Treasures of Pila

Foreword

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“Bayang Pinagpala” is Pila’s endeared name.  It is a town blessed with a long history of noble existence and doubly-blessed with evidences of its glorious origins.

In the declaration of the town center as a National Historical Landmark, the National Historical Institute (NHI) cites these documented treasures.

“…Pila…has been recognized as one of the country’s more important archaeological sites…
…Pila was honored with the name La Noble Villa de Pila by the Spaniards because of the genteel customs, refined manners and traditions of the people;
…Pila is one of the few existing towns in the Philippines that preserves the Spanish colonial town planning system of the Indies…
…the structures of Pila reflect a rich and varied architectural history…”

The events that led to this declaration began with the Locsin- University of San Carlos and the Elizalde-Esso Standard Philippines excavations of the 1960s.  The priceless finds of that era put Pila on the archaeological map.  It was the primary research of Dr. Luciano P.R. Santiago, M.D., however, that established the historical milieu for the artifacts recovered.  His unpublished study, “The Roots of Pila, Laguna – A Secular and Spiritual History of the Town,” formed the basis for the NHI’s declaration in May 2000.

Treasures of Pila pays tribute to these archaeological and historical research, which have been conducted on the town and its people over the years

As fate would have it, Pila was once again doubly-blessed.  Initially, the National Commission on Culture and the Arts (NCCA) awarded to the town a grant from Sen. Teresa Aquino Oreta’s Countrywide Development Fund (CDF).  Eventually, when asked to do the honors, Cynthia Ongpin Valdes-leading authority on oriental ceramics-agreed to author a research paper on Pila Museum’s artifacts.

Spearheaded by the Pila Historical Society Foundation, Inc. (PHSFI)-which earlier worked for Pila’s declaration as a National Historical Landmark and the transfer of the museum artifacts to its present site-the publicationi is a collaboration among adopted Pilenos Ramiro Cabrera and Carolyn Dedolph, and Pilenos Dr. Luciano P.R. Santiago, Elizabeth Miranda, Cora Relova and Monina Rivera (all PHSFI members).  Mayor Wilfredo Quiat’s unwavering support played a vital role in its realization.  So did the cooperation of the Pila Municipal Tourism Council.

Treasures of Pila is a guidebook-an eye opener towards a deeper understanding and appreciation of the artifacts and old structures, of the founders and builders of the town to whom the honor of Pila now reaps really belong.  More importantly, it is an affirmation of the Pilenos’ resolve to live its history of nobility and culture.

Pila in Ancient Times

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By Cynthia Ongpin Valdes

Laguna de Bay, especially along its coasts and rivers, was highly accessible to foreign vessels bringing merchants with goods to trade for local products.  Movement of goods and people also flowed into the Laguna de bay area from Manila Bay, linking it with the wider geographical area including Sta. Ana, or Lamayan.  Flat, arable land and bountiful protein foods, such as fish and eels, made the Laguna de Bay area a highly attractive place.  Chroniclers have long fantasized that kingdoms and chiefdoms flourished here in pre-Hispanic times.  Judging from the wealth of ceramics recovered in the area, it can be surmised that the people in this area were quite prosperous.

In 1958, Dr. Robert Fox of the Anthropology Division of the National Museum led a team that conducted a controlled archeological excavation at Calatagan, Batangas.  He published his findings the following year, making people in the area suddenly aware that their environs were a rich source of pots and other artifacts highly desired by dealers and collectors.  Later archeologists jokingly refer to Dr. Fox as the person who trained the first pothunters.  Needing assistance from the local people, he indeed taught workers rudimentary methods of archaeology – or “how to dig posts out of the ground.”  Using their newly acquired skills, these diggers moved to other parts of Batangas, as well as Laguna and Mindoro to dig for pots as lucrative means of livelihood.

In the mid-1960s, news spread like wildfire that celadon had been discovered in Gatid by an enterprising ex-farmer turned dealer.  It led to mad rush of diggings in the neighboring barrios of Pinagbayanan and Duhat followed by Victoria, Bay, Lumbang and Sta. Rosa.  Qingbai, early blue and white, celadon, brown-glazed wares, lead-glazed, spotted qingbai and rare underglaze red wares were found.  Those were the days of the great Laguna pot rush.  Small stores and roadside stalls of antique pottery for sale could be found on both sides of the highway leading from Pila to Sta. Cruz.

