Papa Isio

History buffs complain that my usual Saturday column devoted to history had recently given way to other issues. There are times that some subjects cannot be set aside for another time.

Today’s issues are tomorrow’s history and we live in historic times. The unfolding events in the country, in the province and in the City of Bácolod are stuff that make history. Moreover, as often as I can, I cite historical precedence because nothing today happens in a vacuum but they are either results of, or are affected by historical events.

Let’s take for instance the case now brewing in Bácolod and the death of a Jesuit priest, Fr. Estebsn Jayme, a Jesuit priest assigned in Ilog who intervened in the family affair of Ka Albas, a chief in that town.

In keeping with his missionary duty to preach the sacredness of marriage, he convinced one of the wives of the chieftain to leave the chief’s house as it was against Christian teaching.

It was normal, of course, for chiefs or wealthy natives to have more than one wife. After all it was easy to dismiss a woman no longer of the man’s desires. But Ka Albas kept his women, not unlike the harems of the Arab world.

The woman, converted to Christianity, thus left the household of the chief and the chief got so mad he sought and killed the priest with a spear.

The Christians buried him where he was killed, in his mission field and they called the place Iseu, which is derived from the Latin name of Jesus.

Through the years, the name became Isio, today’s barangay in Cauayan, Occidental Negros.

This historical fact should clear the myth that Isio was named after Papa Isio, the dalangan who led a revolt against Spanish rule from 1895 and then against the Americans.

He was the first man in Negros to raise the banner of revolt against the Spaniards. From the scant records about him we learn that he voiced the sentiments and anger of the revolutionary leaders of Luzon, particularly of Rizal and Bonifacio.

He was hunted down but the Spaniards did not have sufficient means of capturing him. He was said to have 5,000 followers, a huge army at the time but this cannot be verified.

He was unschooled in the academic sense but his knowledge of the political views of the revolutionary leaders of Luzon indicates that he has taught himself to read and write. He has some letters still extant but it is also believed this was written by an aide.

No matter, the fact is that he voiced such political ideas a democracy, nationalism and justice. He preached the principle that the Philippines should be for Filipinos, similar to the American’s Monroe doctrine of “America for the Americans.”

A dalaganan, the highest rank of the babaylan, he espoused the return to the native religion, to nativism although he imitated Catholic prayers and religious relics which he considered (as many Filipinos still do today) that they are amulets, anting-anting that protected him from bullets and kept him away from harm.

He must have believed the drawing power of the Spanish priest and Catholic religion because he dressed in a soutane or white cassock and assumed the name of Papa or Pope. Thus Dionisio Seguela became known as Papa isio.

His domain stretched from Bago in the north to Sipalay in the south. The civil guards did not bother with him as they could not catch him.

The civil guards and the cuadrilleros, the para-military units were too few to subjugate him. His predecessor was killed not by the Spaniards but by a woman who was jealous.

When the Negros revolution erupted and won, the Negros leaders, especially Juan Araneta wooed him to the side of the new government, not for respect but for fear that the new Negros government would be unable to defend itself from Papa Isio, if the dalangan leader decided to grab power.

The Negros Revolutionary Committee made Isio a military chief of La Castellana, equivalent to today’s mayor. Araneta so courted Isio that he was escorted to Bacolod where a parade was held in his honor and a banquet offered to please him.

But when Isio learned of the shift of loyalty of the Negros leaders to the Americans and against the Aguinaldo government, he returned to the mountains where the Americans hunted him down but failed.

Isabela Police Chief Gil Montilla enticed him to the town and after the dinner had him arrested. So betrayed, Isio accepted his fate. The Americans sentenced him to death in 1906 but his former adversary who failed to capture him, Governor General James Smith, commuted it to life and he died in prison in 1911, the longest revolutionary.*

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