The priest as town planner

Aside from their ecclesial duties, Spanish missionaries were mandated to follow certain obligations, administrative in nature, covered by edicts issued by the Royal Crown. In fact, accounts of clerics becoming founders of pueblos are well chronicled.

In Davao region, many of the colonial names assigned by the missioners to the reductions, mostly geographical appellations, still survive to this day. Names like Monkayo (Moncayo) and Compostela, both municipalities of Davao de Oro, were assigned by Fr. Saturnino C. Urios, a Jesuit who became a parish priest of San Pedro Church, in the course of his proselytization in the provinces of Agusan and Davao.

As an extension of the colonial administration, the priests appointed gobernadorcillos or town mayors, supervised the tercio civil, or the police-military force, and introduced town planning. In a letter dated 1876 November 22, Fr. Pablo Pastells, SJ, in honoring the disposition of Mandaya captains and lieutenants, elevated Caraga to a pueblo and initiated the municipal layout, or the town plan that remains to this day as the townsite.

Under Fr. Pastells’ town plan, Caraga ‘was going to have four main and six cross streets; each house would have to be six fathoms long and three and a half wide and have eight posts… In order to prevent the spread of fires, there was to be a space of six fathoms between the houses. In the center of the village there should be a large plaza, where the public buildings like the church, townhouse, convent and the schools were to be located. The remainder of the plaza circumference would be used to construct the houses of the inspector, the capitan and the principals of the reduction. The main streets would be extended indefinitely, while the number of cross streets could be increased in accordance with the number of inhabitants who were going to live there.’

The first Caraga town used to have a fort but this was destroyed during the Moro invasion.

The town plan, introduced in Davao before the Jesuits arrived, was inspired by events in Spain traceable to the Roman conquests before Christian era (BCE).

Due to lack of modern amenities such as roads and vehicles, the early towns were established along riverbanks or in littoral areas in consideration of the threats the residents faced from occasional Moro raids. Opening the settlements near banks afforded the people direct access to the rivers where they could fish, bathe, drink and wash. Rivers were also key routes for navigation and very useful in the transport of forest products brought from the interior region to the coast.

In Davao City’s case, the first structures built in the poblacion, with help from the district administration, were the church and the rectory. Later on, the tribunal (town hall) was set up nearby and certain sections bounding the church compound became residencias. Calle San Pedro, named after a parish in Spain where Don Jose Oyanguren was baptized, was opened, traversing the church’s front yard and extending up to a hill where the Catholic burial ground was. The cemetery now hosts the University of the Immaculate Conception campus at Bankerohan.

Years later, another street (Calle Magallanes) linking the old river crossing on the west to the townsite was constructed. Before long, another road (Calle Claveria) was opened. With the expansion of the townsite, Calle San Pedro slowly evolved into a business center while the secondary roads linking Calle Magallanes on the south and the rice fields on the north, progressed into mixed-use areas that would host different businesses.

To highlight the location of the San Pedro Parish, the missionaries erected a huge cross across the street, fronting the main door of the church. Later though, this was removed after the site was donated to the municipal government. In lieu of the cross, a fountain was built directly in front of the old town hall, which was later renovated to become the provincial building. The location of the cross is where a centennial monument now stands. (Antonio V. Figueroa)