God our Father, We come to you in our need To ask your protection against the 2019 Corona Virus That has claimed lives And has affected many. We pray for your grace For the people tasked with studying the nature and cause Of this virus and its disease And of stemming the tide of its transmission. Guide the hands and minds of medical experts That they may minister to the sick With competence and compassion, And of those governments and private agencies That must find cure and solution to this epidemic. We pray for those afflicted May they be restored to health soon. Grant us the grace To work for the good of all And to help those in need. Grand this through our Lord, Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever. Amen. Mary, Help of all Christians, pray for us. Saint Ralphael the Archangel, pray for us. Saint Roch, pray for us. Saint Lorenzo Ruiz, pray for us. Saint Pedro Calungsod, pray for us.
With supermarket racks empty of rubbing alcohol and sanitizers, we're all forced to be creative. So, what I did was google on how to make your own disinfectant, and it was very easy.😀 And what I needed were available at home: bleach and water, and a spray bottle!😷
1. Get a one-liter bottle and add two (2) tablespoons of bleach; I used Zonrox since we have them at home. Measurement: 2 tablespoons of Zonrox bleach + 1 liter of water 2. Get a clean spray bottle and fill it up. Then spray on surfaces, chairs, tables, doorknobs, smart phones, laptops, light switches, TV remote, and other appliances that have handles, while wiping them with a clean cloth. The disinfectant will kill the pathogens. And it's the sodium hypochlorite ingredient in the bleach that does the job.😎
Charity begins as home, they say. So does cleanliness. 😄
(The sign at our door made by the kids at home!)
And we wash our hands upon getting home, and clean the things we bring inside!🙏
Chapter 25 - Former Governor Melecio Severino's contribution to Victorias In Chapter 6 of this Victorias History blog, I wrote how, in 1902, the former provincial governor Melecio Severino helped the people of Daan Banwa (Old Victorias in the Philippines) retain the status of their village as a town. That time, the American Governor-General running the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands issued an order that poor towns, including Victorias, should be relegated to a barrio of its neighboring towns as they were too poor to be considered as towns. (Read the old names of Victorias here). Using the Magnanud River as the boundary, Daan Banwa would have been divided between Manapla and Saravia; the northern section was Manapla and its southern section was Saravia. (The earliest record I found that Daan Banwa became a barrio of Saravia was around 1848; it then became a town in 1898 -read blog here). But things would have turned out differently for the people of Daan Banwa had Señor Melecio Severino heeded the lamentation of his wife, Señora Felicitas Villanueva. September 29, 1902, a Monday and the day when the town leader, Sr. Eliodoro Tongoy, and town secretary, Sr. Esteban Jalandoni, left for Bacolod to salvage the town's status, started with all things going wrong for the two offiicals, although this day later held a moment of one man's benevolence and sympathy for the people of Daan Banwa. Earlier that day, at around four in the morning, as the two officials were making their way along the Malihaw River on a boat that would bring them to Bacolod, a sudden gust of wind threw them off the boat (more details of the mishap on Chapter 6). And in Bacolod, during their visits to the governor's and a lawyer's offices, their mission became impossible as the day went on. Daan Banwa seemed doomed to be just another barrio in the island. That was until they bumped into Señor Melecio Severino. In the sala of the house of Don Basiliso Villanueva and seated at the chairs made of hardwood and done in colonial designs, Sr. Tongoy and Sr. Jalandoni discussed the problem of the people of Daan Banwa.
And although we now know that the two accomplished what they initially set out to do, the rampaging cholera epidemic at that time almost caused Sr. Severino to delay his trip, or maybe had it canceled altogether. According to thereport of Dr. Victor G. Heiser, the Chief Quarantine Officer of the Philippine Islands and its Director of Health during the US occupation, a cholera epidemic swept the Philippines in the early 1900s. The disease surfaced in March 20, 1902 and lasted for two years. When cholera cases disappeared by March 8, 1904, there were 109,461 deaths from the disease. And that time, Bacolod was not spared. So, when Sr. Felicitas, the wife of Sr. Severino, heard that her husband was planning to leave Bacolod for Manila, she expressed her fears. The couple's dialogue went like this: Sr. Melecio: "Señora, isa ca labing dacû, himpit cag mataas nga catungdanan sang tawo, maga pilit caron sa acon sa pagbiyâ sa imo sing mga pila lamang ca adlaw". Sra. Felicitas: "¿Nga-a diin ca macadto?" Sr. Melecio:"Sa Manila. Cay ang banua co nga pinalanggâ, ang banua nga nag tib-ong sa acon sa cahitaasan sang cagamhanan sa pagka-governador sa sini nga provincia nga amo ang banua sang Victorias, yara caron sa dacú nga calilisdan, cay paga pihacon sang mga banua sang Saravia cag Manapla sono sang orden sang General..." Sra. Felicitas: "¿Baya-an mo aco sa tungâ sining maca siligni caron nga camatay diri sa Bacolod?" Sr. Melecio: "Señora, saligui cag la-umi nga ang Dios dili nga mas-a mag tugut nga may calalat-an nga mahanabô sa isa ca tawo nga naga ampin sing tusuc sa iya taguipuso-on, sang casaquit nga pala-abuton sang isa ca banua nga naga cabuhî bisan imol lamang sa iya caugalingon nga pangitan-an." Sra. Felicitas then left the room as she wiped her tears. Even though she feared for her husband and her family as the cholera epidemic was sweeping Bacolod and the country, she was proud of her husband and the honorable deed he was about to do for the people of the Old Victorias. In other words, not even a pandemic could stop one man's compassion for his people.
