Olay:Mariano Perfecto

Retrato

Pano baga an pagsangat nin mga retrato igdi? Maski ako na lang kuta ta pwede man mga pigkua ko sa digi cam ikaag ko, orog na sa mga prutas. Tokdoi daw ko, filipinayzd. Ringer 10.50.12 11 Mayo 2008

Dyan tabì sa kagamitan sa walá "ikarga an file". --Filipinayzd 09:44, 11 Mayo 2008 (UTC)

I do not know Bicolano. But Don Mariano Perfecto was NOT a 'pading sekular.' None of his many books which were published with the necessary ecclesiastical licenses indicates he was a priest. In fact, he was married & had children, the most prominent of whom were Gregorio who becam an associate justice of the Supreme Court & Casimiro who was a journalist & printing press owner like his father. Thank you. Dr. Luciano PR Santiago, historical researcher & writer.

A Reply to Dr. Luciano PR Santiago's Statement

Very few indeed know Mariano Perfecto was a secular priest. But these sources would amply tell us he was a secular priest:

1.".. Fr. Mariano Perfecto , a secular priest and well-versed in the special terms of elegance of Hiligaynon, translated into this dialect the "Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius" which Bishop Gainza (Bishop of Nueva Caceres, 1862-1879) had published in Bicol... before. Both these translations came off the press in 1880."

Source: History of the Church in the Philippines (1521-1898). Pablo Fernandez, O.P. Life Today Publications. Swan Juan, Metro Manila. Philippines. 1988. vide, p. 433.

2. In Articulo V, entitled "Sacerdotes Del Clero Secular Filipino Escritores en el Obispado de Nueva Caceres, on page 72:

" Sentimos en el alma que el estado actual de guerra no nos haya permitido ponermos en relacion con los literatos y libreros filipinos bicolanos de la region del Sur de Luzon, para obtener datos bibliograficos del Clero Secular de aquella Diocesis; sabemos que en ella han sido muchos los Rdos. Clerigos que han cultivado el idioma o dialecto bicol. Alla esta en Nueva Caceres nuestro antiguo y queridisimo amigo el infatigable editor Sr. D. Mariano Perfecto, segundo escritor regional contemporaneo en Filipinas, y primer escritor en dialecto panayano (1) quien monto hace años una imprenta para difusion de las producciones religiosas bicolanas del Clero de aquella dioceses.

Source: El Clero Secular Filipino... Salvador Pons y Torres. 1900. vide, p. 72. In microfilm. Can be accessed from the National Library.

Both authors abovecited, we might add, were Catholic priests.

3. "The acknowledged "Father of Visayan Literature" is Mariano Perfecto who was born in 1850 and died in 1913. Oddly enough, Perfecto was a Bicolano. He was deported to Iloilo for his liberal ideas. There he devoted his time to writing. His works were widely reaad..." Source: A Studfy of the Types of Philippine Literature with Special Emphasis on the Novel. a.T. Veloso. S.R. Enriquez. Rufino Alejandro. Phil. Book Co. 1973. vide, p. 38.

As for the statement that a Mariano Perfecto was the father of Associate Justice Gregorio Perfecto and also of Casimiro Perfecto as you have mentioned, then it is the same Mariano Perfecto who was clearly the Bicolano who owned Libreria y Imprenta Mariana (in Mueva Caceres) later managed by said Casimiro F. Perfecto. Casimiro became a member of the Institute of National Language in 1935 representing Bicol. But Gregorio's mother is Juliana Milian while Casimiro's mother is only known by her surname Ferrer. You can make your own conclusions.

Source: Justices of the Supreme Court of the Philippines: Their Lives and Outstanding Decisions, 1966-July 1985. vol. 3. Victor J. Sevilla. Published January 1986. vide, p. 25.

Ringer 22:10 Nobyembre 2008 (UTC)

