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| The Church at the Hacienda de Calamba |
Before 1759, little was known about
the territory that will soon comprise Hacienda de Calamba. The area was said to
be one of the villages of Tabuco, now Cabuyao,
Laguna. It was certain, however,
that a layman, Don Manuel Jauregui, owned the haciendas of Calamba and Nagtajan
which he entrusted to the Society of Jesus (S.J.) on 29 January 1759 . The conveyance was
conditioned on his being permitted to live at the Jesuit monastery for life
with a pension of 25 pesos per month until his death. From henceforth, it was
known as the Hacienda
de San Juan
The trust, however, was not destined
to last within Jauregui’s lifetime. Eight years later, on 27 February 1767 , King Charles III
issued a decree expelling the Jesuits from the entire Spanish Empire including
the Philippines .
The Jesuits order was accused to be the instigator of the violent riots in Madrid and elsewhere
that took place a year earlier.
Impoverished, Jauregui took asylum
at the monastery of the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God. And as an act of gratitude, he worked for the
transfer of the haciendas to his new benefactor. However, because of the royal
policy of promoting secular ownership of lands in the Philippines , the petition, together
with many other similar petitions were disapproved.[1]
After the expulsion of the Jesuits,
Antonio Ortiz Narvaez, the administrator of the hacienda, on 22 May 1769,
reported to the officials of the Hacienda Real an inventory of Hacienda de
Calamba:[2]
Real Properties
|
Civil Fruits
|
Sugar cane plantation
|
300 pilones[3]
of sugar per annum
|
300 quiñones[4]
of irrigated rice paddies
|
435 pesos per annum
|
Tenanted wheat and rice producing highlands
|
672 pesos per annum (each tenant pays 3
pesos and 4 reales)
|
Eighty houses in the areas of Christobal,
Banlic, Bocal and Socol
|
Each house costs 1 peso and 4 reales
per annum
|
A parcel of land in town
|
100 pesos per annum
|
Adding to the aforementioned
inventory, Luis Lozano Sandoval, the subsequent hacienda administrator, reported
that the estate had[5]:
Farm Animals
|
Quantity
|
Horses
|
165 heads
|
Carabaos (water buffalos)
|
138 heads
|
Cattle (with complete agricultural
equipment)
|
75 heads
|
Contents of the Warehouse
|
Quantity
|
Mongo Beans
|
331 cavans[6]
|
Wheat
|
500 piculs[7]
|
Palay (unhusked rice)
|
1,112 cavans
|
Tobacco
|
21 bales
|
The inventories showed that the
Hacienda de Calamba was sparsely cultivated. The land area of the hacienda was 16,424 hectares, yet only less than 2,000 hectares
were cultivated with sugar cane and rice. While some portions of the hacienda
were used for pasture or planted with upland rice, much of it remained
unproductive.
Hacienda de Calamba, together with
the Makati and Nagtajan were known as the
haciendas of the Jesuit
Province San Jose and San Ildefonso.[8]
The hacienda, together with other Jesuit properties which the government did
not see fit to assign to ecclesiastical authorities were confiscated and placed
under the management of the Juez Comisionado de Temporalidades or Office
of Jesuit Temporalities. The said office was created purposively to administer
the Jesuit estates. [9]
On 14 January 1772, after the
tiresome collation of messed up Jesuit documents, Governor-General Simon de
Anda appointed Oidor Juan Francisco de Anda to sit as Judge Commissioner of the
Office of Jesuit Temporalities.[10]
The appointee did not find the task easy. Reporting to the king in 1773, he
bewailed that “the haciendas which are still under government management have
so far yielded nothing but trouble and expense.”[11]
He complained that the proceeds from the property could hardly meet the
expenses for the care of the sick Jesuits who were left behind, the maintenance
of the churches and college buildings, and the salary of the employees.
After tedious paper trails and
efficient administration, Commissioner Anda successfully made the estate
solvent again. One by one, the debtors of the Jesuits were traced and were made
to pay. Movable properties were inventoried and publicly auctioned while
immovable properties were publicly offered for lease or sale on liberal terms.
In 1773, Commissioner Anda, through
a public bidding, successfully leased all the Jesuit haciendas to private entrepreneurs.