And the rest, as they say, is history. Weeks after Sr. Severino left for Manila, the people of Daan Banwa rejoiced when the town leader received that telegram bearing the best news they heard since November 1898 when Daan Banwa became a town as ordered by the governor of the Republica Cantonal de Negros. Señor Melecio Yorac Severino, a resident of Silay, was born on December 4, 1866. He was an important member of the revolutionary movement, using his fine writing skills to create propaganda against the Spanish colonizers and their abuses. The movement is now being celebrated as Cinco de Noviembre in Negros Occidental. In 1912, he was elected as Representative to the National Assembly. As a solon, he opposed the adoption of English as medium of instruction in Philippine schools. It was said that, sadly, Sr. Severino died of a heart attack on May 16, 1915. He was just 48.😢
As he is part of the history of Victorias, the people of the Daan Banwa, as well as the Victoriahanons of today, owe Sr. Melecio Severino and to Sra. Felicitas Severino y Villanueva a debt of gratitude for their contribution to this town. 🙏 Note: Words written in neon green are links. Do click them.
"Brother, let me be your servant...Let me be as Christ to you...Pray that I might have the grace to let you be my servant, too..."
(The seminarians of the Sacred Heart Seminary
of the Diocese of Bacolod)
These lyrics of The Servant Song as sung by the seminarians of the Sacred Heart Seminary rang throughout the walls of the San Sebastian Cathedral as the Most Reverend Patricio Buzon, Bishop of the Diocese of Bacolod, and Diocesan priests welcomed with Christ's embrace the three new Servants of God, Rev. Emiel Pasco Mijares, Rev. Rommel Falc Gomez Palivino, and Rev. Joemar Docto Solano, as they were ordained into the Sacred Order of Presbyters on January 14, 2020.
(Bishop Patricio Buzon, SDB, DD.
leads the ordination of the three ordinands)
This
was the first time I attended an ordination, although during my formative years
spent at a Catholic school I was surrounded by priests whose duties, I
understood then, included guiding our young lives and molding our characters
with strong Christian virtues and values.
That
morning, before the ordination, as I watched the three ordinands walked with
their parents to the Cathedral’s altar, I realized it was a symbolic procession
of a mother and father offering their child to God, much like Abraham’s
offering of his son Isaac as his sacrifice.
As The Servant Song ended on the last rite, the Kiss of Peace, before Rev. Emiel, Rev. Rommel, and Rev. Joemar joined Bishop Buzon to celebrate their first Mass as Catholic priests, their dreams of becoming priests were fulfilled amidst the applause of everyone in the Cathedral that also brought a special kind of joy and happiness to their parents and families.
Witnessing
a ceremony full of symbolisms and traditions as old as the Church itself, I
also realized that it was a fulfillment of one man’s sacrifice to serve Jesus
and His Church for the rest of his life.
And
as the choir continued to sing the words of The
Servant Song’s, “We are pilgrims on a
journey…We are brothers on the road…We are here to help each other…Walk the
mile and bear the load”, we, as parishioners, should help in their ministry
as we are part of the journey of Rev. Miel, Rev. Rommel, and Rev. Joemar. And while the rite of ordination had been completed,
their work as Servants of God has just started.
And with
each Holy Mass they celebrate, each holy sacrament they administer, and each
blessing they give, we should pray for them
till they have seen their journey through.
* * * * * Here's a short clip on the rite of the 'Kiss of Peace' that I took during the ordination.