The Esso-Elizalde Project

Hoping to make some sense out of the pot hunting frenzy, Esso Standard Philippines together with Mr. and Mrs. Manuel Elizalde decided to provide funds for a archaelogical project focused on the Laguna de Bay area.  The project was led by Ms. Julita G. Fernandez and Ms. Amelia O. Rogel, graduate students of anthropology at the University of the Philippines, supervised by Dr. Fox and Mr. Avelino Legaspi of the Anthropology Division of the National Museum.

Ten archaeological excavations were conducted from May to October 1967 first in Balibago in Talim Island, Rizal, and then in Pinagbayanan and Bagong Pook, Pila and Lumban, Laguna.  One hundred fifty-three graves dating from the 12th to the 15th centuries were exposed at three of the four sites.  Trade pottery was used to date the sites and provide a time range for the occupation of the area.

An Exciting Discovery: Cremation

Although Prof. H. Otley Beyer, pioneering scholar in archaeology, had previously noted the practice of cremation in Novaliches, the team members believed they had discovered – for the time in Philippine archaeology – evidence of actual cremation.  About 40% of the cremated remains were buried in the soil while 60% were placed in medium-sized jars, sometimes found covered with a bowl.

Artifacts for a Museum

Mr. and Mrs. Elizalde donated to the town of Pila some 250-300 specimens, including celadon dishes with fish motifs, celadon censers, qingbai and blue and white jarlets, small lead-glazed water droppers and teapots, qingbai double gourd vessels, large grey-glazed ewers, figurines of carabao with riders in plain and spotted qingbai, and brown wares of all sizes and shapes.  Iron and glass bracelets, and colored beads and earrings that appear to be gold or copper were also part of the donation, as was a building – the Pila Museum – in which the artifacts were displayed.  In 1994, the contents of this building were transferred to a heritage building, formerly Escuela Pia, by the Pila Historical Society Foundation.

Locsin-USC Archaeological Project

Earlier, in 1961-1962, Mr. and Mrs. Leandro Locsin had conducted systematic excavations in Sta. Ana.  They uncovered hundreds of graves and carefully recorded their finds.  In September 1967, together with researchers from the University of San Carlos (USC), they embarked on another project, this time in Pila’s  barrio of Pinagbayanan.  Archaeologist Rosa C. P. Tenazas supervised the project.

These excavations involved two sites within an area of roughly one hectare.  During the 12th to the 14th centuries, two successive settlements inhabited and/or used the area as burial grounds.  At these two sites, evidence of cremations in secondary burial jars were discovered.

The First Settlements

Dr. Tenazas and her team determined that Pinagbayanan, settled during the Song-Yuan period (13th-14th centuries), was a hospitable environment.  A lowland area, it would have been suitable for growing rice.  Spindle whorls discovered in the graves also showed that the people practiced weaving.

The discovery of many water droppers led Dr. Tenazas to hypothesize that there might have been a Chinese settlement in the area that practiced calligraphy.  Ceramic historians later contended that the presence of such artifacts does not mean that these objects were used in recipient countries, such as the Philippines, for the same purposes for which they were manufactured in China.  Current thinking is that wares exported by the Chinese to the countries of the Nanghai (South Seas) were a surplus from the domestic market.  In China, there were minyao (people’s wares).  However, the same kilns produced such wares such as the balimbing and kendi to fill specific orders from the Southeast Asian market1.

Fertility and Ritual

In Pinagbayanan, a remolding of ordinary pottery net sinkers into male and female symbols indicates, according to Dr. Tenazas, a preoccupation with fertility or ancestor worship.  However, phallic objects also readily call to mind a Hindu-Buddhistic influence.  The phallus (linga or lingam) in Hindu iconography is considered an attribute of the Hindu god, Shiva.

A nearby barrio is still called Linga.  Yet another town is called Nanhaya, which could be in reference to Nanhai, a term used to refer to the South Seas during the Song-Yuan era.

Burial Practices

Cremation burials at the Pinagbayanan sites were either directly in a pit (12 burials) or in a container or vessel (38 burials).  The vessels ranged from a small brown, four-eared jar to large brown stoneware jars, which accounted for about two thirds of the 38 burials.  In one instance, the burial was in a tall “sophisticated gray-glazed pouring vessel.”