Reply to Mr. Ringer(?) by Dr. LPRS 26 Dec. 2008

Dear Mr. Ringer (?) – First of all, allow me to express my admiration for your wonderful work in the Bikol wikipedia. I appreciate very much your reply to my notes on Mariano Perfecto. I rarely get a reply to my notes in the past esp. from an excellent researcher, scholar & writer like you. I may have made a mistake in assuming that Casimiro was a son of MP from my (mis)reading of MP’s bio in the Bikol wikipedia because as I confessed from the outset, I really don’t know the language. Maybe CP was his nephew. The other possibility is that MP married twice since Casimiro was born in 1881 & Gregorio in 1892. If MP was a secular priest who had children, I do not have any problem accepting that. But I do not believe that MP was a secular priest for the simple reason that of the 29 books of his – all published with strict ecclesiastical licenses and with the long title page listed in detail (1877-97) in Rodriguez’ Updated Checklist of Filipiniana at Valladolid. (1976) – a catalogue of the most extensive collection of Philippine books - NONE states that he was a secular priest. Whereas all the books of the other secular priests, whether Filipino or Spaniard, ALWAYS state as they should that they were so. Also in the Archives of the Archdiocese of Manila, there are still extant and detailed lists of the clergy (Catálogos del Clero Secular) of Jaro from the 1870s-1890s where his name does not appear at all. The sources you cited are all excellent and very interesting except that they are all secondary sources published only in the 1970s & 80s. They are not primary or archival sources unlike the ones I cited which obviously take precedence in terms of reliability. Even your earliest source, Pons (1900) referred to MP as “Sr. Don” and NOT “Presbitero or Padre Don,” the usual title for a secular priest in the Spanish Period.

Thanks again & Merry Christmas.

P.S. While we're still on the subject of Bicolano priests, allow me to present here the bio of the 1st Bicolano priest altho this may not be the appropriate spot for it. You may transfer it to the right place if necessary. Thank you

Article published at Boletín Eclesiástico de Filipinas (Interdiocesan journal). vol. 83, no. 862, Sept-Oct. 2007 pp. 715-19.

Third Centenary of the First Bicolano Priest: Bachiller Don Gregorio Cabalquinto (c1682-1753)

Dr. Luciano PR Santiago

The Bachiller Don Gregorio Cabalquinto was ordained in circa 1706 by Bishop Fray Andrés Gonzales, O.P. (1685-1709) of Nueva Cáceres. Cabalquinto was the first Bicolano as well as the second Indio priest and pastor of the old diocese (now an archdiocese). The first Indio priest and pastor of Nueva Cáceres was Licenciado Don Martín Baluyot Panlasigui, a Kapampangan who was also ordained by Bishop Gonzales in 1705.

Cabalquinto was apparently born on the feast of Pope St. Gregory the Great, March 12, c1682. His place of birth was most probably Paracale, Camarines (not yet then divided into two provinces), where the Cabalquintos of that era hailed from. Despite its great distance from Manila, Paracale was one of the first settlements established by the conquistadors because of the lure of its gold mines. Although they had taken up a Spanish surname, Cabalquinto’s parents almost certainly belonged to the native nobility like those of the other pioneer Filipino priests. Their original Malay surname is not known. Cabalquinto signed his name with the abbreviated title “Br.” which stands for Bachiller. This meant that he had acquired the Bachelor of Philosophy degree most likely from the University of Santo Tomás in Manila.

In 1708, when the Franciscan order gave up the administration of Capalonga, also called Capalongan, in Camarines, Cabalquinto became its proprietary parish priest. Capalonga was founded by the Franciscans in 1632 as part of Paracale. It separated from its mother parish two years later. Its titular is Santa Lucía, virgin and martyr and patroness of those with eye problems. In addition, the church of Capalonga enshrines a miraculous image of the Black Nazarene, which is venerated in the entire region. Because of its proximity to the Tagalog province of Tayabas (now Quezon), Capalonga’s language is Tagalog and not Bicolano.

A year after Cabalquinto’s installation in Capalonga, Bishop Gonzales died on February 14, 1709. The Archbishop of Manila Fray Francisco de la Cuesta, OSH, became the apostolic administrator of the vacant see. He appointed Maestro Don Juán Gonzales de Guzmán as his Provisor and Vicar General in Nueva Cáceres. The indefatigable Maestro Juán at once made a visitation of the parishes of Camarines. He arrived in Capalonga on May 24, 1709. He subsequently reported to the Archbishop that the parish was very poor in material things. “Its church suffers from the grave lack of sacred vessels and other materials used for the Divine Service.” Ironically, the wealth of the nearby gold fields of Paracale did not benefit Capalonga probably because of the greed of the officials who managed them. Gonzales therefore begged the prelate for alms for the local church. Despite its poverty, however, he was impressed by the deep piety of the people, a reflection of the character and example of their spiritual leader although he did not name Cabalquinto, the parish priest.

Cabalquinto was not only an exemplary pastor but also a talented priest. Bishop Ganzales’ successor, Bishop-elect Domingo de Valencia (1715-19), an advocate of the Filipino clergy, recognized this fact and appointed Cabalquinto concurrently as the diocesan secretary of Nueva Cáceres in 1717. He succeeded the Licenciado Don Martin Baluyot Panlasigui, the previous secretary (1715-1717) who probably retired or died by that time. Cabalqunto in turn was succeeded in 1719 by the younger B. D. Bartholomé Saguinsín (1693-1772) who later became the first Indio pastor of Quiapo, Manila (1728-72). Our principal information about Cabalquinto’s extraordinary life and work consists of a notable entry in the diary of a Franciscan missionary, Fray Francisco Hermosa de San Buenaventura, O.F.M. in 1747.

