Note 47 — INSURRECTIONS BY FILIPINOS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY (continued 2)

On the first of February this melancholy tidings reached the village of Narbacán, where there were nine religious of the order of our father St. Augustine, exchanging congratulations and expressions of joy over the freedom that they were beginning to enjoy with the departure, that day, of the Zambal army. All their joy was changed into sadness and perplexity by the news of what had occurred at Ilauag; but the one who felt this most was father Fray José Arias, at that time prior of the village of Bacarra. [Feeling that duty calls him to go back, there, he does so, although against the entreaties of his brethren. His people welcome his return, but at the news that the Calanasas are approaching all take to flight, carrying the friar with them; but later they leave him in the house of a native helper. “The streets were full of rebels and Calanasas, who with loud shouts and yells acclaimed Don Pedro Almazán as king, and threatened all the Spaniards with death.” Fray José and the helper plan to escape by night, but an envoy from the rebels warns the latter to drive the friar from his house, or they will kill him and his family; frightened at this, he carries the father to another house. “In a little while Don Tomás Bisaya, one of the heads of the conspiracy, sent a mulatto named Juan (who had been a servant of the fathers) with some men, and an order to Fray José to enter a petaca47, so that he could escape to the village of Ilauag.” He does this, and the party set out for that village; but on the way they meet a party of rebels, who kill the father, cut off his head, and carry it to Magsanop. Diaz here copies the relation of this affair which was sent to the Augustinians throughout the province, a letter from the provincial, Fray Diego de Ordás, citing the account sent to him by Bishop Cárdenas. “Magsanop and the other tyrants celebrated this victory, all drinking from the skull of the venerable father, which served in their barbarous proceedings as a precious vase.... After several days his head was ransomed, and interred with his body.”]