San Pedro Church under siege

Named after the hometown parish where Spanish conquistador Jose Oyanguren y Cruz was baptized, San Pedro Church, now a metropolitan cathedral, figured in two of the bloodiest postwar attacks, attributed by the media to religious strife between Christians and Muslims.

On Easter Sunday, April 19, 1981, two grenades exploded inside the church while the Mass was going on, costing the lives of over a dozen and injury to over 100 churchgoers. Over a decade after, on December 28, 1993, known in the Catholic calendar as ‘Innocents Day,’ another blast took place inside the house of worship. Around seven people died and over 150 wounded.

Historically, the two incidents, outside the ravages of war, were not the most telling. On June 6, 1909, exactly three years to the day after Davao district governor Edward R. Bolton, an American, was assassinated in Lacaron, Malita, Davao Occidental, 23 Filipino conscripts belonging to the Philippine Constabulary staged a mutiny against their American superiors. The renegades were split into two under the leadership of Sgt. Manuel Rodriguez and Sgt. Felix Academia.

Two days after the mutineers escaped from the barracks (now Camp Domingo Leonor), they returned to attack the church compound where many residents had hidden, primarily expatriates and their families, with an intent to take the Americans hostage. The agenda, however, did not prosper. Fr. John X. Lynch, the Jesuit parish priest, resisted the overtures of the rebels despite the occasional shots and secured the convent door from the ramming.

Aside from the foreigners, those inside the compound included the Religious of the Virgin Mary (RVM) sisters, Jesuit local superior Miguel Alaix, sacristan Urbano Lucena, and others who sought shelter there. In total, according to Jesuit accounts, there were 222 individuals inside when the church siege happened.

In his account, which was published in Davao Sentinel in 1958, Lucena narrated:

‘Armed with the guns supplied by the Americans, the insurgents surrounded the convent and rained bullets on the semi-concrete structure. The nuns who were quartered in what is now the main building of the Immaculate Conception College ran to the church for cover. To prevent the rebels from getting inside, we barricaded the doors with chairs, tables, benches, and whatnots. The Americans returned the fire at long intervals. They fought back not so much to subdue the revolt because they were heavily outnumbered, as to invoked their authority. The Americans chose the convent as their hideout because it was fenced by corrugated iron roofings about three meters high.’

To feed the people inside the premises, the provisions available inside the refectory were used up until the time the rebels had returned to their comfort zone, allowing a break for the delivery of more supplies from the outside.

Lucena said that in between onslaughts he would also send food to the nuns in the convent. When the mutineers started firing, he would hide himself ‘among the candles in the ground floor or hide in the church.’ To quench their thirst, the defenders drew water from the well inside the compound. The timely arrival of the constabulary reinforcements from Mati saved the day for the American officers and their families.

Oddly enough, the RVM archives do not have a first-hand account from its members who were assigned to manage the La Escuela Catholica de San Pedro (now University of Immaculate Conception) which, at the time, was inside the church compound. Even the reports required of them and the contemporary accounts do not carry any mention, not even in passing, of the Filipino-led 1909 uprising.

Ironically, the incident, the first notable unrest against the U.S. colonialist in the archipelago, was carried in dozens of major newspapers around the globe. (16)