SECRET TO A LONG LIFE

MARTIN OLIVA

Died at 104

(pic courtesy of grand daughter Marcy Blas)

In 1981 or 82, I saw a notice by the Guam Tribune, a newspaper owned by Mark Pangilinan, seeking village reporters. It wasn't a paying job but I figured I'd do it. You got to start somewhere, so I signed up for my home town of Sinajaña.

I did two articles on Sinajaña before I lost interest in writing more for the Tribune. One was on the history of the village and the second was on the oldest person living in Sinajaña, the man pictured above, Martin Oliva.

As a priest I usually don't have a problem asking to meet people but back then I was amazed that he was willing to talk to a 19 year old college kid.

Social Security says he was born in 1884, but in 1981 or 82, he was already claiming to be over 100. His family attests, also, that he wasn't bound to the age stated in later documents. So how old was he?

Back in the 1880s in the Philippines (where he was born), the Marianas and in many other places, a lot of people did not read or write and, even when they did, documents were not as big a deal as they are today. My own grandfather fudged his personal details (even his name) when he entered the U.S.

Based on his life story (I think he served in WW1) he must have been 100 or at least close to it.

I went to visit him in his home, where he lived with his wife. She was his 2nd wife as he had outlived his first wife. She herself was at least in her 60s if not older and was thin and spry and I remember her walking to Mass everyday with her umbrella in hand.

The question that I have never forgotten having asked him was "What's the secret of your health and long life?" For his age, he was still mentally sharp and physically mobile.

His answer was, "One cigar a day, one shot of whiskey a day and a page of the Bible every day."

That was his answer. For real.

REST IN PEACE, MARTIN

1884-1988

(Social Security)

SPANISH DEATH ANNOUNCEMENTS

Today's funeral announcements in our local newspapers are certainly very positive, but sometimes in a way that poses a problem for those with a Catholic perspective.

Phrases such as "now rejoicing in heaven," applied to the deceased, if taken literally and not as a hopeful plea, take away the need for any prayers for the dead. If the deceased is certainly in heaven, all the official church prayers in the funeral liturgy are meaningless. Those prayers ask for mercy for the deceased; they ask that God give the deceased a share in eternal life. No need for that if we know for sure the deceased is in heaven.

I think, in many cases, families making funeral arrangements just follow a trend that was started sometime ago without realizing the theological implications.

Despite rampant secularization, Spain has a hard time shedding old, Catholic customs. And it shows in many of their funeral announcements which are thoroughly Catholic in their wording.

Take for example, Soledad's announcement above. The underlined phrase means, "Having received the holy sacraments." These sacraments would have been the Anointing of the Sick, and possibly also confession and Holy Communion had she been conscious and able to confess and receive communion.

In Ignacio's announcement, the family "requests a prayer for his soul" from the readers. (See underlined sentence.)

And Wenceslao's announcement (see underlined) says, "He died in a Christian way in Madrid."

This means that he died with the sacraments.

When my mother passed, I included the phrase that she died, "having received the consolation of the sacraments."

What a great example it would be if more of us followed this Catholic custom, still practiced by many Spaniards, to emphasize the value of the sacraments and to ask others to pray for the soul of the deceased.

It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins. 

(2 Maccabees 12:46)

THE "SAINT MAKER"

Rev. Juan M.H. Ledesma, SJ

Earnest Advocate of Bd Diego Luis de Sanvitores

I once knew a saint-maker!

Well, not really, though he did call himself that in his old age, certainly not in a literal sense.

Only God makes saints, with the saint's cooperation, of course. But it's the Church who declares them so, or at least confirms what popular tradition has decided in antiquity. But little of that would be accomplished without the scholarly investigations and persistent promotion done by people like Jesuit Father Juan Ledesma.

FAMILIAR GUEST AT OUR FRIARY

When I joined the Capuchins as a postulant in 1981, the Friary was an interesting place to be because it hosted many guests from around the world from time to time.

