While
the moro raids came with increasing ferocity, the Jesuits had to face rebellion
at home. In Bohol, Tamblot had erupted against his Spanish masters, mobilizing
hundreds of followers in several villages. Apparently, the movement of Bancao[i]
in Leyte was timed with that of Bohol. But the natives of Carigara , the center
of rebellion, and five other neighboring villages became impatient, and
revolted without waiting for the result in Bohol.
In
his younger days, Bancao was the ruling chief of Limasawa in 1565 when Legazpi arrived in Leyte, receiving with
friendly welcome the Spanish conquistador
and the Spaniards who came to his island, supplying them with what 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. He longed for his younger days when they
were free from such burdens and worshipped their own deities in their ancient
rituals. The Spanish historians would interpret the rebellious act as an
offshoot of Bancao’s desire to rule as king of Leyte.
The
rebellion erupted when Bancao was already in his 70s. He had to have alter egos
who would carry the torch of rebellion so to speak. There was his son, said to
be a product of the Jesuit seminary of Dulag, and another man called Pagali who
acted as the priest of his re-instituted religion. Like the Christian religion
which taught belief in miracles, Bancao 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 who dressed in white and children were also
taught to fling handfuls of earth on their enemies, and they would turn into
clay. That erased the fear that the natives had of the 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 Bancao’s men saw Alcarazo,
they fled to the hills, leaving Bancao 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.[ii] 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 Bancao, 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 Bancao
himself. With that discovery, 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.[iii]
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| Fertility aid |
[i]
Bancao must have been then at least 75
years old at the time of this revolt. Fr. Casiniro Diaz OSA said that Bancao was ‘very old and
decrepit.’ He also said Bancao was desirous of becoming king of the island of
Leyte. [Murillo
Velarde’s Historia de Philipinas, Emma
Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson,
The Philippine Islands, 1493 – 1803,
Volume XXXVIII, pp. 92-93 ]
[ii]
‘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 terst 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 OSA,
[iii] The account is
from Murillo Velarde’s Historia de
Philipinas, fol. 17, 18; Diaz adds some additional notes. [Op cit, Velarde, pp. 91-94]
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