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History of Siquijor

Society under the United States

Public Society

When the American government conducted its first census of the Philippines in 1903, they found that Siquijor had a population of 46,023––a sizeable increase from the last available records from 1884-1885, which placed the island’s population at 36,420.

 

Among other findings, only 10% of Siquijodnons who were at least 10 years old were literate. 22% were farmers, while around 23% were either unemployed (largely dependents, i.e. children and the elderly) or had occupations not measurable by census-takers.

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As was common throughout the Philippines, American culture found an eagerly receptive audience in Siquijor. Basketball quickly became popular and remains a cornerstone of both Siquijodnon and Filipino culture to this day. Many Siquijodnons founded bands that played American music, such as the Larena Rhythm Vagabonds Orchestra.

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During this time, missionaries of various sects also broke the monopoly that the Catholic priests had long held over Siquijor’s worship. In 1909, two pastors, Tiburcio de la Calzada and Mamerto Yurac, introduced Seventh-Day Adventism in Larena. In the 1920s, Protestant missionaries from Silliman University began spreading their faith on the island as well, starting, incidentally, with Larena as well. On 17 October 1936, two Aglipayan priests held the Philippine Independent Church’s first mass in Siquijor at a makeshift altar in Lazi’s tennis court. 

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This initial wave of migration, long before most other non-white immigrants began arriving en masse in the United States, provided the foundation for today’s strong Siquijodnon community in Northern California (particularly Sacramento, Stockton, and their surroundings). After the passage of the Tydings-McDuffie Act in 1934, the United States stopped receiving new sakadas from Siquijor, although those from other provinces continued migrating until after World War II.


It is worth noting that despite all of these changes, the core tenets of Siquijodnons’ lives never changed. Siquijodnons still call their older siblings kuya and ate, for example, and still respect their elders.

Bishop Casimiro Magbanua Lladoc, from the Diocese of Bacolod, in Larena, 1935. Among the canopy bearers were Mayor Cornelio Padayhag and Japanese businessman Shunzo Suzuki.

Basketball in Larena, c. 1930s.

Bishop Lladoc visits Larena, 1935
Basketball in Larena, c. 1930s

One of the foremost aspects of the Siquijodnon identity has its roots in the American period: its diaspora. Between the 1910s and 1930s, many Siquijodnon families and a larger number of men migrated to Hawaii to work in its sugar and pineapple plantations as well as to California to work as fruit pickers. These sakadas crossed the vast Pacific Ocean by boat in the hopes of starting a new life.

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Education

The Americans wasted no time in starting their education efforts in Siquijor. They sent seven teachers–one to each municipality–to the island. One of them was James R. Fugate, the island’s future lieutenant governor. As of 1902:

These American teachers drilled the English language in school, and by rote memorization, both their Filipino counterparts and the students were, in most cases, eventually able to learn it. They were received well by the people and local municipal authorities, although Fugate reportedly created some friction between the municipal council and presidente with what official documentation describes only as his “rather strange conduct.”

 

In the early years, school attendance fluctuated greatly year-to-year in Siquijor, mostly because of intermittent famines and epidemics. Undeterred, the provincial government kept an eye on the island’s needs. In 1903, for example, Dumaguete dispatched Samuel T. Lee, Division Superintendent for Oriental Negros, to the town of Siquijor. He saw that its schoolhouse had only 6-8 long benches for all of the students to use, which was obviously less than ideal. He encouraged each barrio to furnish one bench per month for the school, and each very happily complied. All of the work was done willingly without drawing any money from the municipal treasury. Before long, the students all had their own seats and benches to use.

 

Of course, it must be remembered that in spite of all this benign progress, the government was still a colonial one. Accordingly, there was a massive pay gap between American and Filipino teachers. Americans would be paid $1,000 to $1,500 annually, while Filipinos would make only a fraction of that: $175 to $210 annually. They were just as capable as their white counterparts, which was a point of resentment among them.

Town

Canoan

Larena

Lazi

Maria

San Juan

Siquijor

Teacher

Harty Y. Brown

F. L. Hayford

F. J. Bailey

Alexander Gordonker

Edward Dietrick

James R. Fugate

Disease

Unfortunately, outbreaks and epidemics were common in Siquijodnon society in the early 20th century. The worst impacts seem to have been on Talingting.

 

Cholera struck Talingting in 1903 and, in one fell swoop, killed nearly the entire population there. Every day, countless people fell dead. Their corpses had to be carried over seven miles (12 kilometers) of highlands to reach Larena by makeshift bamboo stretchers for church rites and burial. Pallbearers made these trips several times a day. At the outbreak’s height, it was even normal to see corpses coming to and from Larena, as members of the deceased’s funeral processions would die along the way.

 

In 1918, another disease hit Talingting: the dreaded smallpox. Townsfolk who had survived the 1903 outbreak were forced to relive those traumatic memories, carrying the dead through the highlands. Collective ignorance, poor sanitation, and superstition–some thought that the village had run afoul of evil, wrathful spirits–exacerbated their misery.

 

For these reasons, the residents of Talingting pushed for independence from Larena (see Government and Politics).


Talingting was not the only area to suffer during this period. Between 1904 and 1906, a smallpox epidemic ravaged Siquijor and quickly became endemic there. Cholera struck Oriental Negros between 1909 and 1910, but Lt. Gov. Fugate personally supervised strict quarantine efforts and saved Siquijor from being affected. He was unable to replicate his success in 1912, however, when cholera returned and, in conjunction with fever, killed over 1,200–about 2.6% of the population as it was recorded in 1903, a concerningly large percentage for just one epidemic.

 

In 1919, smallpox arrived in Siquijor, most likely as part of the same outbreak that ravaged Talingting. This was part of a nationwide epidemic that began in Manila by two processes: 1) two native sailors were rescued from their shipwreck and brought to the city, where they happened to develop smallpox, and 2) a British sailor from Nanjing, China, arrived there and fell ill the next day. From the capital, the disease spread throughout the rest of the country. Local officials promptly began a vaccination campaign in Siquijor, but due to a shortage of vaccine supplies, it failed.

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