One of the these was Fr Ledesma.

Ledesma's one and only claim to fame, as far as we on Guam were concerned, was his promotion of the Cause of Blessed Diego. Many years before I actually met him at the Friary, I had heard of the name Ledesma because of the book "The Apostle of the Marianas." Ledesma's name was on it, because he translated it from the original Spanish, written by Fr Alberto Risco. SJ. Monsignor Oscar Calvo's name was on it, as well, as editor. Calvo also promoted the sale of this book, and may have had something to do with financing its publication. This book was the first history of Sanvitores I ever read. This was in the 1970s when I was still a teenager. Later I was to find out that this text could be classified as a "popular history," rather than something more scholarly. Its purpose was to spread interest about Sanvitores among the average person, and it accomplished that goal. It was only in the next decade that Sanvitores was beatified.

When I finally met Ledesma in person at the Friary, I was both awed and disappointed. As an impressionable young man, new to religious life, I was struck that I was eating across the table from a man whose name was on a book, and a book about Sanvitores, a hero if there was one for us on Guam at the time.

But I found Ledesma rather quiet and reticent, a little stiff and not very affable. It was hard to make conversation with him, and I thought at the time that we (the young ones at table) were boring him. We probably were! But I also noticed that he didn't interact much with the older priests (or younger ones, for that matter). This was about the same time that the Cause was in high gear. Everyone was expecting the beatification to happen soon, and people were planning for all that. So Ledesma, as well as other off-island big shots, were coming in and out of Guam for that reason. Yet Ledesma seemed to be in the back of the picture. He'd walk around the Friary by himself. He'd have this or that comment with a priest or bishop, but generally speaking he was often by himself. Of course, he must have been involved in meetings we never saw, and there must have been much more to his day than meets the eye. I thought I detected a tinge of sadness about the man, but for all I know I may not have had any real reason to think so.

After the beatification, I saw Ledesma no more.

I do recall one anecdote. At the dining table, surrounded by us young ones, he broke his reticence and told all of us, words to this effect, "Now you must all do your part to promote the beatification of Father Sanvitores. You must all pray for it." And we said, "Yes, we will."

In the last few years I came to find out that Ledesma did have a hand in a more highly-regarded work, the translation of Garcia's biography of Sanvitores. Garcia's was the earliest bio, written just after Sanvitores' death, using letters and reports written by Sanvitores and the other Jesuit missionaries in the Marianas. Ledesma translated two chapters of that book.

A PERSONAL GLIMPSE

Ledesma was born in 1905 in Iloilo and lived to 102. His mother died in his infancy and he had no recollection of her at all. His father, an American, put the boy in a hospice. In fact, Ledesma had earlier been called Ledesma-Howard. Later, he switched his names around. The H in his name stood for Howard (his American father) and Ledesma remained his surname.

After joining the Jesuits he was educated in the U.S. (Woodstock) and Rome (Gregorian), where he earned advanced degrees. He returned to Manila to teach in San Jose Seminary (the same seminary where Monsignor Calvo had studied) but there were hurdles. It seems he didn't fit in with the teaching philosophy of the other faculty members. So Ledesma turned to writing and publishing. The sale of his books went to support the education of poor students at Jesuit schools in the Philippines.

The Cause of Sanvitores would not have met with success if it weren't for the efforts of Archbishop Flores, Mosnignor Calvo and Father Ledesma, to name a few of the main players. If it weren't for that success, we probably wouldn't have had a "Saint" Pedro Calungsod either.

Saint-maker. To some extent, Ledesma was. RIP with the saints, Father Ledesma.

For more information, see

http://goodjesuitbadjesuit.blogspot.com/2007/11/fr-jaun-ledesma-sj-rest-in-peace.html

DOWN BY THE RAILYARD

Thomas, Elizabeth and Mary Forbes

My Forbes ancestry comes from the County of Kilkenny in Ireland.

