Gabriela Silang and my small hometown in Ilocos!

Gabriela Silang and my hometown

Gabriela Silang was said to be born in Barangay Caniogan, Santa,Ilocos Sur in March 19, 1731. There exist no Barangay Caniogan in Santa town today because the prosperous and famous barrio of Santa was wash away to the shore by the rampaging waters of Abra River. What exist today as Barangay Caniogan is a large river swamp of Abra River though there are small portions left of the lush lands of Caniogan it is now uninhabited. Most of the people fearing for their safety had relocated eastwards in Barangay Mabilbila. My great grandfather used to hold a large tract of land in barangay Caniogan planted with rice and sugarcanes.

One cannot separate the story of Santa to that of the famous Abra River. They are the same with the idiomatic expressions; hook, line and sinker. To illustrate it simply, Santa is the hook that swallows every feed that the sinker (Abra River) throws and the lines that connect both is the water of the Abra river.

The sleepy town of Santa was the home of the famous expensive delicious rare fish BULIDAW ( or therapon cancellatus, it is called pigek in Mindanao) like the famous salmon it migrate to spawn downstream in the Abra River between the month of May to September. Aside from the indigenous bulidaw, Santa is also the home of the famous ipon or sinarapan (Mistichthys luzonensis) said to be the world's smallest commercially harvested fish. My elementary books told me that this can be only located and now endemic in Lake Buhi in Camarines Sur in Bicol but are plenty in our sleepy town of Santa, Ilocos Sur.
Should the government been stricter in enforcing its laws, catching ipon should be illegal because the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) or the world's main authority on the conservation status of species had already declared Mistichthys luzonensis or the ipon as one the declared threatened extinct species in the world. Ipon also appear at the mouth of Angalakan River in Agoo and Cagayan River in Cagayan but the ipon species that appear in Santa and Caoayan are whitier, smaller, better and tastier or mas sinarapan. The tale remain unanswered is why the ipon appear only in the month of September to February or after the appearance of the bulidaw and the ipon can be catch only 10 days after a full moon?
Should the ipon will disappear in the future in Santa because of mining activities in Abra and Benguet upstream coupled by magnetite mining condoned by the local government downstream that will destroy the ammonia, acidity, nitrite oxygen and alkalinity of the Abra River? Every Santanian heart could bleed if we allow that to happen.

Where are you from?

A friend from Manila asked me once if where do I come from and told him from Santa, Ilocos Sur? His initial reaction was that where is that, is there a town in Ilocos with such a name? There are many legends why Santa lost its second name but what is an accepted fact is that Santa was used to be a prosperous, rich and dynamic town in the whole Ilocos Region until it was eaten up by the Abra river. Santa called Santa Catalina de Alexandria, Virgen y Martir, after the town's patron saint Saint Catherine of Alexandria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa,_Ilocos_Sur).
In fact Santa (or Santa Catalina de baba) was the second oldest town founded by the Augustinian friars in 1576 in the whole Ilocos Region, a year (1575) after Juan de Salcedo founded Bigan (Ciudad Fernandina or Vigan) and two years ahead of Agoo, La Union (1578), four years ahead of Laoag (1580), long before the capital town of Pangasinan, Lingayen was founded (1614).
The flood of 1852 (Layos Bungsot) had totally devastated the town that the Augustinian friars who are running the administration of flood prone Santa at that time may have treated the flood as a curse that they transferred the town to what is known as Santa, Catalina, Ilocos Sur away from the original town and carve a town in one barrio of Vigan to what formerly known as Cabittaogan.
Thus Santa and Santa Catalina has the same patron saint Saint Catherine of Alexandria which its fiesta is celebrated by both towns during November 25 of each year. The town of Santa Catalina, Ilocos Sur never admits to this day that it was an extension or the remnants of Santa Catalina De Baba that was destroyed by the flood of 1852. In fact in was the only town in Ilocos Sur that its officials never knew when it was founded. Their official town website http://www.stacatalina.org/Factoids/History2.asp will tell us “Although there was no written record as to the exact founding of Sta. Catalina, it can be calculated from reports, verbal and written, (though it admits however that) that the town was founded sometime in the latter part of the 16th century”.
What happen to the Santanians (people of Santa) after the 1852 flood? It can be postulated that some may not have followed the Augustinian friars in founding another town of Santa, Catalina at Cabittaogan.
Resilient as ever, the townfolks stayed and revived the town and thus had dropped the name Catalina to differentiate the new town of Santa Catalina from the lost town of Santa Catalina De Baba to what is known as Santa. That is how the town of Santa got its name.
History also will tell us that before the coming of Juan De Salcedo at Vigan ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigan) “Vigan was a coastal trading post long before the Spaniards arrived; Chinese traders sailing from the South China Sea came to Isla de Vigan (Island of Vigan) via the Mestizo River that surrounded the island. On board their ships were sea-faring merchants that came to trade goods from other Asian kingdoms in exchange for gold, beeswax, and other mountain products brought by the indigenous peoples from the Cordilleras region”.
Vigan was used to be an island like Dagupan until some of the rivers were silted that it was no more an island. The Mestizo River extends from Caoayan to Vigan from the mouth of South China Sea. But should the Igorots, Itnegs or the Tinggians (Cordilleras) go to Vigan to trade their valuables to the Chinese, they would pass thru the Abra River even by boat or by land passing thru the town of Santa.
It can be also assumed between those trades Santa could provide a link or havep layed a prominent role between the Chinese merchants and the Igorots, thus Santa may have thrived as a bagsakan or a Divisoria in those old days that the townfolks never wanted to evacuate the town not fearing their lives from the floods of high waters of Abra river for their economic survival and that is also why the Spaniards founded the town a year after Vigan because Santa in the old days maybe a thriving community. Remember that Vigan during the old days play a prominent role in the trade between the Chinese and the Igorots and some of the Chinese had intermarried with the natives like the present Syquia's and the Singson (later called Sangleys or chinese mestizos)

