle intrare, ut impleatur domus mea.[77]...
Father Fray Benito, moved to piety by his great zeal at seeing how difficult it was for those natives to receive the knowledge of our faith in that way, as they were remote and invincible, having first consulted with God in prayer, determined to enter those mountains, accompanied, in order to remove suspicions, by only the few whom he could take. He went to the village of Bañgui, the last visita of Bacarra, where he established a military base [plaza de armas] for that spiritual conquest. Bañgui is distant four long leguas from the first settlement of the Payaos,and one must ascend a river with a strong current. Wisely repeating his entrances by means of that river, he introduced himself gradually among them, and preached the holy gospel to them, which they heard without any difficulty, as they are a people who have but little tenacity in holding to their heathen ceremonies. They only practice various superstitions, auguries, and a servile worship to the souls of their first progenitors—whom they reverenced not as gods, but like the Indigetes[78] of the Romans, to whom the people offered sacrifices to keep them propitious. This method of worshiping deceased ancestors is very common in these Filipinas, and very difficult to stamp out, even in those who are to all appearances faithful Christians. For in this regard fear has a great influence over them; and most of them believe that it is not opposed to the Christian faith to place on one and the same altar the ark of the testament and the idol Dagón.... But scarce a trace of this malign belief is to be found in the villages near Manila.
[Many miracles and prodigies influence those rude people to receive baptism. Especially efficacious for the faith is the resurrection of a child who has died, and who after receiving holy baptism dies again (five hundred and two persons becoming baptized in consequence). A leper is also healed with the ceremony of baptism. The chief seeks salvation in the holy waters before his death. The new converts prove exceptionally clever in learning the prayers and the Christian doctrine, a night or a day often sufficing.]
Great were the troubles that father Fray Benito de Mena suffered in that conversion, because of the steepness of the mountains, and because there was no lack of ministers of Satan among the Payaos who endeavored to dissuade the people from what that religious was teaching them. But he, persevering in teaching them the truth until the year 1668, attained the fruit of his fatigue; for he converted so many that he was able to found the three villages of Aclán, Vera, and Bangbanglo, which were administered in the church that he built in the village of Aclán under the advocacy of St. Catherine, virgin and martyr. Those villages are today a part of the ministry of Bañgui, the most remote of all this island of Manila. A settled minister is assigned to it when there are plenty of religious in this province for such work. When there is the greatest lack of religious, the administration is under the charge of the prior and minister of the village of Bacarra.
The villages of Aclán and Vera are very useful as frontiers opposed to the Calanasas, a cruel heathen nation; and for that reason the governors of Manila have exempted them from paying tribute. That religious Fray Benito de Mena was an able evangelical minister, and obtained much fruit in the province of Ilocos. He was much given to prayer and mortification; and a long chapter could be written of his life, if the notices of the curious prodigies that happened to him had not been lost—events in the conversion of the Indians of the mountains of Aclán and Vera, and in other villages of that province, where he died holily as prior of the convent of Bacarra in 1676.