They lived in a place called the Railyard, in the neighborhood called Moneen Roe, in the village of Clogh, in the town of Castlecomer.

Thanks to Google maps, I can actually see the Forbes home in the map above, the first house on the N 78 road, to the left of the intersection of the N 78 and the road to Moneen Roe.

My folks worked in the coal mines. That part of Ireland was one of the few coal producing areas in the country. That's why it was called the Railyard, as the coal was sent off to Dublin by rail.

My Great Grandfather Thomas

Thomas, my great grandfather, worked in the coal mines of Castlecomer but also across the waters in the coal mines of Newcastle in England, for a time. My aunt in Ireland still has the thick leather knee pads he wore when he knelt inside the mines.

Thomas married Mary Crennan from a nearby village, Mayhora.

Their oldest daughter, Elizabeth, was recruited by nuns in Illinois to join their convent. She was the first to leave Ireland and move to the U.S.

Because vocations were still not enough in the U.S. in the early 1900s, sisters with Irish backgrounds often went back to Ireland to entice young Irish girls from big families with many children to join an American convent. My grandfather's sister Elizabeth was one such young girl. She joined the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception in Peoria, Illinois and was given the religious name Sister Mary Berchmans.

Because of her, two of her brothers, including my grandfather, moved to Illinois. My grandfather was Patrick Forbes, who left Ireland, so it is said, before 1914, trying to escape the British who ruled all of Ireland at the time.

My grandfather was an Irish nationalist and member of the Irish Republican Army, the old one (not the modern one). When he was hunted down by the British, he and his brother Michael fled to the U.S.

Michael settled in Chicago and Patrick (Paddy) lived in Peoria. Paddy changed his name to Walter to sound less Irish. The Irish were looked down on in America back then.

My grand dad Patrick (Walter)

Forbes Home in the 1950s

WAKE UP!

Me in the late 60s at Grandma's old house in Sinajaña

It seems to me that many times in my life. a significant event began with the words, "Wake up!" In those times, I didn't have a clue what I was waking up to.

TRIP TO TOKYO

One of the first was in 1970 when I was eight years old. We three brothers slept in the same room and pretty much the same bed, except that they were two beds pushed together against two walls. All I remember is that it was summer time, when we should have been able to sleep in late. But not that morning.

It was still dark when mom shook me out of bed. "Come on, let's go," she said. "Where to?" "Japan."

All I remember is washing up, but I don't remember packing. I guess she did all that.

It was my first time to ride a plane as well as leave the island. And yet I do not remember anything about the plane ride.

Three things stand out about my first trip off-island.

1. Our hotel. At this hotel, wherever it was (I don't remember), I rode my first escalator. Guam had none in 1970. I was eight and cute with my Marine haircut. The Japanese ladies at the hotel couldn't get enough of me, smiling and giggling and talking in Japanese and rubbing their palms on my bristly head. I remember we were high up, on the 20th floor or higher, and it was just myself and my brothers at the time in the room, when the building began to shake and then sway. It was over in seconds, thankfully. My brother was in the bath tub and told us how he saw the water form waves in the tub.

2. Tokyo Tower. Of all the places we went, this alone remains in my memory. To go up high and see a huge metropolis sprawled out before you in every direction, as far as the eye could see.

3. The Gun Shop. Japan has strict laws against firearms. But this one shop sold guns that were impossible to fire. My father was, and is, a weapons fanatic. My two older brothers were excited to get guns as well. Dad wanted to buy each of us one. I was not enthusiastic. Guns reminded me of gangsters and the mafia and I just didn't see myself carrying that persona. But dad got me one anyway, a small pistol. As I mentioned, these were tampered with so as to be impossible to load and fire.

