Religious streets in history

Filipinos are bound by the names chosen for them at birth or baptism by their parents. Our birth or baptismal certificates inform the various forms of government identification we carry: passports, driver’s licenses, Social Security System or Government Service Insurance System Unified ID, postal ID, and voter’s ID. In a country that loves to weave red tape, we were previously forced to produce two forms of government-issued identification for important transactions. Today, all we need is the National ID, but to date I have not received my physical card even if my biometrics were captured at the tail end of the pandemic. Fortunately, a digital copy is available on the eGov app.

Many of us pick up other names as we grow up: nicknames from childhood, nicknames from school, nicknames from friends, or nicknames we make up. As one who did not like nor identify with my official name, I was given the opportunity to live under a different name as a Benedictine monk.

The two names I submitted to the abbot were Wilfrido Ma. and Ignacio Ma. The former not to honor National Artist Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero, but Wilfrido Rojo, a saintly abbot of Manila I met in United Kingdom. Ignacio Ma.—because by then I had spent a third of my life in the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Manila. The abbot presumed I chose Ignatius of Antioch as my patron, when I said it was Ignatius of Loyola, he asked, “Why do you want a Jesuit patron? There are hundreds of Benedictine saints to choose from.” Knowing the Ateneo card would not work on him, I reasoned out: “Ignatius Loyola left his sword in the sanctuary of Our Lady of Montserrat in Catalunya, the mother of our Abbey church of Our Lady of Montserrat in Manila.” Thus, for some years, I was known as “Dom. Ignacio Maria, OSB.” My nickname was “Nacho.”

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The above explains why I celebrate my name day each year on July 31, the feast of Ignatius Loyola. Each year, I remember the first Jesuits who arrived in the Philippines from Mexico in 1581: Fr. Antonio Sedeño, Fr. Alonso Sanchez, and Bro. Nicolas Gallardo. There would have been four, but Gaspar Suarez de Toledo died on the voyage. All three are memorialized as streets in the Makati central business district. Few people who pass by Sedeño, Sanchez, and Gallardo streets know their significance. Or that from these first three missionaries, within a decade, the order had established mission stations outside the walls of Intramuros in alphabetical order: Antipolo, Balayan, Bohol, Cebu, Leyte, Mindanao, Panay, Samar, and Taytay.

Charles III, by royal decree, ordered their expulsion from his kingdom in 1767. Their property was forfeited to the Spanish crown, and those who were fit to travel were physically deported from the islands in four groups from 1769-1771. Ten Jesuits returned in 1859 to resume missionary work in Mindanao. From this second mission were founded today’s Ateneo schools and the Manila Observatory.

College history taught me that the different religious orders arrived as follows: Augustinians in 1565, Franciscans in 1577, Jesuits in 1581, and Dominicans in 1587. The data was mere trivia until I started studying Philippine history in earnest. The Augustinians had the first option of the best mission territories because they arrived with the first governor, Miguel López de Legazpi. As a matter of fact, the navigator of the expedition was the Augustinian Andres de Urdaneta. The others were: Martin de Rada, Andres de Aguirre, Pedro Gamboa, and Diego de Herrera, all of them memorialized in Makati streets except for poor fray Herra, whose name was dropped to accommodate V.A. Rufino. Herrera is a candidate for sainthood, and I hope that when canonized, Rufino Street will revert to the original Herrera Street. Rufino can settle elsewhere.

Second to arrive were 15 Franciscans in 1577: Pedro de Alfaro, Juan de Plasencia, Diego de Oropesa, Pablo de Jesus, Juan de Ayora, Agustin de Tordesillas, Esteban Ortiz, Bartolome Ruiz, Juan de Porras, Francisco de Santa Maria, Sebastian de Baeza, Juan Bautista Pisaro, Pedro de Muñique, Alonso de Jesus Medina, and Bro. Juan Clemente, who founded the clinic that later became San Lazaro Hospital. Unfortunately, only Alfaro and Tordesillas made it to Makati street names.

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Last to arrive were the Dominican missionaries in 1587, although this does not take into account Domingo de Salazar, the first Dominican to arrive in 1581, not as a missionary but as the first bishop of Manila. From the 15 arrivals of 1587: Fray Juan de Castro, Fray Alonso Ximenez, Fray Miguel de Benavides, Fray Pedro Bolaños, Fray Bernardo Navarro, Fray Diego de Soria, Fray Juan de Castro, Fray Marcos Soria de San Antonio, Fray Juan de San Pedro Mártir aka Juan Maldonado, Fray Juan Ormaza de Santo Tomas, Fray Pedro de Soto, Fray Juan de la Cruz, Fray Gregorio Ochoa, Bro. Domingo de Nieva, and Bro. Pedro Rodriguez, only eight made it to Makati streets: Benavidez, Soria, Castro, Nieva, Jimenez, Bolaños, Ormaza, Rodriguez. Two Dominicans, Benavidez and Salazar, are now important streets in Binondo, a district where they preached to the Chinese.

Today’s column is filled with seemingly useless information, until you connect the names with the streets and find history as you walk or book a cab to Makati.

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Comments are welcome at ambeth.ocampo@inquirer.net