Foreword

We continue to feature chapters from the book Philippine Saga by Marius John, a Thomasite, a fascinating look-back at the town of Baao and places in Bicol during the early 1900’s. Chapter 14 is about Señora Patricia Imperial, the mother of Baldomero Imperial, the town’s Presidente, and her story about how frightened the Baao town folks had been when they heard the Americans were coming.

Chapter 14: The Great-Grandmother of Baao

SEÑORA PATRICIA IMPERIAL Y FAJARDA, the Presidente’s mother, was designated La Patriarca in Baao. Sometimes they called her La Presidenta in honor of her distinguished son’s exalted position. White-haired, dignified, a little bent, she threaded her way through the marketplace in the evenings, leaning on a cane of carabao horn, a revered and honored woman, a feminine counterpart of the patriarchs of old. She was by all odds the most interesting señora in Baao. There was an intelligent glow in her eyes, a serenity that bespoke long hours of silent contemplation. There was not a wrinkle on her face. She was lighter than the average Filipino, as were all the Imperial family. Her forehead was rather broad, and her smile sympathetic.

She often came to Capitan Badong’s tienda, where the city fathers sitting about rose to bow their deference, and the host hastened to bring forward the bamboo armchair for the señora. She was deeply interested in all that took place in Baao, and the affairs of the outside world. She was a strong advocate of the schools as conducted by the Americans. Poor people coming to her for advice and consolation never left without a crumb of comfort. Her avocation was ministry; her outstanding characteristic, alertness. I saw no one to compare with Señora Imperial in all the towns I visited in the Philippines, not even in the illustrious Ocampo family in Nabua.

One evening she told how frightened everybody had been when they heard the Americans were coming. I have never forgotten her story.

“’They’re a terrible people,’ the Spaniards told us,’ she said. “They are a cannibal race that comes from the land where the sun rises from the boiling ocean. They will eat the Filipinos. They will make such nice meals for them. They will be boiled alive in oil. They are demons. You will be sorry when we are gone. Then you will pray to the good Señor to send the Spaniards back who have always treated you so kindly. But the Spaniards will be far away and there will be no one to help the poor Filipinos.’

“It was not the higher type of Spaniard,” continued the señora, “who said these things. And of course I did not believe them. But most of the people were filled with dread. They went home to think of the stories told them. I suppose they could not resist the temptation of filling the minds of those who are credulous with these fantastic yarns. I suppose the sting of defeat weighed heavily upon them, and they wanted to administer one last sweet potion of revenge before they hastened away. The speed with which the Spaniards of all classes packed their belongings and departed only added to the people’s alarm.

“‘You see,’ they said, ‘even we are fleeing before these demonios come. If we cannot stand before them, what will the helpless Filipinos do? Lastima!’ they told the people commiseratingly, ‘it is a sad day for those who remain.’

“So the Spaniards went. Four hundred years they had been here. Four hundred years they had ruled and made their fortunes here. And now they were gone, “Then one day we heard the Americans were in Pili, halfway between here and Nueva Caceres. Señor Sanchez, whose faction was then in power, did not believe the Spaniards’ stories. He tried to calm the people’s fears. He and I and my grandson, Santiago Fajarda, went among them at the market that night telling them they had nothing to fear. No such demonios were coming. It was no use. The foreboding hung over Baao like an eruption from Iriga before its fires burned out. My son, Baldomero, the presidente, was in Manila, or he would have been out here with us. They left the marketplace early that night, all the people of Baao. They went silently to their homes with unseeing eyes. Then all through the town, and far out in the coconut groves you could hear their supplications:

“Perdon, Señor mio, perdon!“

I could picture the scene, as the señora continued her story — the people wailing for mercy during a long, long night — the exodus at daylight. Old, old women, who never left their casas anymore, arose and hobbled out to the hills. Carabao carts rolled away laden with their household goods — with calico pillows and seaweed mattresses. Women with large bundles on their heads, babies on their backs, the children toddling beside them, marched away in one long procession, followed by their men carrying their precious fighting cocks. Ilustrados rode away on their ponies or walked into the hills with poor and lowly.

At sun up the plaza was deserted — Baao was deserted. It was like the siesta hour. The sun shone down on a town of vacant houses. People poured into the hills from every barrio, toting their images with them.

“In Baao I only remained,” La Patriarca said. “I, and my little great-granddaughter, Santiago’s daughter, Encarnacion.

“‘Run, niña,’ I said to her. ‘Go with the others to hide in the jungles upon the hills.’

