Doña Magdalena

A. Paulita Roa

First of two parts

WHEN the Spanish missionaries first came to the northern and eastern coasts of Mindanao in the 16th century, they were able to communicate with the people in Cebuano dialect. The Visayan culture was very much in evidence in the coastal areas of the island and even to many communities in the interior. Like the Visayans, the men of the northern coast of Mindanao were tattooed,wore g-strings or bahag, turbans or headbands and plenty of gold jewelry. They wore red clothing as a sign of nobility or when they personally killed many enemies.

Their women could own property and slaves. They can travel some distance away from their homes in the company of other women. They were also engaged in trading activities on their own and even with foreigners much to the annoyance of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, the governor of the first Spanish settlement. It was so unlike at that time of the women in Europe who  were restricted to their homes and convents. Early Spanish accounts suggest that in prehispanic and early Spanish colonial period, gender relations in the Visayas and Mindanao areas were egalitarian. Women were baylanes or ritual specialists and were close advisers to the datus. They wielded  strong political influence in their respective communities.

The most respected woman of 16th century Mindanao was Doña Magdalena whose surname as written by prehistorians was either Baluyo or Bacuya. She was a noble lady of Dapitan who later lived in Butuan. Historians credited her influence and skill as a peace mediator that helped prevent what could have been a bloody attack of the Spanish force against a Datu Silongan and the Butuanons  in order to avenge the death of all the Spaniards who were murdered in Butuan during the early Spanish colonial period.

Fr. Francisco Combes, a Jesuit priest who wrote the first recorded history of Mindanao (1667) based on his 12-year stay in the island, gave a rich account of the life of this remarkable lady. According to him, Doña Magdalena came from the ancient clan of the Dapitans that ruled Bohol. The clan was so powerful that envoys from other places were sent to them. The king of Ternate island of Moluccas sent his envoy to the brothers, Dailisan and Pagbuaya who were the paramount rulers of Bohol. This envoy flirted with a concubine and offended the rulers that they cut off the noses and ears of the Moluccans.

The king of Ternate was so angry at what happened to his envoy and his men. He sent 20 well-armed junks to Bohol and had his warriors and several Portuguese allies disguised as traders. They staged a surprise attack on the Bol-anons killing hundreds of people including Dailisan. They also captured hundreds more and bought them to their junks and sold many as slaves including the lady of Dailisan.

The surviving ruler, Pagbuaya and his followers numbering a thousand families of freemen and other subjects, fled Bohol and crossed the Mindanao Sea. They settled in a vast area that they called Dapitan. In time, the Dapitan clan became powerful again that the king of Burney (Borneo) sent two junks to solicit his friendship. Datu Pagbuaya met the men of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, was converted to Christianity and became a formidable Spanish ally. His son, Don Pedro Manuel Manooc, later founded Yligan and his daughter was Magdalena.

Of her, Combes wrote: “The women were not inferior in merit. For Doña Magdalena Baluyog, the sister of Don Pedro Manuel Manooc, had so great an authority among the barbarous Subanons that she alone in her discretion reduced more of them than did the arms of her people by their valor and courage. She obtained the named pacifier, mistress and sovereign of hard hearts of the chiefs of the Subanons.”

According to Mr. Greg Hontiveros, the official historian of Butuan City, “Doña Magdalena’s persuasive efforts secured for the Catholic Church in Mindanao, the conversion of the Subanon tribes in Zamboanga peninsula, and the loyalty of the new converts in some communities in northern Mindanao, the most notable of which was Butuan.”

So how did this noble lady figure in the early history of Cagayan de Oro? (to be continued)