I suppose I grew to like the idea of having it, because as soon as we returned to Guam, I was brandishing it to the neighborhood kids. I guess one of them was scared out of his wits and told his mama. His mama complained to my dad. My dad went right up to me when he heard what I did and picked me by the collar 3 feet off the floor, looked me straight in the eye and told me never to do that again. Then dad let me down on terra firma. Dad never laid a hand on me my entire life. He didn't need to. One look was all it took most times. This was the one and only time he needed to do more than that, and it worked. I never played with the pistol again, not even in private in my make-believe world in the jungle.

FIRST COMMUNION

I don't remember a single lesson I heard in 2nd grade about religion or First Communion. Obviously I learn something! But I can't tell you specifically what I learned in which grade. It all became "one" after a while.

One morning, in December of 1969, mom again rustled me out of bed. "Let's go!" "Where?" "Today is your First Communion." "Oh," I thought.

I do remember being prepared for it by going to confession. This was at Saint Francis Church, since Saint Francis School was a parochial school and we students made our First Communions at the parish church.

Father Daniel Cristobal, OFM Cap, heard my first confession, in a deserted church. Only we students, a teacher or two and our parents were there. It seems the parents waited in the back of church or even outside. The large church seemed empty except for us. As soon as the child finished confession, she or he left for the day, vacating the church even more.

I will admit, with some humiliation, though my tender age must be a consideration, that I had no idea what sin to tell Father Daniel, hidden behind the screen. I was a good kid. Perhaps boring for being so. I didn't lie, curse, fight, steal or disobey. Well, it depends on your definition of "disobey." I never opposed a direct command, but I did take my licenses when I wasn't told explicitly not to do something. I was an inquisitive child so I was always opening drawers and lifting up curtains and things like that. I was never told not to do it and I was never stopped from doing it. By middle school I knew what sin was, and confession became a regular necessity, as it is now.

At the moment of receiving Our Lord for the very first time, in His Body, Soul and Divinity, I will disappoint you with the total absence of anything pious or even remotely religious in my experience. I was immediately conscious of the way the Host stuck to the roof of my mouth. I had this vague sense that I should not touch It with my finger to remove It in order to swallow It, but I was so tempted to! Time dissolved It and that was that. I knelt upon returning to my place, but it was not by any means the momentous occasion which we read about in the lives of some child saints. I mean, it truly was extraordinary (objectively), but I did not sense anything out of the ordinary.

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

Once again, I was told to "wake up," and I didn't know for what purpose until I was told to dress in brown pants and a white shirt and get in the car.

This was in August (I suppose) of 1968. My older brother Carl was four years older than me and still at Saint Francis, while my oldest brother Mark was now at a different school, Father Dueñas.

When dad dropped us off in his car in front of the school (or church), Carl took me by the hand and walked me down the long hallway to my classroom. The walked seemed like an eternity and there were kids all over the place, something I was not used to.

Carl stopped in front of Sister Mona Therese, who seemed to tower over me as she stood in the hallway in front of her classroom. Carl said something like, "This is my brother," did an about-face and left. Sister looked at me from head to foot, with a poker face, as if examining a new specimen. I had no idea what to do or what to say. Everything was new, different and mildly disorienting. I imagine she saw nothing horribly wrong after inspecting me, as she motioned me to go inside the classroom where I had to sit with 30 or so children who were perfect strangers to me. I was from another village. A village that sent only a dozen or so students to a school hosting hundreds and hundreds of children.

By the time I started school in 1968, this is what the Sisters were wearing (above), except that on Guam everything was white. The Sisters gleamed in the bright, tropical sun.

I survived that first day of school. Saint Francis, in time, became like a second home to me. I went there for six years so I became very comfy in its surroundings. One final memory.  After lunch, Sister Mona Therese told all of us to put our heads down on the desk and nap. Soothing music was piped into the classroom from the speaker above Sister's chalk board. I remember not being sleepy at all and finding it odd that we were told to sleep when (some of us) weren't sleepy. So I daydreamed about Sister Mona Therese being another mother to me. She was very pretty. So was my mom.