“Not unless you go, too, grandmama,’ she declared stoutly.

“So only the two of us remained in Baao, for Encarnacion would not go without her great-grandmama.

“Then when the sun rose over the swamp, with everyone gone, Baao seemed a lonely place.

“’Come, niña,’ I said at last. ‘We will go with the others. Your great grandmama is getting old and foolish.’

“I began to remember tales of cruelty that had happened here among my own people, stories from other tribes, and of harsh treatment given us by certain classes of Spaniards, and it was Encarnacion I had in mind when I finally decided to follow the others into the hills. Even had it been a race of cannibals coming, I knew they would not want me. I would be too tough and too bony for them to eat. Perhaps these Americans were worse than their predecessors. You know how you can imagine things about the unknown.”

So Encarnacion and the señora left the great house over there by the arroyo to the geckos on the wall, and to her son Baldomero’s fighting cock crowing a lusty welcome to the strangers who were near.

As I looked across the plaza, I could imagine the little girl holding tightly the hand of the señora carrying her cane of carabao horn in the other hand, when the two hurried over the rustic bamboo bridge that spanned the little stream flowing under the broad trees beside their home. I could see them pass along the plaza wall. It was a different picture from the scene of animation before me now. The church looked solemn and lonely. The windows of the convent glowered in its desertion. Houses stared vacantly. Scarcely a living creature was left in Baao.

“For once,” the señora continued, “the bells in the old wooden tower were mute. We crossed the Spanish bridge between the two schoolhouses over there, and went along the main street toward Nueva Caceres, where I knew I would directly find a path leading into the mountains and the people up there.

“It is strange to walk alone through a deserted town after the people are gone. Everything seemed so vacant and still, like the people who had stared into space the night before, seeing nothing.

“We came to the second bridge across the arroyo in the upper part of town. There was a cluster of nipa huts beyond the bridge and one or two larger houses. Then the quirk of an old woman siezed me. I would go no farther. Let an army of demons come, I would go no farther.

“’Run, niña,’ I said to Encarnacion. ‘Run — join the others in the mountains. I will remain in this house with the sliding windows.’

“No, grandmama mia,’ she replied, ‘I will not go without you.’

“Girls are stubborn sometimes, just like their old grandmothers.

“So we climbed up the ladder into the thatched house and waited for the demonios to come. All through the long morning we sat huddled in that room. It seemed like ages sitting there so still. We longed for them to come and get it over. Encarnacion was a brave little girl. She refused to be alarmed as long as her great- grandmama was there. No one passed along the street. Nobody came to Baao. We could see the sun shining through a crack between the sliding mother-of-pearl windows. The old cemetery just above us seemed so silent, and the jungle creeping down over the mountain behind us uttered no sound, not even a bird call. Across the road the swamp stretched out into the distance just as you see it now.

“It was nearly noon. Still no one had come. Can you imagine how long a forenoon like that could be?”

I could imagine, for I thought of the night we waited at Santo Tomas for the “barbarians” out in the swamp. I thought of all we had been told of the savagery of the Filipinos, and I could understand the people’s fright at a strange unknown race, and why they had deserted, fleeing to the hills.

“At last,” said the señora, “Encarnacion whispered: “Abuela! Abuela! I hear them.’

“Sure enough, there came the tramp, tramp of marching feet. Then an old woman’s curiosity got the better of me.

“I am going to peep at them through the crack in the window there,’ I whispered to Encarnacion.

“No, no, abuela!’ begged Encarnacion. ‘Don’t peek. They may see you.’

“She clung to me fiercely, all of a sudden frightened now that they were so near. But I shoved her aside. My curiosity was aroused. I must peek at those terrible soldiers. I did peek. Then I went boldly to the front windows and shoved them open.

“Pouf!’ I said. ‘I am not afraid of those men. Come, niña, we have nothing to fear.’

“There was the captain — Captain Mont-, oh, how do you pronounce his name?”

“Montfort, was it not?” I replied.

“Sí, sí, that was it — Captain Montfort. There he was — a handsome caballero-riding a Filipino pony at the head of his company. He tipped his hat to me, as polite as a Spanish grandee, smiled and said: “Buenos dias, señora.’ How do you say that in English?”

“Good morning, madam,” I said.

“Si, si, that is it! Behind him marched the jolly soldiers with laughter in their faces. A dozen of them waved their arms at me, and said, as if I belonged to them:

“Good morning, grandmother.’ Grandmother, Señor Maestro, means abuela, does it not?” “Yes,” I told her, “It means abuela.’

