Friday, August 22, 2008 The Last Grand Fiesta Procession By Paulita Roa Past speaks
THE parish priest of San Agustin Church of Cagayan de Misamis (the city's old name) was described by locals as a Katsilang prayle Recoletano or a Spanish Recollect friar whose full name was Angel Contreras de Belaza de los Dolores.
It was Pari (priest) Angel Belaza who changed the wooden floors of the church into tiles and painted its interiors.
For the coming feast day of the town's patron saint, San Agustin, he ordered a new statue of the saint from a sculptor in Manila.
Unfortunately the name of this artist was not mentioned by the writer who is simply known as Kagay-anon, in his article entitled San Agustin, Patron Ning Kagay-an on the August 21, 1948 issue of Ang Katarungan, the city's and Mindanao's oldest local newspaper.
The new statue of San Agustin was going to be blessed outside the church on the western portion of what is known today as the Divisoria area.
This could be on the present site of the Community Amphitheater.
Pari Angel commissioned a local artist who was popularly known as Iyo Kando to design a templete or temple with four big posts whose top was covered with clouds to make it looked ethereal.
Finally, on August 27, 1897 at 7:30 in the morning, a big procession headed by Pari Angel came out of the San Agustin church and wound its way to the templete.
The new statue was placed in a float or carrosa that was shaped like a huge boat.
A large crowd was already waiting around the templete for the ceremonies to begin.
As the carrosa stopped in front of the templete, an all male choir composed of students from the school of Nicolas Capistrano, the Colegio de 2 a Ensenanza, sang a beautiful hymn in Spanish whose melody was composed by Maestro Pedro Velez.
A stanza from the hymn was all that Kagay-anon could remember and it went like this:
'Cante el mundo mil himnos de gloria
Desde el uno hasta el otro confin
Bendeciendo la grata memoria:
Del eximio Doctor Agustin."
Kagay-anon translated this to Bisayan as thus:
"Mag-awit ang kalibutan sa libo ka
dalayig sa himaya
Sukad sa pikas hangtud sa luyong tumoy,
Nagapalangin sa iyang matamisong handumanan
Sa bantugang Doctor Agustin."
Some members of the choir were Misael and Uldarico Chaves, Maximo and Vicente Saquin, Dionisio Abas, Miguel Daang, Isabelo Abellanosa, Manuel Corrales Jr., Jose Corrales, Bernardo Neri and Vicente Neri San Jose.
While the choir was singing, a huge globe slowly descended from the templete's clouds and stopped directly above the head of the new statue. The globe gradually opened and released a shower of fresh flowers and four white doves that had multi-colored ribbons tied on their feet.
Isidro Vamenta, Ramon Neri, Jose Montes and Alfredo Roa, all students of Capistrano's school, stood onstage in the templete.
Each delivered a short talk in Spanish or alocucion. After the alucuciones, the blessing ceremonies for the new statue of San Agustin followed.
As Pari Angel led the procession back to the San Agustin Church, the male choir members and the four speakers rode on the carrosa as honor guards of the newly blessed statue.
The road leading to the church was lined with versos, a milder version of the firecracker that made a lot of popping sounds while the church bells were doing a rapiki or a continuous and fast pealing of the bells that could be heard for miles around.
There was another choir that sang during the Misa Diyakono and this was composed by the young men and women who came from prominent families of Cagayan de Misamis.
They were accompanied by a full orchestra under the baton of Maestro Pedro Velez.
The following day, the new statue of San Agustin was enshrined at the altar mayor or main altar of the church while the older statue of the patron saint that was acquired in 1800 was moved outside and placed on a niche right above the main door of the church.
The town and church fiesta celebrations that were celebrated more than a hundred years ago clearly showed that the Kagay-anons in 1897 and even earlier, already achieved a high level of culture and sophistication that was comparable to other cities like Cebu, Iloilo and even Manila.
Cagayan de Misamis was truly the center of culture and the arts of Northern Mindanao.
