Note 8 — Special Note.

The Augustinian Father P. Piernavieja was another victim to fanaticism. This Father has been termed medio loco8 and in all truth he was so if the possession of a presence of mind such as that shown by P. Piernavieja is to be termed craziness. True it is that he was at times gifted with a strange turn of mind. He had, during the many years he administered the parish, established therein a christian communism. When the revolt broke out he was held as a prisoner and obliged to invest himself with the authority of an Archbishop. Had the revolt prospered and P. Piernavieja lived, undoubtedly he would have been made Archbishop of Manila by the Tagalog discontents. P. Piernavieja was shrewd enough to take well to his new office. He was once called upon to anoint the chiefs and rulers, as the kings and emperors of olden time were anointed by the Church. Padre Piernavieja told them that olive oil was not suitable for such a purpose and therefore proceeded to anoint them with cocoanut oil such as is used by the natives for their lamps! Under pretext of his office of Bishop this strange old man claimed liberty to make his pastoral visits and when he succeeded in securing this liberty which was readily granted to him, he overran all that part of the province in the hands of the insurgents, secretly collecting all kinds of information, which he immediately sent his superiors in Manila. This information reached the military authorities and would have become of utility to them for the carrying out of the campaign had it been prosecuted as a military campaign should have been. But the Padre’s messenger was eventually captured with messages in his possession. When questioned as to the source of the information, and where he was taking it, he told all, and as a result Padre Piernavieja was condemned to death as a traitor to a cause to which he had never held allegiance. As a punishment he was tied to a tree exposed to the burning rays of the tropical sun, and thus left to the mercy of the voracious birds and insects, dying of hunger, thirst and of terror in the midst of inconceivable torments.