FINAL CALL

In writing this, it appears to me that, at the end of life, I will again be stirred from sleep and not realize, maybe, right away why I am being called. That is, until I see the judgement seat of God. May He have mercy on me on that, perhaps, unexpected day that catches me, once again, clueless.

A JESUIT, GUAM AND LEPERS

Father Vilallonga is the only one in a black cassock (besides Bishop Oláiz), standing on left

In 1929, the Pope sent a Spanish Jesuit with an impressive resumé to inspect the mission of Guam. His name was Father Joaquín Vilallonga.

He arrived in late 1929 and after his visit with Bishop Oláiz and the Capuchin missionaries, all Spaniards like himself, he gave the Guam mission not merely a clean bill of health but high praise, calling it the "best organized mission in Oceania."

Here's what Vilallonga said himself in a letter to Bishop Oláiz of Guam :

"I can say with total sincerity that I have not found in all the Philippines a mission better organized than that which the Capuchin Fathers have in Guam under the prudent and wise direction of Your Excellency. I believe that the Chamorros can consider themselves very content and happy in having such zealous and selfless missionaries who give to all their faithful such good examples of virtue and holiness."

The very positive report on Guam filed in Rome by Vilallonga helped move the Vatican to send money to Bishop Oláiz so that he could build a two story concrete building to house many Catholic activities.

What were his credentials that allowed him to act as inspector for the Vatican?

VILALLONGA THE YOUNG MISSIONARY

Like many Jesuits, Vilallonga's dream was to work in the missions. After joining the Jesuits in Spain in 1885 at the age of 17, he was sent to Manila in 1892 to teach at the Ateneo de Manila. He taught philosophy, physics and mathematics. He was well-educated in the Latin classics, and could recite from memory long passages from Cicero and Virgil. He was good in the Greek classics, too.

WITNESS TO HISTORIC TIMES IN MANILA

Vilallonga lived in the same Jesuit residence in Intramuros, Manila where some of his Jesuit confreres lived; Jesuits who visited José Rizal in prison. They would come back to the house asking the Jesuit community to pray for their former student.

When Admiral Dewey sailed into Manila Bay in 1898 during the Spanish-American War, Vilallonga was eyeing the American fleet from atop the Jesuit house in Intramuros.

A BUSY LIFE IN HIGH POSITIONS

He was sent to St. Louis, Missouri to finish his studies and there learned to speak English well. He also became friends with Teddy Roosevelt and John D. Rockefeller. The story is that Vilallonga defended his thesis in front of a crowd that included Roosevelt, who was impressed enough to send him a written note of congratulations. Finishing his studies in the U.S., he returned to Manila and began a quick rise to positions of authority :

Rector of the Ateneo de Manila 1910
Superior of the Davao Mission 1917
Rector of the Vigan Seminary in 1920
Superior of the Jesuits in the Philippines in 1921
Provincial Superior of the Jesuit Province of Aragon (Spain) in 1926

It was because of these extensive experiences in missionary life that Vilallonga was an excellent choice of Rome to conduct an official inspection of the Church in the Philippines and in Guam. He could deal with the many Spanish missionaries, and his command of English and acquaintance with American ways enabled him to relate well with the American civil and military authorities.

When that was done, he was back in the missions but this time in India, where he worked from 1930 to 1949. It was in 1949, at the age of 81, that Vilallonga made a surprising request of his superiors. It concerned his next assignment!

CHAPLAIN TO THE LEPERS AT CULION

Fr. Vilallonga visits his people at the leprosarium in Culion.

At age 81, many priests look forward to a life of blessed retirement. Not Vilallonga. Having occupied very high offices in the past - in academic and religious governance - he wanted his "last stop" to be in a remote corner of the Philippines called the "Island of No Return" among those suffering from Hansen's Disease. There he would say Mass for them, hear their confessions, anoint them, listen to them, attend to their needs, be a father and friend to them.

In 1949, there were undoubtedly patients from Guam who had come there many years before. They must have jolted Vilallonga's memories of his short time on Guam. I am sure, when he conversed with Guam patients, he brought up the name of at least Bishop Oláiz and perhaps one or two friars.

