Current writings of Philippine history claim, that the revolt instigated by Datu Bankaw in 1622 in Carigara and five other villages, was principally motivated by ‘religious’ intent, readily embracing the accounts of early historians, like the Augustinian Casimiro Diaz and the Jesuit Murillo Velarde, as gospel truth. Yet a cursory analysis of the conditions surrounding the event belie that argument.
The revolt was unexpected. In his younger days, Bankaw was the ruler of Limasawa in 1565 when Miguel Lopez de Legazpi arrived in Leyte, receiving with friendly welcome the Spanish conquistador and his men, supplying them with the food they needed. For that act, Philippe II sent him a royal decree, thanking him for the kind hospitality which he showed to those first Spaniards. He was baptized and, although a young man, showed that he was loyal to the Christians.
But as the years went by, he found it harder to accept the onerous tributes which he and his people were being forced to pay. In 1571, Legazpi instituted the so-called encomienda system, partitioning the entire archipelago into districts or enclaves as rewards to faithful soldiers empowered to collect tributes from the natives. Carigara and its neighboring villages were awarded to Juan de Trujillo. The system was prone to abuse, especially since the encomendero often came with a retinue of armed soldiers. Such abuses are well documented in our history. In some interior villages of Leyte at that time, like Dagami and Abuyog, encomenderos were killed by irate natives.
Naturally Bankaw and his fellow Carigaran-ons longed to restore the time where they were free of the tributes, and they partly blamed the Jesuit missionaries because a portion of the tribute collection went to them. In their anger, they desecrated religious icons and images of the new religion being preached by the missionaries. The Spanish historians would interpret the rebellious act as an offshoot of Bankaw’s desire to rule as king of Leyte, something impossible to achieve given the conditions of the island at that time.
The rebellion erupted when Bankaw was already in his 70s. That it took them 51 years to rise up after the imposition of the encomienda is an indication of their resilience. We can only guess what finally triggered the event. It was said to have been led by his son, a product of the Jesuit boarding school in Dulag, and another man called Pagali, who acted as the priest of their re-instituted religion. Like the Christian religion which taught belief in miracles, Bankaw and his followers believed that they could change the Spaniards into stones by just repeating the word ‘bato’ (the Visayan word for ‘stone’), thus immobilizing them. Women dressed in white and children were also taught to fling handfuls of earth on their enemies, and they would turn into clay. Somehow, the thought erased the fear that the natives had of the better-armed Spaniards.
Alarmed, the Jesuit missionary in Carigara at that time, Fr. Melchor de Vera, sailed for Cebu to ask for help. The alcalde of Cebu dispatched Captain Juan de Alcarazo, who equipped an armada of some 40 vessels, filled with Spaniards and natives friendly to them. When the armada arrived in Carigara, Alcarazo joined forces with the group organized by Leyte’s alcalde. When Bankaw’s men saw Alcarazo, they fled to the hills, leaving the old datu with his family and some slaves in their little chapel. They had reasons to fear because they knew Alcarazo was responsible for suppressing the Tamblot rebellion in Bohol earlier.
The enraged soldiers followed the fleeing rebels and killed those who were caught, not even sparing the women and children.[1] An unknown number of rebels died, frustrated that their attempts to turn the Spaniards into clay or stone had failed. The others survived by fleeing. When the Spaniards found the chapel of Bankaw, they encamped there for some 10 days, not knowing where to find the rebel leader. One day they saw an old man being carried by some slaves on their shoulders. Immediately he was killed by a soldier, not knowing that it was Bankaw himself. After he was identifed, they beheaded his dead body and impaled his head on a stake to teach the natives a lesson.
His second son was likewise beheaded and a daughter taken captive. To inspire greater terror, the captain ordered three or four more rebels shot and one of their priests burned – ‘in order that by the light of that fire, the blindness in which the diwata had kept them deluded might be removed.’ The Spaniards also cut off the head of one native who had earlier robbed Fr. Vilancio, broken to pieces an image of the virgin, and kicked a crucifix. His head was set up in the same place where he committed the sacrileges.[2]
The Bankaw revolt was the first documented organized resistance against Spanish colonial abuses in Leyte, and stands as one among many similar pockets of resistance during that period in the entire archipelago.
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[1] ‘For with the enemy came many women clad in white, and many children, in order to pick up bits of earth and scatter them on the wind as the demon had told them – believing that if they did so the Spaniards would fall dead.; but the test of this proved proved very costly to them. The demon had also promised them that he would resuscitate those slain in battle; but when they carried some of the dead to his temple for him to do this, he replied with ridiculous excuses that he could not do it.- Casimiro Diaz O.S.A.
[2] The account is from Murillo Velarde’s Historia de Philipinas, fol. 17, 18; Diaz adds some additional notes. [Blair and Robertson, The Philippine Islands, Vol. 38, pp. 91-94]
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