According to Dr. Tenazas, the cremation burials at Pinagbayanan were secondary burials.  This means that, after a primary burial to allow the body to decompose, the bones were collected and burned in some form of ritual before a second burial.  Dr. Tenazas reported that secondary burials have a long history in Southeast Asia,2 although no ethnographic record of secondary cremation occurs among existing primitive groups  in the Philippines.3

The practice of burning exhumed bones is a ritual of purification.  Henry Ling Roth, writing in 1896 on the indigenous people of Sarawak and British North Borneo (now Sabah) tells of the beliefs that, after burning, the “spirit is as clean as though washed in gold.”

According to Dr. Tenazas, climatic changes causing massive erosion appear to have forced the early settles to abandon Pinagbayanan.  It was used as a burial site during the 14th to the 15th century.  The population is believed to have moved.

1Balimbing refers to a star-like fruit (averrhoa carambola).  Kendi is drinking vessel with spout but no handle; the term is said to be derived from the Indian term “kundika”.

2Amalia de la Torre of the National Museum recently uncovered secondary jar burials in Ulilang Bundok, Calatagan, Batangas, although she did not encounter any traces of cremation.

3Among the earliest of Southeast Asian secondary jar burials are those from the Niah Great Cave in Sarawak.  In these burials, which date to the 2nd millennium BC, locally made earthenware jars were used to rebury cremated or burned remains.  Burned remains are differentiated from cremation in that lower heat was used during the burning process.

Conclusions

The huge volumes of ceramics found in the Laguna de Bay area as well as in Calatagan, Batangas and Puerto Galera and other sites in Mindoro indicate that traders brought these materials into the area.  Although the Chinese had become heavily involved in the trade in the 12th and 13th centuries, no other evidence exists to suggests they settled in the places were they traded, except perhaps to wait for the monsoon to pass.  From the ceramics, however, it may be surmised that prosperous settlements – not necessarily Chinese – flourished in the region.

In his astute 13th century document, Zhao Rugua has provided us with clear descriptions of the exchange of goods and social interaction that occurred between Chinese traders and the early inhabitants of Ma-I and the other islands belonging to it.  According to Zhao Rugua, the Chinese bartered their “porcelain trade wares, trade metals, tripod vessels, black lead, variegated glass beads, iron needles, etc”… for the indigenous products of cotton, yellow wax, pearls, tortoiseshells, medicinal betel nuts, and Yuta cloth.”

Elements of a Hindu or Hindu-Buddhistic culture-as described by Zhao Rugua in the Zhufanshi, and as have surfaced in evidences of cremation at Pinagbayanan, phallic symbols and place names provide an intriguing glimpse of Hindu, Buddhist and Chinese influences.

More recent research has not provided many additional clues.  Hard evidence of any Indian or Chinese settlement in the Philippines prior to the 16th century does not exist.  Prehistorians and archaeologists believe that the earliest voyagers plying the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean were Southeast Asians, who were influenced by the places they visited.

With the limited archaeology that has been done in Pila and its environs, much has been brought to light about previously little-known facets of human behavior in the historically and archaeologically rich Laguna de Bay area.

Reports from the Song Annals

As superintendent of foreign trade at the port of Quanzhou in Fujian Province, Zhao Rugua compiled earlier records of maritime trade as well as detailed accounts of trade procedures practiced by contemporary merchants, sailors and foreign traders in the island world of Southeast Asia.  He completed in 1225AD the Zhufanshi (Record of Various Barbarians).  The documents proves that the Philippines, then know by various other names, had for some time been an attractive market for Chinese goods.

Zhao Rugua provides in his account a captivating description of what the early trader might have encountered in the country of Ma-I, which lies to the north of Po-ni, now believed to be Borneo.

“More than one thousand families have settled there on the two banks of the stream.  Some of the natives wear cloth like sheets, loosely thrown over themselves; others use the loincloth only to cover their bodies… Copper statues of the Buddha are set up all over the grassy land, but no one knows were the statues came from…”

Chinese Dynasties

Tang               618-906
Five Dynasties          907-959
Northern Song          960-1126
Sourthern Song     1127-1279
Yuan               1280-1368
Ming               1369-1644
Ching               1645-1912

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cynthia O. Valdes is an independent researcher and ceramic historian.  As a member and former President of the Oriental Ceramic Society of the Philippines, she has been involved in ceramic studies for more than 20 years.  She has published popular and academic papers in both local and international publications.  She has traveled all over China and Southeast Asia, lecturing in the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore and the Field Museum of Natural History in the United States.  Her latest publication is “Pang-alay: Ritual Pottery in Ancient Philippines,” done jointly with Ayala Museum and the Oriental Ceramic Society of the Philippines.

