San Sebastian

Tomorrow marks the 257th fiesta of San Sebastian de Bácolod. This saint had been the protector of Bácolod since the known beginning of this pueblo that we find in the Fr. Pedro Velarde map of 1734. The name of the village was not Bácolod but Magsungay as it was located between two rivers, the one south of the village was Magsungay Grande; the one in the north was Magsungay Pequeño. Grande and Pequeño means big and small, respectively, referring to the two rivers, one being short and the other longer.

I will not deal into details of these names although my recent research on the origin of Bácolod reveals funny interpretation of the word “Magsungay” which does not really mean “horn” as is widely believed. I will leave that suspense for a later date, perhaps in a year or so.

Let’s go back to San Sebastian. The choice of this saint was based on what it meant to the people of Bácolod. Though we find Bácolod in 1755 as a visita of Binalbagan, there was no mention of a patron saint. How they got a patron saint and why San Sebastian was chosen is a story by itself.

 It is best to recall that Bácolod was founded because of fear of Moro attacks that had devastated their original village Magsungay and other villages along the shores of Negros, both oriental and occidental.    

Magsungay evacuated and in their new site they called their new village as Bácolod because it was in a promontory, a hill. When it became a visita in 1755 the people adopted San Sebastian as “nuestro seguro y firmer protector” (our security and constant protector) as the “Himno de San Sebastian” sang through the years tells us.

Rightly did they choose San Sebastian because since then Bácolod had not suffered the same devastation as they had been subjected to, first by slave traders, and then by religious Moro fanatics who attacked them from 1763 to 1765.  

Of course their flight to a new site saved them, but even when they returned to the shorelines, they were not attacked during the last raid in western Negros in 1828. Even when some went back to their original village in Magsungay, they kept San Sebastian, thus we have a situation of one village called San Sebastian de Magsungay and the adjacent one San Sebastian de Bácolod.

Residents were classified in the canonical books whether they were of Magsungay or Bácolod but they were of San Sebastian. In September 1767, the Vatican sent to Bácolod a relic of San Sebastian. This relic is still here.

It was not until Bácolod became a parish and a resident priest was appointed in 1805 that the name San Sebastian de Magsungay disappeared and all were merely designated as native of Bácolod.

So, through the decades,  Bácolod had celebrated the fiesta of San Sebastian. He was a favorite saint among the Spanish missionaries that many parishes had adopted him. Today three cathedrals in the Philippines – Tarlac, Lipa and Bácolod - have San Sebastian as their patron saint. There is the Basilica of San Sebastian in Manila.

When the Americans colonized the Philippines, religious freedom was given impetus. The Aglipayan schism and Protestantism created conflicts about fiestas. Aglipayans claimed the Catholics’ patron saint as their own and the two groups celebrated the same fiesta and considering the hostility between the two, many towns refused to participate.

To resolve the issue, the American administration issued a circular in 1911 asking all local governments to designate the date of their town fiesta or they could opt not to have one.

Bácolod ‘s Municipal Council voted to have San Sebastian and that the town fiesta would be celebrated on January 20. This resolution made January 20 as the official fiesta of Bácolod and this continued for years.

There was an attempt in 1924 to change the fiesta date but this was defeated and I am not aware that there was any change at all since then.

I am not certain of the specific year that Bácolod did not celebrate the city fiesta anymore but in 1963 the city appropriated funds for the fiesta. I have my theories when and why the city stopped but I still have to authenticate this.  

January 20 comes and goes each year since mid-1970s with the city not officially participating. The city even erased San Sebastian and Santo Rosario in Bácolod by changing the San Sebastian Street and Santo Rosario Street to two dead politicians. The Holy Rosary is the secondary patroness of Bácolod.

Then the Negros Navigation ship, Don Juan sank in 1980 with over 800 passengers still missing to this day. People remembered San Sebastian and realized they had ejected their own protector. Ninfa Leonardia and I wrote about this and the City Council forthwith restored San Sebastian and Santo Rosario Streets.*   

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