* * * * * This piece was originally published by ADSUM, the official publication of the Diocese of Bacolod, Negros Occidental, Philippines.
Chapter 24 - The women of Victorias: Capitana Tutang, Paz Gonzaga, and Salud Montinola Capitana Tutang and the women of Victorias In the 1880s, after having been robbed and held hostage by tulisanes, Capitana Tutang, the grand old dame of Daan Banwa, outwitted her captors and even saved her maid, Micay, from drowning by dragging her to shore after they were both dumped in open waters at the mouth of the Malihao River (see Chapter 4) of the present-day Victorias City in the province of Negros Occidental in the Philippines. Another Victoriahanon lady, Señorita Paz Gonzaga, the daughter of former mayor Sr. Ricardo Gonzaga, helped the poor town raise funds on May 22 and 23, 1907, that were needed to buy bamboos and nipa, and to pay for carpenters who would build a new município at the Embarcadero area on the land donated by Sr. Yap-Quiña (see Chapter 11). Señorita Gonzaga, fresh from completing her education, shared her talent by agreeing to be the star of two stage plays that raised 680 pesos after deducting the expenses incurred in staging the play. She was asked to lead the play because she could speak fluent Spanish, the language of the play, and must have had the beauty and stage presence that could sell tickets. After writing both of these women's stories as part of our Victorias history, I realized that these two helped define the women during their time. And after rummaging through the lives of the old Victorias, I am adding another woman's name to the list: Salud Montinola y Magalona, the second eldest child of Don Felix Montinola, town mayor from 1934 to 1940 (see Chapter 16).
(The 21-year old Salud Montinola y Magalona, as she was photographed in 1920)
Pharmacist by profession before the WW2 After obtaining her degree in pharmacy from the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, Salud came back home to Victorias and set up a small pharmacy right next to the family's stone mansion (that partly stood on the land where the present-day Petron gasoline station is located) along Calle Real (present-day Osmeña Avenue) dispensing and selling medicines to the Victoriahanons of the 1930s until the war broke out.
At her pharmacy, her younger brother Hector Montinola, who later became the town mayor from 1946 to 1950, assisted her in mixing and compounding prescription drugs.
Situated along the busy Calle Real (present-day Osmeña Avenue, the national highway), the dirt road passageway connecting Victorias to Manapla and Saravia before the construction of the stone municipal hall in the late 1930s, she must have made good business.
On the northern side of Matinal Street (present-day Arnaez St.), right across her pharmacy, stood the Ascalon mansion (present-day Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), where the young Salud would greet every morning its residents, including Señora Paquita Ascalon, the sister of the last resident of the Ascalon mansion, Porfirio Ascalon. Señora Paquita, unmarried and a pious lady, stayed with the Montinolas at their Hacienda Dapdap in Manapla during the war. Señora Paquita and the young Salud were both very religious and were very close.
Señora Paquita led the praying of the Holy Rosary at Hacienda Dapdap every six in the evening during the war. She was joined by the whole Montinola family and by the hacienda workers. When the priests at parish churches ceased celebrating the holy mass at that time for fear of being killed by the Japanese soldiers, families at that time gathered daily to quietly pray for peace and the end of war.
Though the Japanese soldiers regularly visited Hacienda Dapdap to look for guerrillas, they were met and offered 'botong-botong' (long sugar candies) as a friendly gesture and to take their minds off from hunting them down (read story here).
(The 21-year old Salud Montinola y Magalona as photographed in 1920, a hundred years ago, which makes it the oldest photograph I have of a Victoriahanon.)
Presidente de Centro de Puericultura de Victorias In 1930, Salud Montinola became involved in civic activities. She was asked by the local town officials to lead the Victorias Puericulture Center, which was then registered at its official name, Centro de Puericultura de Victorias. She succeeded Mrs. Lourdes Tongoy. (I wonder if Mrs. Tongoy's husband was related to Sr. Eliodoro Tongoy, the town mayor from 1898 to 1902). The puericulture center was where pregnant women received prenatal care and attention for their unborn child, and was located at the current location of the City's public health center. According to the Philippine Public Welfare Commissioner's report of 1930, during her time as the head of the Centro de Puericultura de Victorias, the Centro's assigned head nurse was Miss Presentacion Torre and the head midwife was Miss Paula Perales. (The former became the wife of Sr. Felix Montinola, Jr. when they were married at the Montinola family's Hacienda Dapdap during the war.) That year, there were 475 mothers and 735 children were registered at the Centro. Your great-grandmothers were probably one of them, and your lolo or lola might have been one of those 735 babies and toddlers. Also in 1930, there were 1,731 pre-natal or postnatal consultations done at the Centro and 4,128 consultations for babies. Other consultations were 627. That time, the nurses would make house visits, which, sadly, doesn't happen anymore. If you were pregnant and had difficulty moving around, the nurse from the Centro would visit you at home. These days, you have to visit a clinic for your pre-natal care or delivery.