REFERENCES

Beyer, H. Otley. 1947. Outline Review of Philippine Archaeology by Islands and Provinces. The Philippine Journal of Science, Vol 77, July-August.

Tenazas, Rosa C.P. 1968. A Report on the Archaeology of the Locsin-University of San Carlos Excavations in Pila, Laguna, September 4, 1967 to March 19, 1968.

Sta. Maria, Felice and Laxina, Ben A. 1983. Household Antiques & Heirlooms. Quezon City: GCF Books.

Fernandez, Julita G. and Rogel, Amelia O. 1967. Digging in the Past. Manila: Esso Silangan.

Locsin, Leandro and Cecilia. 1967. Oriental Ceramics Discovered in the Philippines. Rutland, Vermont and Tokyo, Japan: Charles E. Tuttle Company.

Solheim II, Wilhelm G. 1981. Philippine Prehistory. People and Art of the Philippines. L.A., United States: Regents of the University of California.

Pila: The Noble Town

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Dr. Luciano P. R. Santiago, M.D.

Pila, Laguna is a unique place.  It is the only town in the Philippines that is formally recognized as a historical site by both the church and the state.  The National Historical Institute declared the town center a National Historical Landmark on 17 May 2000.  The Diocese of San Pablo, on the other hand, proclaimed the parish church of San Antonio de Padua de Pila – the first Antonine parish in the Philippines – as the Diocesan Shrine of St. Anthony on 9 July 2002.

Laguna Copperplate Inscription

Even before the Spaniards arrived, Pila (an ancient Tagalog word meaning soft stone) was a religious, cultural, and commercial center in the region surrounding the great lake, which came to be known as Laguna de Bay.  The oldest written record in the Philippines, a copper plate dating to 900 AD and found in nearby Lumbang, mentions the town and leaders of Pailah twice and Puliran.  These possibly refer to Pila and Pulilan, respectively, the latter being the old name of the western portion of the lake near which Pila lies.  According to oral traditions, from the center in Pinagbayanan, and later in Pagalangan, the datu (chief) of Pila ruled over one of the biggest territories in the area, which extended as far as Talim Island, Tanay, and other lakeshore towns.

Early History

The Augustinians were the first missionaries of Pila.  When the Franciscans arrived in 1578, they took over the evangelization of the town and built a church of hardwood and bamboo dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua.  The mission became a parish on 13 June 1581.  And so Pila became the first Antonine parish in the Philippines.

It took 18 years – from 1599 to 1617 – for the stone edifices of the church and convent to be completed.  Due to its sphere of influence as well as the nobility of its people, Pila was conferred the special title La Noble Villa (The Noble Town) in c1610.  Only four other towns in the Philippines merited this rare honor in the 16th and 17th centuries: Cebu, Vigan, Libon in Bicol and Oton in Panay.

The Franciscans established in Pila the second printing press in the Philippines in 1611.  The first Spanish-Tagalog dictionary (Vocabulario de Lengua Tagala) was printed in Pila in 1613 by Tomas Pinpin and Domingo Loag.  (It was 25 years older than the first book published in the United States in 1638).  The local pastor, Fray Pedro de San Buenaventura of the Franciscan Order, compiled the dictionary to facilitate the evangelization of the Tagalog region.

During their occupation of Pila from 1762 to 1764, the British apparently took the dictionary and the town’s first church bell.  Hidden from invaders, Pila’s second bell, cast in 1681, is now the fourth oldest surviving church bell in the Philippines

Relocation of the Town

One of the most prominent Pilenos in the 18th century was Juan de Rivera.  He became the founder of the influential Rivera clan and owner of the Hacienda de Sta. Clara, which eventually became the site of the town.

At the turn of the 18th century through the 19th century, the town center at Pagalangan had to be abandoned due to severe perennial flooding from Laguna de Bay.  This was the second time in its known history that the town had to be moved due to the same calamity.

The first time was in c1375 when it was transferred from Pinagbayanan to Pagalangan.  It was time of bitter controversy that divided the people into two factions – depending on whether they were for (pros) or againsts (contras) the move.  In the end the pros prevailed.

The people transferred the town to a higher site, the Hacienda de Sta. Clara, owned by the brothers Rivera: Don Felizardo, Don Miguel and Don Rafael, great grandsons of Don Juan de Rivera.  The relocation took almost two decades to complete (1794-1812) under the dynamic leadership of Don Felizardo (1755-1810), the eldest of the brothers, who drew up the grid plans for the new sited based on the classical Spanish system of church-plaza-town hall complex.  He is considered the founder of Nueva Pila.

