Freemasonry’s birthplace

While Freemasons in Spain were known to have flourished in number a couple of centu-ries after the Crusades, their arrival in the Philippines was not organized. Many of the Ma-sons who served in the colonial period were military officers and administrators already affil-iated with the craft back home. Conscious of the contrary stance of the Catholic Church, the Masons privately practiced the fraternity in Davao region with the knowledge of priests who did not find conflict with the craft if no conversions were observed in public. In fact, some of the soldiers assigned as commandants were secret members of the Masonic lodges in Spain.

Opening Masonry to public consciousness did not happen until Filipinos started to create an underground movement in Spain, demanding the colonizers to give them representation in the Spanish Cortes, the Filipinization of parishes, and the grant of independence. In pursu-ing these objectives, the central figures of the struggle were mostly Filipinos abroad, and a sprinkling of Spanish-blooded Masons supportive of the undertaking.

Masonic activities in Mati started in 1892 and were chiefly the initiatives of the Diwata triangle, a cluster of three Masons forming a bloc that could be expanded later into a full-fledged lodge. The outcome of this effort was entered in unofficial records as Diwata Lodge No. 65, the oldest in the region, with Pedro Serrano Laktaw as the worshipful master.

This development finds support in an account written in 1920 which underscored the need to expand the Masonic activities throughout the islands after the Reform Movement started in Spain failed to generate enough interest locally. As a result, Antonio Luna and Pedro Serrano Laktaw were delegated to organize the Masonry in the archipelago. Luna, however, could not go so Laktaw did the work alone with the authority from the Grand Oriente Español.

The first Filipino lodge was Nilad, established in Manila on Jan. 6, 1891. So rapid was the progress of Masonry that in one year and a four months about 85 lodges and triangles were founded. Of the fraternities created until 1893, thirty-five were Masonic lodges, nine in Manila. This confirms accounts that lodges and triangles were already established in other regions by this time. In July that year, the Craft started accepting women as members of ap-pendant bodies.

Missionary chronicles from Davao in the last decade of the 19th century provide sketchy details about Masonry in the region. In a letter dated Nov. 7, 1898, from Sigaboy, Fr. Manuel Rosello, S.J. invoked God’s blessing for the converts and to guide them on the right path. He also sought protection for the priests to be freed “from the claws of the common enemy, Ma-sonry, the filibustering, as well as the Yankee hordes,” the conquering Americans.

Fr. Rosello cited in his letter an incident that took place early in September when a gang of “robbers and revolutionaries… had wanted to imitate the Tagalogs [who revolted in Lu-zon] and destroyed the peace all over the district [Davao] but especially in Mati where the government office used to be,” adding that “in Mati everything became a race… trenches… barricades and panic, fears that the rebels would appear from either side.”

The priest was referring to the Sept. 23, 1898 uprising in Baganga led by Don Prudencio Garcia, a Mason and a captain in the guardia civil, who took over the Caraga district without firing a shot. The dissent was largely an offshoot against the supposed corruption committed by the governor of Davao but his action was not considered a rebellion against Spain.

As extensions of the Spanish government, Col. Manuel Garcia y Neilla, chief of police of Mati, and Don Ricardo Rodriguez, commandant of Mati, coordinated to arrest the infantry-man but had to yield to the mediation of Fr. Mateo Gisbert, S.J., Baganga’s parish priest, known as the “apostle of the Bagobos.” As an aftermath, Don Prudencio peacefully surren-dered to the arresting officers and allowed himself to be brought to Mati.