In particular, Hacienda de Calamba was leased to Don Francisco Xavier Ramirez
for 1,400 pesos a year.[12]
Although the government policy was to dispose of the Jesuit properties as
quickly as possible, the general shortage of capital in the late eighteenth
century retarded the success of said approach.[13]
At the turn of the century, the
government finally found an interested buyer of the hacienda – a Spanish
layman, Don Clemente de Azansa. With a partial payment of 20,000.00
pesos, the possession of the estate was conveyed to Azansa. He undertook to pay
the balance of the purchase price annually with five percent (5%) interest. By 19 November 1802 , Azansa
paid a total of 44,007.00 pesos. And by 28 January 1803 , the land title was awarded to him. Upon
his death, however, his wife, Doña Isabel Vasques, failed to pay the remaining
balance and so the property was retaken by the government and publicly
auctioned on 19 November
1832 . The Corporacion de Padres Dominicos de Filipinas
(hereinafter, Corporacion) acquired
the hacienda for 51, 263.00 pesos.[14] The
total land area of the hacienda at the time of its acquisition was 16,424 hectares.[15] It
covered vast tracts of both cultivated and forested lands.
Even before
the Corporacion acquired the Hacienda de San Juan San Isidro Labrador .
Soon her siblings Potenciana and Francisco Mercado joined her and made Calamba
their home. When the opportunity for tenancy was offered, Francisco, like some
other members of his family from Biñan, became an inquilino (tenant) of
the hacienda.[16]
Even some
inhabitants of Manila
were drawn to Calamba. Brigida de Quintos, daughter of Manila-based lawyer Manuel
de Quintos, moved to Calamba where some properties of her husband, Lorenzo
Alberto Alonzo, were located. Alonzo, at one time a mayor of Biñan, bequeathed
to her some properties located in Calamba. Quintos brought with her all her
five children: Narcisa, Teodora, Gregorio, Manuel and Jose. All of whom were
born in Manila ,
but from then on grew up and settled in Calamba.[17]
From the
abovementioned migrant families hailed Francisco Mercado and Teodora Alonzo.
Married on 28 June 1848 ,
the Mercados became one of the principal inquilinos of the hacienda. The
family they raised was one basked in education and enlightenment. One of its
members was the Philippine national hero, Jose Rizal, whose attacks on
religious fanaticism gained for him the ire of the friars. It was then out of
contempt, when a Dominican intramural account stated that:
It is known that the ancestors of this Filipino
ingrate (Jose Rizal) came to Calamba as simple tenants, poor folk on the brink
of destitution who rented lands, and little by little created their fortune on
the hacienda of the Dominicans.[18]
Coming from
families of Biñan town mayors and businessmen, it cannot be gainsaid that the
Jose Rizal’s parents of either side were “poor folk on the brink of destitution.”
Through
skill, thrift and hard work, the Rizal family became prosperous inquilinos.
Other tenants who, in varying degrees of success, also made fortune in the
hacienda include the families of Eusebio Elepaño, Nicasio Eisagani, Hugo
Ilagan, Pedro Valenzuela, Francisco de los Reyes, Potenciano Andaya, Aniceto
Camoseng and others. Majority of these tenant families did not actually till
the land themselves. They were “middlemen landlord,” that is to say, other
tenant farmers – sharecroppers – till the land for them.[19]
These tenant farmers were provided with credit for seed, tools, living
quarters, and food. They received agreed shares of the value of the crop less
the charges. Only the inquilinos were registered in the books of the
hacienda, the sharecroppers were not mentioned in the official census.[20]
The sizes of
many of the leased lands in Calamba were above fifty hectares and thus,
relatively large. In 1880, the Rizal family, through the effort of Paciano
Rizal, acquired the “good and extensive”[21]
lands of Pansol. By this time, the Rizal family rented almost 380 hectares of
the hacienda, one of the largest leased lands. However, their lands were
classified as third class, the least productive type.[22]
The
Hacienda, for many years, yielded more than enough for the tenants. The tenants
were able to erect houses of strong materials [23] and
their children were able to study in elite schools in Manila
and Europe . Before 1887, Calamba college
students in Manila
numbered more than twenty (20) men students and three (3) colegialas.[24] [25] The
prosperity, however, was short-lived as the Philippines plunged into
agricultural and economic crisis.
By June of
1885, for the first time all tenants defaulted in their annual rents. While the
rent increased, the price of sugar was so low. To punish the tenants for their
lack of punctuality, the administrator declared all the lands of the hacienda
vacant. He also invited citizens of other towns to take over all the lands.
