History of the fiesta of Cagayan de Oro

Fr. Leo Pabayo .

OUR celebration of the fiesta of St. Augustine in Cagayan de Oro is about something that happened here in the past that was very important and very special to the Kagay-anons so that they came to celebrate it in a special way every year. That happening was the beginning of this community as a Christian community. In a sense we can call the fiesta as the birthday celebration of this Christian community.

That past has much to do with what we are now. It has something to do also with where we want to go as a community because that very significant happening in the past already bore a promise of an ever better future for the people that now compose the City of Cagayan de Oro.

The people of Cagayan de Oro now are a mix of the original Kagay-anons and migrants from the different places of the Philippines and even from the different parts of the world. They share with us the same values and aspirations that we have.

That significant happening in the past was like a seed planted and destined to bring forth new life that would grow to maturity and bear fruit in all kinds of blessings for the people of this city. This will happen if the people will be faithful to the spirit that brought it about as it is wedded to similar spirits brought in by others that have their source in God.

Allow me to share with you the readers what I have learned from some historical books and articles I have read about the beginning of this Christian community and the fiesta of Cagayan de Oro City.

About four hundred years ago a small group of Augustinian Recollect missionaries disembarked on the shores of Tandag, Surigao. Their reception by the natives was a mixture of hospitality and hostility. In the course of their missionary work, many were converted to the Christian faith. While preaching in the Butuan area they heard of a people who lived by a big river far west of Butuan. The place was called Kagay-an, a place by the river. The people were called Kagay-anon, (“people by the river”) and were known to be hospitable and docile.

Two of the eight Augustinian Recollects, namely, Fray Juan de San Nicolas and Fray Francisco de la Madre de Dios decided to do missionary work to this place.  The chieftain of Kagay-an then was a certain Datu Salangsang. Some present day Kagay-anons say they can trace their ancestry to Datu Salangsang.

The first experience of the two missionaries with Salangsang was however not one of hospitality. Datu Salangsang did not welcome the Spanish priests and threatened them with dire consequences were they to enter Kagay-an. This was probably because Salangsang did not want to antagonize the powerful Sultan Kudarat of Maguindanao who was at war with the Spanish colonial government and who had already made his military might felt in Kagay-an. The priests, however, learned that Salangsang’s grandmother in Butuan was already a baptized Christian. They therefore asked her to intercede for them. She did and succeeded in convincing Salangsang to allow the two missionaries to enter Kagay-an.

The center of Kagay-an then was the village of Himologan on the site of Huluga near Taguanao where the Pelaez bridge is now. A few years ago artifacts were dug out from that area which indicated that there once was a flourishing community in that area.

True enough these Kagay-anons were hospitable and docile to the preaching of the Augustinian Recoletos. Moved by the preaching of these missionaries and by the example of their life many Kagay-anon asked for baptism. Datu Salangsang became a good friend of the missionaries and would look after their safety especially during the time when the Datu Sudarat of Maguindanao sent warriors to go after the missionaries. These were the times when friendship between the Christians and the Muslims had not yet been made.

Salangsang himself would receive baptism and would work closely with the missionaries in the building of a Christian community. The first baptisms of the Kagay-anon must have been moments of great rejoicing and occasion for thanksgiving on the part of the Augustinian Recollects. Saintly men that they were, they must have deeply realized the meaning of the first conversions to Christ. It meant the birth of a Christian community. The Augustinian Recoletos placed the new Christian community under the patronage of St. Augustine with a celebration of the Mass. This was the first celebration of the fiesta of Cagayan de Oro.