Theft of the Sto. Niño de Pandacan

January in Manila has fiestas that commemorate images of Jesus Christ both as a sorrowful, suffering adult, and as a cute, innocent child. While the procession of the Black Nazarene of Quiapo on Jan. 9 trumps all fiestas in Metro Manila in size and fervor, there is no lack of devotion poured out for the Sto. Niño de Tondo, feted on the third Sunday of January, and the Sto. Niño de Praga (preserved by the Benedictines of San Beda University), feted on the last Sunday of January.

If it was not destroyed in a fire in 2020, the third venerated image of the Sto. Niño in Manila was to be found in Pandacan. Street dancing was the highlight of the fiestas: “Buling-Buling” and “Lakbayaw” in Tondo, which is a fusion of two words: “lakbay” (journey or pilgrimage) and “sayaw” (dance). Dance is also the main crowd-drawer for Sto. Niño fiestas elsewhere: Sinulog in Cebu, Ati-Atihan in Kalibo, Aklan (which claims to be the oldest existing festival in the country), and Dinagyang in Iloilo. The parish of Tondo has distanced itself from the shirtless muscle men gyrating on social media for Lakbayaw.

Having written columns about the Sto. Niño before, I despaired of digging up something new. I didn’t want to rehash the story of the Sto. Niño de Cebu. It is believed to be the oldest Christian relic in the Philippines, presented to the wife of Humabon by Ferdinand Magellan after her baptism and conversion in 1521. I didn’t want to repeat the theft of the Sto. Niño de Tondo in July 1972, which was believed to have brought about divine punishment in the form of the destructive typhoon “Gloring” that year. The body of the Niño was dumped in a canal by the thieves who only wanted its ivory head and hands, as well as its jeweled crown, scepter, and orb. To cut a long story short, the ivory pieces turned up in the antique shop of Dr. Eleuterio Pascual and were turned over to former first lady Imelda Marcos, who had the image rehabilitated and returned to Tondo Church. After this, the weather improved.

I may have to pray the novena to the lost Sto. Niño de Pandacan for providing column material for today. While researching Gregorio Aglipay for a lecture I will deliver in Ilocos Norte in May, I stumbled on a 1905 article in the Cablenews with the headline: “Holy Child At Home. Famous Image, Studded with Jewels. Restored to Shrine in Pandacan Church.” The subtitle was most intriguing: “The Party of Pope Aglipay Defeated in the Courts in Efforts to Retain the Santo Niño.”

The side story was the long-standing feud between the Roman Catholic and Aglipayan churches in Pandacan. Reports stated that the Aglipayan Church was short on religious images and didn’t have sufficient funds to acquire these. In early 1904, Fr. Mariano de la Cruz, parish priest of the Aglipayan Church in Pandacan, called on the faithful to seek a solution. Father De la Cruz declared that “a church without an image is like a funeral without a corpse.” This fired up some members of the congregation who believed: “Those images are the property of the people anyway, and the Roman church has no title to the same.”

It was decided at the meeting to “sequestrate” the image of the Sto. Niño from the Catholic church of Pandacan. Isabel Mercado, president of the women’s committee of the Filipino Independent Church, was put in charge of the project. She led 24 Aglipayan women who took the image from the church without any resistance. Their booty was not just the image but its pedestal, garments, scepter, etc., all deposited in the Aglipayan church. A request for the return of the image from the Catholic parish priest was ignored by the Aglipayans, resulting in a lawsuit that lasted two years. The Catholics underestimated the value of the image at P300 and argued more about its priceless religious value.

Daniel Boquer was appointed by the court to receive the image from the Aglipayans and return it to the Catholics. Mercado refused, saying she didn’t have the image. All she had on her were the accessories: a pair of gold sandals, a silver girdle, and a small gold glove with a silver cross attached. Girdle and cross were ornamented with “false stones.” A judge declared Mercado in contempt of the court, prompting her to turn over the image and have the contempt order lifted. The Aglipayans did not give up easily and filed a demurrer “denying the right of the Catholic church to the exclusive possession of the images and contending that [they] had the same rights as any other citizen of Pandacan.”

Exchanges in court even led to doubt regarding the value and authenticity of the Sto. Niño’s jewels! With this newspaper article as a lead, I hope to find the court proceedings someday and see how the case rolled out, and the impediments thrown in the way of its resolution. The image of the Sto. Niño was returned to the Catholic church of Pandacan in 1905. Alas, it perished in a fire, due to faulty electrical wiring, on July 10, 2020. Stories behind historical images should be better known for context and to add to their cultural rather than monetary value.

—————-

Comments are welcome at ambeth.ocampo@inquirer.net