“Bien. Those soldiers just took me in. They adopted me. I was one of them after that. Behind them, as they marched into town, rode Señor Sanches, the presidente, and my grandson, Santiago, who jumped from the carromatta, carried me down the stairway, and took me home.

“And that, Señor Maestro, is the story of the Americans when they came to Baao.”

“It’s as thrilling as any fiction I ever read, señora,” I said.

No other Filipinos gave me this part of the story of the Americans’ arrival in Baao, but I learned many other details from army officers and enlisted men who had been among the first Volunteers to come to the Camarines. Some of the story I learned from Captain George Curry, who came shortly after the first American arrivals.

It was as the señora had told me: Baao was deserted when the first U. S. soldiers came. The people were encamped on the hillsides behind the town. Captain Montfort — that is the name the soldiers had given me of the first company commander to arrive in Baao — sent Señor Sanchez and Santiago Fajarda into the hills to tell the people to come home.

“You have nothing to be afraid of,” they went through the camps telling their townsmen. “Go home.”

Only a few returned, among them Capitan Pedro Badong and several of the councilmen. The others refused to budge. The Spaniards’ tales had burned deep. Day after day Captain Montfort sent messengers into the hills to plead with the people to come home. Capitan Badong told me this.

“Si,” he admitted, “I fled to the mountains with the others. I did not believe the Spaniards’ stories, but I went because everyone else had gone. My family was fearful, and I had to humor them.”

Each day a straggling few returned, but the majority of the Baaoans remained in the hills, although they were beginning to suffer hardships there. Rations were running low. There were no houses. Insects and other tropical pests made sleeping uncomfortable. Yet they refused to come. Deep is the fear of the unknown.

One morning Captain Montfort lined his company along the road by the cemetery. A volley was fired over the people’s heads up there in the hills. Again messengers were sent urging them to come home. A few more stragglers came. The next morning another vol- ley was fired into the hills, this time a little lower, but still over the heads of the people there. A few more came down. Again, the captain sent messengers to tell the people to come home.

“If you are not back tonight,” the messengers told them, “The captain will order another volley fired into the hills tomorrow morning. It will not be over your heads. It will be in your midst. Don’t stay here. The Americans will not harm you, but you must come home.”

Before sundown all the Baaoans had returned.

There was little trouble for the soldiers after their return. The people were peaceably inclined. Some brigandage was reported back in the hills, but as a rule the Bicols were a law-abiding branch of the Malayan race, as far as the soldiers could learn. They frowned on outlawry.

The unruly among their own men gave the officers more trouble than the few outlaws among the Filipinos of the province.

One day I rode over to Buhi with Captain Curry, who had been a member of Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, of San Juan Hill fame. As we crossed a small ravine, he told me that when he was returning from an expedition in search of a native troublemaker, his horse stumbled at that spot. Far back in the rear of the column he heard a soldier ask:

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” another answered. “Just the captain’s horse stumbled.”

“I hope the old tinhorn broke his neck,” the first soldier muttered loud enough for the captain to over- hear him.

Captain Curry was too active to please the volunteers under his command. Like Funston he could find too many excuses to keep them on the march.

Señora Imperial was full of interesting tales of the early days of the American occupation of the Camarines, but none of them appealed to my fancy as did the story of the soldiers’ arrival in Baao.

The header features a typical village in Luzon circa 1910. (credit: John Tewell, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison)

About the author

Marius John was named Adopted Father of Baao during a special session of the municipal council on February 15, 1941. During the session, excerpts from Mr. John’s book were read after which the resolution of respect, gratitude and appreciation was passed. This was during the term of Mayor Luis G. Dato.

Born in Sterling, Illinois, where his father was a publisher of the Sterling Gazette, Mr. John graduated from the George School in Newtown, Pennsylvania, studied at Stanford University and graduated from the Sterling Business College. He was in the staff of the Salt Lake Tribune, served as Editor of the Orlando Sentinel, and contributed articles to various magazines and newspapers. He was a member of the Associated Arts of Brooklyn and various writers’ clubs.

About Philippine Saga

The book “Philippine Saga” was published in April 1941 by Sterling Gazette, a publication owned by the author’s father in Sterling, Illinois. Only rare copies of the book exist. Thus, it was propitious for Bella M. Nacario, an active member of the Baao Historical and Cultural Society, to have found a copy for sale on the internet.

We thank Father Fruto Ramirez, SJ, also of BHCS, for providing us with a copy of this book which he had scanned, printed and bounded for limited distribution.