Is Maria Josefa Gabriela Carino Silang really from Santa?

Historical records states that Gabriela Silang was born in the lost barrio Caniogan, in Santa in Marso 19, 1731. Her mother name was lost in history, though her father was identified as Anselmo Carino. Anselmo’s father named was Ignacio, descendants of the family of Spaniards from Galicia, Spain who migrated to Candon, Ilocos Sur. The Galicians (Galicia, Spain) as they are commonly called introduced the famous empanada in Ilocos.
Gabriela’s mother is a native Tinggian from Tayum, Abra not Pidigan as usual writers surmised, and who works as one of the househelp of Ignacio Carino. Nicolas Carino who later play a prominent role in the drama that unfolds between Diego and Gabriela and in fight of Gabriela in avenging the death of her husband often referred to in some books as an uncle of Diego Silang is not in any way related to Diego by blood but was a paternal uncle of Gabriela who may have married a Gabriela relative at Tayum. Before he got married to Diego, Gabriela name was being a widow Maria Josefa Gabriela Carino.
The living descendants of Ma Josefa Gabriela Carino Silang can be found in Candon (paternal) and in Tayum, Abra (maternal). In fact, the ancestral house of Nicolas Carino is now a museum at Tayum (CASA MUSEO CARIÑO) and it is also the place where she hides following the death of her husband Diego along with uncle Narciso to solicit and mass the support of his native tribe Tinggians to plan for attacking Vigan.
There exist no living descendants of Gabriela Silang in Santa that can be located to this day. It is to be noted that following the edict of Governor General Claveria in 1847 to require all inhabitants of the Philippines to adopt surnames to facilitate the collection of taxes. Being the capital town for example in Vigan, the natives were required to adopt the surname that starts with letter “A” and the mestizos with the letter “F” like Filart, Formoso, Foz etc. and in Santa all the natives are required to adopt the surname with letter “B” like Bueno, Bello etc. So Gabriela Carino Silang was never an original Santanian. There are conflicting stories regarding the mother of Gabriela after she gave birth to Gabriela, one account is that she leave the Carino household and leave Gabriela to be taken care by Anselmo others says that Anselmo was killed when Gabriela was at the early age so she was left to be adopted by provisor of Vigan (executive judge) and businessman, the wealthy Tomas Millian and was married to Millian at the very young age of 20. After 3 years Millian died leaving Gabriela a very rich widow who now owns a very large tract of land and fishponds. How Gabriela Silang could have been born in Santa maybe because Santa before the Layos Bungsot of 1852 could be thriving town in the 17th Century as a result of trade and commerce that prospered among the natives of Abra, Cordillera, the Ilocanos and other foreigners. No artifacts could provide us evidence to this day because the original Santa town was buried by the Abra river. The original town was destroyed in 1852 and again was destroyed in 1876. The present site of the town plaza was built in 1907 as a result of another great flood called Layos Nawnaw.

GABRIELA AND DIEGO – the Love Story?