Vilallonga wanted to die in Culion and be buried with the lepers, without a casket. His noble aspiration was not God's will, though. In 1962 his physical condition necessitated a move to Manila where he died the following year. He was buried in the cemetery of the Jesuit novitiate in Novaliches.

MAGSAYSAY AWARD

In 1959, Vilallonga won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service. He was the second person to win this award since its inception in 1957. It was his work with the lepers of Culion that earned him this distinction.

Vilallonga receiving the Magsaysay Award. Cardinal Santos stands to the left.

Vilallonga with the dignitaries....

Claro M. Recto

Statesman, writer, jurist
and his former student

...and the needy.

Spiritual guidance with a patient in Culion

REMEMBERED IN HIS NATIVE PLACE

It is ironic that a man who left his home was honored by the people of his birthplace who hardly ever saw him. Even a nephew of his spoke about the great "absence" of his uncle in the family, since he spent the majority of his life overseas. The year after he died, his native town of Burriana, Valencia opened a school in his honor. In 2014, the school celebrated its 50th anniversary and unveiled a plaque in his honor.

MY ILOCANO GREAT GRANDFATHER

Or, "How I got my slanted eyes."

Victoriano Joanino y Caboral

HOW IT ALL STARTED

As a child, I became aware of the lack of male figures in my family. I had a Chamorro grandmother, but never a word about her husband. I heard about Mamá, my great grandmother, as she was called in the Spanish style of those days. But I never heard of a Papá.

By the time I was a teenager, I had put the pieces of the puzzle together somewhat.

Mamá had never married. But, she had six children, each with a different father, although it is debatable if two of the six shared the same father.

The story was that Mamá was an only child. This we can verify, since we have the 1897 Census and there it is. Pedro Torres y Rodríguez is married to Josefa Pérez y San Nicolás and they have but one child, a daughter, Maria Torres y Pérez, or Mamá.

As Mamá was an only child, her parents never allowed her to get married. For her to get married meant to leave mom and dad and be absorbed into the husband's family. Who would care for Pedro and Josefa in their old age?

Still, human nature being what it is, Mamá had six children. The oldest of the six was my grandmother María, who became the pillar and rock foundation for the small clan of six children and Mamá, nicknamed the familian Kitå'an, after Mamá, whose name María was affectionately changed to Mariquita, and Kita for short. Kita's children were the Kitå'an.

GRANDMA'S DAD

I never knew Mamá, but I knew her daughter, my grandmother María. I was 18 when she passed away. A few years after my grandmother died, I started to pester her cousin, my grand aunt Carmen Pérez Cruz (married Guzmán), who knew all the family secrets.

One day she let me know. She said my great grandfather was a Filipino. "Eskribienten i Gobietno," she said. "Clerk of the Governor."

But what was his name?

All she could remember was something that sounded like HUA - NINO.

I was bewildered. Was that his first name? Juanino? Like Juanito?

Or was it his last name?

Or was it both names? Juan Nino? Juan Ino?

THEN I FOUND THIS

This is the signature of the land clerk on a land document, signed in Agaña, Guam in 1900. My grandmother was born in 1899.

The signature clearly says "Victoriano Joanino C."

In Spanish, the father's surname comes first. Then comes the materal name, which can be abbreviated, as it is here, as a C.

Using the American style, this man would have been Victoriano C. Joanino. Joanino! I found my great grandfather's name and signature!

THE MANILA PHONE BOOK

Years passed and by the early 1990s, I went to Manila as a young priest buying things for my parish. While there, I decided to look up Joanino in the Manila phone book. All I can say is thanks be to God my great grandfather's name was not Cruz or Reyes or Santos. I'd still be in Manila today looking for my great grandfather if his name was one of those.

Instead, I found just six Joaninos in the phone book. Easy! I dialled the first one. "Hello, my name is Father Eric Forbes, a priest from Guam. I am looking for my relatives. Children of Victoriano Joanino."