“We arrive on July 29 in Capalongan which is administered by the secular clergy. Here, we three religious note the outstanding case of Padre Cabalquinto, an Indio priest who has administered the said town for forty years. He has been even more exemplary in observing our standard of service than our own religious during the said span of forty years. The town had been ceded by our holy province to the Lord Bishop of Camarines and its last religious pastor was Padre Mayorga, another exemplary priest. The Most Illustrious Lord Archbishop of Manila, Don Fray Pedro Martínez de Arízala having passed here and seeing how old the said Padre Cabalquinto looked, brought him to Manila so that he could rest and he gave him a pension for his maintenance.”

According to Fray Francisco, the unnamed Indio priest who replaced him ad interim in Capalonga unfortunately failed to live up to the high standard of his predecessor. The venerable Cabalquinto lived for six more years and died in his seventies in early 1753 in about the forty-seventh year of his priesthood. On May 2, 1753, he was succeeded by another native priest, BD Bernardino de Messa as the proprietary pastor of Capalonga.

Endnotes

 Luciano PR Santiago. The Hidden Light. The First Filipino Priests. (QC: New Day, 1987) pp. 89-90 & 90-91.
 Ibid.
 There was another 18th century Indio priest of Nueva Cáceres named BD Hilario Cabalquinto, a native of Paracale, who was most probably his nephew. He graduated with a BA degree from UST in 1759 & entered the San Carlos Seminary in Manila in 1768. After ordination to the priesthood by Archbishop Sancho of Manila, he returned to his native diocese to work there. USTAlumni Association. Graduate Listing 1611-1971. (Manila: UST, 1972) p. 6-B; Archives of the Archdiocese of Manila (AAM). Libro del Gobierno Eclesiástico (LGE) 1767-71, doc. 125; “Año de 1778. Respuesta al Real Orden de 3 Agosto 1776 sobre el Real Seminario Conciliar de San Carlos.” Cedulario no. 8, 1744-72. n.p.. 

 Lorenzo Pérez, OFM, ed.  “Diario del P. Francisco Hermosa de San Buenaventura.” Historicum. 26-27 (1933-34): 11 (448). Courtesy of Dr. William Henry Scott.  

 Félix de Huerta, OFM. Estado Geografico, Topográfico, Estadístico, Histórico-Religioso de la Sta. y Apostólica Provincia de San Gregorio Magno de Filipinas. (Manila: Amigos del País, 1855) p. 585; Bruce Cruikshank. Spanish Franciscans in the Colonial Philippines 1578-1898. Catalog & Analysis for a History of Filipinos in Franciscan Parishes. ( nd) 3: 48-49; Josephime Darang. “The Miraculous Black Nazarene of Capalonga.” Purely Personal. Sunday Lifestyle. Philippine Daily Inquirer. May 7, 2000.
 AAM. “Carta del Mro. Juán González de Guzmán, Provisor de Nueva  Cáceres en sede vacante al Abpo de Manila. 18 Junio 1709.” Cartas al D. Fray Francisco de la Cuesta Arzobispo de Manila. 

 Santiago. Hidden Light. pp. 89-90 & 145-151; AAM. “Carta de D. Domingo de Valencia, Obispo-electo de Nueva Cáceres al Abpo. de Manila.” 9 de Junio 1717. Cartas al D. Fray Francisco de la Cuesta Arzobispo de Manila. This letter was about BD Juán de Estrada y Aguero (a native priest) who was given the license to continue his studies in the 3rd year theology course in UST in Manila.  This was certified and signed by “Br. Gregorio Cabalquinto” as the diocesan secretary.   

 Pérez.  “Diario del P. Francisco.”
 Ibid.; AAM. LGE 1753-55, f. 45v.

Note: For those who might like to contact the author, his email address is <lprsanti@yahoo.com>

Mariano Perfecto's brother was a priest

When Mariano Perfecto from Bikol went to Iloilo in 1873 looking for his brother priest who was exiled for revolutionary ideas, there he learned to speak and write Ilonggo... --Filipinayzd 19:49, 19 Hunyo 2009 (UTC)

Si M. Perfecto

Hahaha. Garo na baga caricature logod an pandok ni M.P. Ringer 19 Okt. 2009

Marhay na iyan. May arte. --Filipinayzd 13:38, 19 Oktobre 2009 (UTC)