How Gabriela and Diego Silang came known to each other is a subject of many fairy tales? One story accounts like this (http://kahimyang.info/kauswagan/Eastern-Visayas-News-Blogs.xhtml?b=826):
Later, Diego was employed by the Spanish authorities as a messenger carrying messages between Vigan and Manila. Nicolas Carino, uncle of Maria Josefa Gabriela, was actively engaged in the campaign against the tyrannical policies of the Spanish rulers. Carinio talked to the town people to unite and rise in revolt against the Spanish government. Carinio was arrested and imprisoned when his rebellious activities were brought to the attention of the Spanish authorities. Then Gabriela began inquiring how she could release her uncle from jail. Someone told her about Diego de Silan. Being a mail carrier, he was known to be very close to the alcalde mayor of Vigan. Diego promised Gabriela that he would do his best, suggesting that with gold, perhaps they might be able to buy her uncle's freedom. Gabriela, being a rich woman, having inherited the wealth of her late husband by first marriage, gave Diego a bag of gold. The alcalde mayor of Vigan immediately ordered the release of Nicolas Carino after receiving the bag of gold from Diego. After that, Diego became a frequent visitor of Gabriela. Together they were frequently seen around, Gabriela showing him the fishpond and the wide tracts of land she inherited from her late husband. They fell in love with each other and eventually they were married before the end of the year 1757. Nicolas Carinio found in Gabriela's second husband the type of a revolutionary leader he was dreaming of. The couple lived together for six years without begetting a child.

Gabriela Silang and Santa

When Diego Silang was assassinated by his friend, Miguel Vicos in their house in Vigan, Ma Josefa Gabriela Carino Silang fled to the hinterlands of Abra. She could have transferred from one place to another in Abra and may have resided in Pidigan, Abra at one time. But what is clear is that she seek refuge in her mother hometown of Tayum and recruited her tribes and relatives in the fight against the mastermind of her husband death. Being a rich widow formerly a widow of the wealthy Millian and her husband Diego is also a rich illustrado aside from being a messenger who have traded goods on his way back from Manila to Vigan. Remember that when the British captured Manila, Diego Silang was in Manila waiting for the ship of the galleon from Mexico. Gabriela Silang could have the money to finance the revolution against Spain and easily rallied and reassembled the Ilocano supporters of Diego and her native tribesmen in Abra. In fact when Gabriela Silang attacked Vigan, they march toward Vigan and must have rallied the people along the way and win support for their cause. And in September 10, 1763 she was able to mount 2,000 troops mostly from her native Tingggians against a strong Spanish armada of 6,000 troops mostly paid Kapampangans (same group of people used and paid by the Americans in capturing Aguinaldo) and Ilocano balimbings with modern guns and armor and with the poorly equip army Gabriela Silang’s army were ambushed and were no match to the highly equipped Spanish militia that Gabriela's army were armed with confiscated Spanish muskets, swords, knives and axes, bamboo spears, blowpipes, bows and arrows (bolo men). After the 1st battle which she was defeated at Vigan, she escaped along with her uncle Nicolas and seven of her trusted lieutenants.
Gabriela Silang was said to made her last dramatic gallant stand in her birthplace here in Santa in that famous Imelda Park or known before as "Pideg" now Gabriela Silang Memorial Park. The memorial was built in honor and of her husband Diego and read as follows;
“Dating Pideg at ginawang Diego-Gabriela Silang noon 1976. Ipinagawa ng mga Pransiskano nooong 1600. Ginamit noon 1660 sa pag-aalsa nina Andres Malong at nina Diego at Gabriela noong 1762. Pagkamatay ni Diego noong May 28, 1763, ang pag-aalsa ay pinamunuan ni Gabriela, pagkaraan ng ilang sagupaan ay sinalakay ng mga Kastila ang pasong ito. Nadakip si Gabriela at pinabitay noong Setyembre 20, 1763.”

But the truth is she was captured in the hinterlands of Apayao from which she retreated with her followers after a defeat in re-taking Vigan. Of the seven trusted followers that were captured with Gabriela they were hanged one by one in the coastline from Candon to Vigan. Both husband and wife revolutionaries could have mass popular support in Ilocanos that her supporters worst death sentences were carried out and shown as a deterrent to future instigators. Gabriela Silang was summarily hanged on September 29, 1763, at Vigan's Plaza at age 32.

Maria Josefa Gabriela Carino Silang is best remembered in Philippine history as the country’s Joan of Arc and is the first female leader for Filipino liberation. Her furious ride towards Vigan is immortalized in many statues all over the country erected in memory of her courage and sacrifice famous of which is her statue at Ayala Park in Makati. When somebody asked you about Santa, must not you be proud that Gabriela Silang was your kababayan?
My next blog ...... the life and travails of Diego Silang !!!!