Frightened, some tenants paid their obligations with the distressed sale of
their sugar. Others ignored the administrator altogether. Few investors
responded to the invitation, thus, the administrator softened his position and
spared the tenants from eviction, “except four or five who were really
victimized by the comedy.”[26]
The
following year, 1886, the sugar harvest was good. During harvest time, it was
said that the price of sugar was high, but when the selling time came, the
price was low.[27] Worst, “no one buys sugar
and since June locusts are all over the town.”[28]
Locusts destroyed the palay and sugar cane plantations. Again, the tenants defaulted in their rents.
By this time, Paciano Rizal was contemplating of giving up the lands of Pansol
“because it is not possible for a farmer to support himself in these lands
which are overloaded with rent, considering the bad price of sugar.”[29]
Year 1887
was a time when the colony faced a commercial and agricultural crisis was at
its peak. It was also the beginning of the rinderpest[30]
epidemic which eventually destroyed much of the livestock in the provinces and
astronomically increased the value of the surviving animals.[31]
Again, the tenants defaulted in their annual rents.
On 21 August
1889, Friar Gabriel Fernandez, administrator of the Hacienda, for and in behalf
of the Corporacion de Padres Dominicos de
Filipinas (hereinafter, Corporacion)
filed a formal petition to declare the estate rented and held by the defaulting
tenants vacant.
[1]Salvador
P. Escoto, “Governor Anda and the Liquidation of the Jesuit Temporalities in
the Philippines ,
1770-1776,” Philippine Studies 23 (1975), 293 et seq.
[2]Hermano Antonio Ortiz
Narvaez a los oficiales de la Hacienda Real, 22 Mayo 1769. Archivo Historico Nacional , Madrid
[3]A pilon is a loaf of
sugar weighing 150 pounds.
[4]A quiñon is a land
measure equal to 2.79 hectares or 6.94 acres.
[5]Testimonio de las
diligencias sobre el despacho de la Hacienda de Calamba a su administrador,
Luis Lozano Sandoval, 17 de Julio – 23 de Diciembre 1769. Archivo Historico
Nacional, Madrid , seccion Jesuitas,
legajos 239; Salvador P. Escoto, “Governor Anda
and the Liquidation of the Jesuit Temporalities in the Philippines , 1770-1776,” Philippine
Studies 23 (1975), 300.
[8]Salvador
P. Escoto, “Governor Anda and the Liquidation of the Jesuit Temporalities in
the Philippines ,
1770-1776,” Philippine Studies 23 (1975), 298.
[9]Horacio de la Costa, S.J., The
Jesuits in the Philippines
[10]Anda to Aranda and vice
versa from 19 December 1770
through 2 August 1772 .
Archivo Historico Nacional, Madrid ,
seccion Jesuitas, legajos 238 b is. See Escoto, 297.
[11]Salvador
P. Escoto, “Governor Anda and the Liquidation of the Jesuit Temporalities in
the Philippines ,
1770-1776,” Philippine Studies 23 (1975), 306.
[12]Horacio de la Costa, S.J.,
The Jesuits in the Philippines
[13]Salvador
P. Escoto, “Governor Anda and the Liquidation of the Jesuit Temporalities in
the Philippines ,
1770-1776,” Philippine Studies 23 (1975), 304.
[14]Seccion Hacienda,
UST Library (Archivo de la Provincia de Santissimo Rosario microfilm copy, Tomo
VI, folio 196).
[15]Folletos, Documentos
Sueltos, UST Library (Archivo de la Universidad de Santo Tomas microfilm
copy, Tomo VI, folio 196).
[16]Austin Craig, Lineage,
Life and Labors of Jose Rizal: Philippine Patriot, (Manila: Philippine
Education Company, 1913), 55-56.
[17]Austin Craig, Lineage,
Life and Labors of Jose Rizal: Philippine Patriot, (Manila: Philippine
Education Company, 1913), 58 et seq.
[18]Archivo de la Provincia del Santisimo Rosario de Filipinas, mss. seccion de “Cronicas,” Tomo 3
(antes 369), folio 178 vuelto.
[19]Dennis Morrow Roth, The
Friar Estates of the Philippines
[22]AUST, Libros, Tomo
91.
[23]Jose S. Arcilla,
“Documents Concerning the Calamba Deportations of 1891,” Philippine Studies Vol.
18, no. 3 (July 1970), 613.
[24]Literally means college
girls. They were girl students in convent schools rather than colleges.
[25]Information about the Dominican Estate Furnished by
the Gobernadorcillo of Calamba to Emilio Bravo, Administrator, Province of Laguna Del
Pilar, Monastic Supremacy in the Philippines
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