A wooden image of Virgen ng Balintawak at the National Church of Iglesia Filipina Independiente (Aglipayan Church). VAUGHN ALVIAR
MANILA, Philippines–In the dream, the Virgin Mary wears the balintawak (a native dress of Filipino women) while the Child Jesus is a Katipunero, a bolo on his side and one hand holding a banner with the prayer: “Ama, sumilang nawa ang aming pagsasarili.” (Father, we pray for the birth of our independence.)
Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) calls the image Virgen ng Balintawak, referring to Mary when she appeared in a dream to a Katipunero sleeping in Tandang Sora’s home in Balintawak.
Popular lore says Mary came with a warning to Katipuneros while the Child Jesus, in the dream, was shouting, “Kalayaan! Kalayaan!” (Freedom! Freedom!)
IFI has embraced that image as a representation of what it has stood for since Union Obrera Democratica (UOD) and labor leader Isabelo de los Reyes Sr. proclaimed a church free from the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church on Aug. 3, 1902. On Sunday, it marked its 112th proclamation anniversary.
In the 1920s, it gave the Virgin a feast day, Aug. 26, and a special Mass.
‘Perfect symbolism’
For a church whose mission is “Pro Deo et Patria” (For God and Country), the dual image of Mary as Inang Bayan (Motherland) and the Child Jesus as the Filipino people is a perfect symbolism.
For IFI—named the Aglipayan Church after its first supreme bishop, Gregorio Aglipay—that image has stood the test of time.
“The important feature is the porous boundary between nation and belief,” said Francis Alvarez Gealogo, chair of Ateneo de Manila University’s Department of History and a member of the church.
The Virgin, still displayed in Aglipayan churches today, finds its way in processions during important church celebrations.
Apostolic succession
The antifriar movement of Aglipay and the labor movement of De los Reyes intersected to produce IFI, Gealogo said. Both sought freedom from an oppressor and made the Virgin an apt symbol.
The image also asserted the importance of local cultures once suppressed by the friars.
Apostolic succession—acceptance into a fold of churches claiming continuity from the apostles—required IFI to tame its doctrines.
However, the church stuck to the nationalistic orientation after its acceptance in 1948. Not without backlash, IFI was branded a cult by some.
‘Trinitarian principle’
“Catholicism should not be connected [exclusively] to the Roman Catholic faith,” Supreme Bishop Ephraim Fajutagana said. “IFI is from the Catholic tradition. We believe in the ‘trinitarian principle’—one Lord in three persons, one faith, one baptism.”
“Some Roman Catholics believe that we are unitarian and therefore do not welcome our baptism,” Fajutagana said.
While other Aglipayan churches produced schisms in 1955 and 1981, Fajutagana said IFI had remained trinitarian.
He insisted that cultural variations were not heretic.
Folk songs
“Liturgy should reflect the aspirations of the believers,” he said. “If prayers are too general—praying for bread to eat—why not ask God to safeguard the farmers from being maligned? You should contextualize your prayers.”
IFI historically translates prayers and missals to reflect the languages of the membership, predating the move of the Roman Catholic Church. It also uses melodies from folk songs as songs during the Mass.
Adrian Hermann, a visiting German research associate at the Institute of Philippine Culture, cited IFI as “one of the most important Rome-independent churches in Asia” when it began.
It was sought by non-Roman churches in Sri Lanka and Switzerland for possible cooperation, he said.
Alternative community
However, locally, “there was a very negative view of IFI and Aglipay. [Members] were seen as schismatics,” Hermann said.
Despite that, many were receptive to the concept of a Filipino Catholic Church, he said, making IFI one of the biggest alternative Catholic communities in the world at its inception.
Church records say roughly one-fourth of the population in 1903 were members.
Klein Emperado, a descendant of one of the first couples in the IFI parish in Tayasan town, Negros Oriental province, said his great-great-grandparents Jose Bromo and Asuncion Caldera might have experienced oppression in the hands of the friars.
He added that many influential people, including then Gov. Demetrio Larena, were converted.
Driving force
IFI cites oppression as the driving force for its early success.
According to its records, revolutionaries in Tayug town, Pangasinan province, and Calamba City and Cabuyao town, both in Laguna province, were active members of the church.
Churches that rejected papal authority before 1902, including Iglesia Catolica Filipina in Maragondon town, Cavite province, also joined IFI.
In 1907, when the Americans prohibited the use of the Philippine flag, IFI invoked separation of Church and State in singing the national anthem during Mass, Emperado said.
Priests also wore Philippine flag-inspired vestments and placed the flag on the altar.
Peace process
IFI is active in unionism and the peace process.
Bishop Rhee Timbang of the Diocese of the Agusans and Surigao Sur played a central role in the recent release of four policemen held captive by New People’s Army (NPA) rebels.
The national cathedral on Taft Avenue also hosted the wake of the firstborn child of suspected NPA member Andrea Rosal. Unions and farmers’ groups gather there every February to mark the founding of the UOD.
Activism has felled some members, according to IFI.
In 2010, lay minister Benjamin Bayles was gunned down in Negros Occidental allegedly because of his farmers’ rights advocacy. Former Supreme Bishop Alberto Ramento was murdered in 2006 in Tarlac City allegedly because of his criticism of government.
2 to 6 million members
Gealogo said social awareness needed to be affirmed if the church, with a membership of 2 to 6 million, were to thrive.
“Some people say the church is too ‘Red,’” he said. “Rallying on the side of the masses, the workers and farmers are deemed wrong and evil. But I think the church should insist that this is a part of its doctrine.”
Gealogo thinks the “Red stigma” is a consequence of being true to the IFI’s heritage.
Hermann said: “I think now is a good time to look back and try to evaluate its history without getting caught up in positive and negative perspectives.”
“I became IFI because of my ancestors but I realized that being IFI is a personal choice,” Emperado said. “I could still remember the time when people denied of funerals, weddings and baptisms would come to our church because we welcome such people … It served as a church of the people, the poor, the oppressed and the neglected.”
‘Conscience of masses’
To Gealogo, IFI “is always on the underside, the underbelly of history.”
“People are searching for strength in terms of how the church is able to project itself to the general society—the size of its churches, the traffic standstill its events cause,” Gealogo said.
But IFI “is different,” he added.
“IFI stands as the conscience of the masses,” Fajutagana said.
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