(The Victorias Puericulture Center used
to hold baby contests sponsored by Carnation.
The healthiest babies received
Carnation milk as prizes.)
One attending physician at the Centro during those years was Dr. Jose Valero who married Soledad Balbontin. Soledad, or Choleng to her family, was a daughter of Antonina Balboltin y Magalona, a sister of Doña Dorotea Montinola, Don Felix's wife.
"Outstanding hacienda of the year"
Being his second child and a strong woman with a profession to boot, Salud was favored by Don Felix Montinola to take charge of the family's hacienda operations. While the men in the Montinola family were busy with politics, Salud experimented with new farm methods, introduced high yield sugarcane varieties, and gave importance to the hacienda workers' welfare. At Hacienda Dapdap, she built houses for her workers, constructed a chapel and had a weekly mass said by a priest from Manapla for their spiritual needs, and opened a cantina at the hacienda where workers could buy rice, de latas, and other household items on credit. And in the late 1960s, she had a black-and-white television installed at the cantina where her workers could watch TV shows every night for their entertainment after their work at the fields. Providing this kind of nightly exposure to news and entertainment improved the overall hacienda morale, which in turn improved workers' productivity. During the annual fiesta at Hacienda Dapdap that fell on September 9, the birthday of her mother, Doña Dorotea, a mass was held at the chapel and the workers joined in the feast of roasted cow and other delicious staples cooked during special occasions. Parlor games for the workers' children were also organized that made everyone feel the hacienda was one community that worked and played together. That's why under her watch, Hacienda Dapdap was a top performing hacienda in terms of production and hectarage sugar yield. Among the haciendas in the Victorias Milling District, Hacienda Dapdap was named "Outstanding Hacienda of the Year" and she the outstanding haciendera. While the haciendas in the island were run by men, and her farm outperforming them all, this smart lady from Victorias, who saw the big picture and knew how to react to challenges, beat them at their own game. And adapting the jargon of the 21st century, Salud Montinola - from Victorias - was the milling district's CEO of the year.😊
(Salud Montinola's Hacienda Dapdap was named Outstanding Hacienda of the Year)
Salud Montinola, her father's daughter Salud Montinola was the second of the nine children of Doña Dorotea Montinola and Don Felix Montinola, who was the town mayor from 1934 to 1940, and who built the current stone município with the help of President Manuel Quezon and the Victoriahanons of that time.
Born on May 24, 1899, Salud Montinola and her younger sister, Luz, attended the St. Scholastica's College in Manila during the early years of the American Occupation. After high school, she continued her studies at the University of Santo Tomas where she finished a degree in pharmacy.
Although she later became one of the few pharmacists in Victorias, as it turned out, this was not the profession that made her a distinguished businesswoman in the Negros sugar industry.
Although she was not the eldest in the family, Salud earned the trust of her father, Don Felix, to handle the family affairs, finances, and the operations of their haciendas.
On the other hand, Doña Quintina, the eldest, had her own children to take care of and went through an unimaginable tragedy during the early days of the war(see Chapter 23) when three of her children perished at sea on December 16, 1941. Although she was not involved in hacienda operations, Doña Quintina, the mother of former mayors, Jesus Fermin (1964-1986) and Renato Fermin (1988-1992), was also a hardworking lady who cultivated her own santol and mango orchards at her Hacienda Malogo (in E.B. Magalona), and had her own steady harvest of mongo, rice, lanzones, guavas, and other fruits, including pili nuts which she baked and turned into pili squares that could rival those made in Silay City. She even had her own rose garden, and had sheep and goats roaming around her hacienda.
Don Felix must have seen part of himself in his daughter, Salud. She loved to work, knew how to look after people, and also loved to travel. She spoke Spanish and English, and had no children of her own as she was unmarried, which helped her focus on whatever challenge was at hand.
She was 'Inday Salud' to her fellow hacienderos and by her hacienda workers, 'Nang Salud' to her younger siblings, and 'Nay Salud' or 'Tita Lud' to nephews, nieces and their children.
Doña Salud Montinola died on September 24, 1977, (incidentally was my mother's birthday and the this chapter's number that was never planned!😱) at Hacienda Dapdap in Manapla.