Revolution Interrupts Prosperity

For almost a quarter of a century (1812-1835), Filipino secular priests served for the first time as the acting pastors of Pila due to a shortage of Franciscan friars.  In c1825 they finished constructing the new church, into which they had recycled almost stone by stone the old church in Pagalangan.  The Franciscan pastors who succeeded them concentrated on building the stone convent, which was inaugurated in 1849 during the terms of Franciscan Fray Benito del Quintanar.  He was the longest serving parish priest in Pila during the Spanish era (1839-1852).

Increased productivity in the coconut, rice and sugar industries (all of which had mills in the town) brought prosperity in the last quarter of the 19th century.  The abundant harvests were ascribed to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, leading to the summer rites of Flores de Mayo (Flowers of May) in 1888, a tradition for which Pila is now well known.

The placid life of Pila was thrown into turmoil when the revolution against Spain broke out in 1896 until 1902.  The new colonizers – the Americans – reorganized the municipal government under their rule.  The people of Pila vigorously opposed both the Spaniards and the Americans.  For this, the Spaniards arrested and jailed prominent Pilenos who supported the revolution, and the Americans razed houses throughout the town.

Boom and Bust

The Thomasites so-called because they arrived aboard the American ship Thomas, introduced a new public school system in 1901.  They changed the medium of instruction from Spanish to English.  The next decades saw the first professionals of Pila emerge.  Perhaps the most outstanding among them was Ms. Mercedes Rivera (1879-1932), whos was regarded as the pride of Pila.  In 1919, she founded the Philippine Women’s University together with six other Filipina educators.

Times became good again, and an economic boom occurred in the town.  From 1915 to 1931, most of the modest houses in Pila were pulled down to give way to the present great houses, which together with the venerable church and convent they surround – preserving Don Felizard de Rivera’s imprint – impart a distinctive ambience to the town.  But the economic boom ended in thirties when the coconut industry in Laguna collapsed and the Great Depression struck.

Just when Pila’s economy was beginning to take off again, the Second World War was declared between Japan and the United States, overrunning the Philippines in 1941.  Ironically, during this time of war, the rice boom in the town reached its zenith.  Pila became the rice granary of Laguna.  The Pilenos unselfishly shared their bounty with the surrounding towns and as far as Manila and its suburbs, saving them from starvation.

Pila was also the guerilla center in the province.  It was the first town in Laguna to be liberated by the grateful guerillas in January 1945, completely sparing it from destruction by the clashing Japanese and American forces.

In 1947, a group of appreciative residents led by Father Francisco Radovan, Dona Maria Ordoveza de Rivera and Attorney Casto Maceda founde the St. Anthony Academy (now Liceo de Pila).

Outstanding Pilenos in recent times include Professor Jose Maceda, National Artist for Music; Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, Archbishop of Cebu; and Lorenzo Relova y Rivera, retired Justice of the Supreme Court – whose families hail from the town.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A graduate of the UP College of Medicine, Dr. Luciano P. R. Santiago, M.D., trained in both adult and child psychiatry at the Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.  He practiced his profession in the US for several years, but is now engaged in private practice at The Medical City Hospital in Greenhills, Metro Manila.  In his free time, he researches and writes a wide range of topics, including psychology and various aspects of Philippine art, history and culture.  He has published books, monographs and articles in both local and international journals.  Among the awards he has received for his works are the Wendell Muncie Prize Award for distinguished writing in psychiatry from the Maryland Psychiatric Society; Premio Manuel Bernabe (Primer Premio) in History from the Centro Cultural de la Embajada de Espana; National Book Award for Art from the Manila Critics Circle; Catholic Author Award from the Asian Catholic Publishers; Catholic Press Award from the Archdiocese of Manila; and a research grant in Spain and the Vatican from the Toyota International Foundation.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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PixelMagic Digital Printing & Imaging Studio: For the design execution and final artwork of this guidebook, and the imaging of all photos and images used.  Special credit goes to the Digital Artists Antonio Bucu, Benedict Mendoza, and Pilenos Gilbert Bonilla and Dante Perez.

Maria Rosario Punay, 2001:  For the inventory of artifacts in the Pila Museum.

Dave Caballero, 2001:  For the photographs of artifacts in the Pila Museum.

Anthropology Division – National Museum, 1968:  For the illustrations of ancient rituals where the artifacts were used.

National Museum:  For the Laguna Copper-Plate illustration.