The first Joanino house did not know of any Victoriano. Nor did the second. The third house may not have even answered. I don't remember!

But the third or fourth house did! The woman who answered the phone responded excitedly. "That is my Lolo! (Grandpa)"

Her name was Thelma and she said the family lived in the province of Nueva Ecija, though some of the family lived in Manila. At that very moment, she said, her dad was visiting her home in Manila. I went to see him a day or two later. I almost died. He was skin and bones, just like my grandmother, who would have been his half-sister.

This man confirmed that his father Victoriano had been exiled to Guam. "With Mabini," they said, but that wasn't true, as I was to find out later. But this is what families do. They add spice to the family legends, just like fishermen add pounds and inches to the fish they claim to catch!

WHO WAS VICTORIANO?

Gramps in his younger days.

Victoriano was a rebel. A member of the Katipunan, or nationalist Filipinos fighting Spain. But he was an educated rebel; one who could understand, speak and write in Spanish.

He was originally from Tayug, Pangasinan. He was of Ilocano descent, his parents having moved to Pangasinan from Cava, La Union. The family confirmed that his maternal name was Caboral; the "C" in the Guam land document. We don't know where he got his education or how far he went in school, but the Joaninos in Tayug were part of the educated middle class that supplied minor civic servants.

Relatives in the Philippines told me the original name was Suanino and it was Chinese. In time it became Joanino; easier for the Spaniards to say, I suppose.

In the fall of 1896, the Philippine Revolution broke out. The Spaniards started to arrest numerous rebel leaders, big shots and less important ones, like Victoriano.

In Tayug, besides Victoriano, a certain Teodórico Vidal was also arrested. From then on, for some years, Victoriano and Teodórico shared the same fate; arrested at the same time, convicted at the same time and sentenced at the same time. Victoriano's court case files are missing, but Teodórico's are not. In his files, he is described as a Mason and an enemy of Spain. We can be sure Victoriano was charged with the same accusations.

In December of 1896, after having spent some time in the Bilibid prison, my great grandfather was deported, with his Tayug townmate Teodórico, to Guam. They arrived on Guam in February of 1897.

The Spanish Government document showing his arrival on Guam in 1897

LIFE ON GUAM

As one can see from the land record above, Victoriano did not spend his life behind bars on Guam as a political prisoner. He was put to work as a government clerk, since he was educated enough to do that.

When the Americans came in 1899, he continued in this post. While still on Guam, Mabini and the other famous nationalist leaders against the Americans were deported to Guam in 1901. That's why Victoriano or his family claimed he was "with Mabini on Guam," but under different circumstances.

Besides all this, Victoriano fathered my grandmother María, born in 1899.

Victoriano Joanino named "escribano" or "scribe/clerk" in a court proceeding on Guam in 1901. The court record was still written in Spanish at the time.

BACK TO THE PHILIPPINES, BUT...

Sometime in 1901 or 1902, he was free to return to the Philippines. When he returned to Tayug, he found out that his wife had re-married, thinking that he had died.

Disgusted with this, Victoriano moved not far from Tayug, but in the neighboring province of Nueva Ecija, to a town called Lupao where he found a second wife and raised a family. It wasn't a real town yet, and Victoriano was one of the civic leaders who lead the effort to elevate the community. In 1913, Lupao became an official town and Victoriano was credited with making that happen. He became the town's first Mayor (or President). To this day, the Joaninos are a well-known and politically active family in Lupao.

THE IRONY OF IT ALL

My great grandfather was a Mason and, in time, an Aglipayan, a church which broke off from the Roman Catholic Church to become an independent, "Filipino Catholic Church."

I wonder how he would feel knowing his great grandson is not only a Catholic priest, but also a friar - like the ones he fought against, believing that the friars were the villains responsible for the oppression of the Filipino people!

My grandmother, daughter of Victoriano