For whom the bells toll

I stood beside an abandoned two-story house in its spacious grounds by the Plaza of Victoria in Tarlac. It was the residence of the Garcia family with a kamalig, once the headquarters of Gen. Antonio Luna in 1890. The house was the home of the entire Garcia clan before they moved to Sultan Kudarat to plant palm trees. I asked the caretaker if I could enter this home of Spanish provenance made of bricks, stone and concrete and a wooden-floored upper story.

The stairs led me to the second floor’s narrow landing, leading to two rooms on each side. Its ceiling and baseboards were painted sky blue with pink lilies, like my grandfather’s house near San Sebastian Church, which also had ceilings with paintings of flowers, a brick roof that bore his initials CMR (Crisanto Mendoza de los Reyes); he was a brick manufacturer.

Imagine carriages entering the cool ground floor of the Garcia residence in the 1800s; the elegant guests are veiled women in mantillas alighting from the open carriages drawn by horses, large doors shutting close as vendors shout for attention marketing their goods; and all the church bells are ringing to announce happiness and sadness.

I love to hear church bells tolling in December at 4:30 a.m. I strain my ears to listen to the bells that summon parishioners to the San Antonio Church. It gets me into a happy mode and I feel a yearning for devotion. I feel holy.

How delightful and colorful it must have been living around a town plaza watching the goings-on from an azotea. I would have seen the Mayor go about his inspections with his men, visiting a prominent man’s residence for coffee. Houses would have windows made of small capiz panes for light to cut out the glare of the sun yet still cast different shadows at night. Those sliding capiz windows would open from the second floor so that the residents could look down onto the streets over the heads of pedestrians. An azotea by the house would allow a pleasant breeze.

And then the church bells of Monsignor Panlican’s parish church rung and reminded me of one of the earliest foundries in the Philippines located in Santa Ana de Sapa and built by Panday Pira. When the Spanish colonizers came, Panday Pira was employed by them to establish a foundry in Intramuros. It was located at the Colegio de San Jose, now the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila. Several foundries thrived in Mecauayan, Bulacan and at the riverbank of Bacolor, Pampanga owned by Nicolas Roque. He was known as “maestro fundidor,” a bell caster who cast two bells in 1791 for the Church of San Luis, Pampanga, which are still there.

A priest in Camiling, Tarlac welcomes his parishioners in this very strong and enforced baroque “earthquake-proof” church with two-meter-thick and heavily buttressed walls to withstand earthquake damage — but apparently not fire because it burned down twice. Built between 1600 and 1750, it was constructed out of a mix of stones, pebbles and gravel bound with mortar. There was a convent and offices and an enclosed courtyard with a tall belfry.

I remember seeing the beautiful church in Baclayon, Bohol. A statue of a saint seemed to be missing as one niche was empty. “What happened?” I asked the priest. “It was stolen…someone just walked in and stole it…the first time that happened, the police returned it to us after having found the statue in Mabini.”

The second time they weren’t so lucky. What saint was stolen? Saint Anthony. My own patron saint was following me all the way to the Visayas.

I promptly called Mrs. Nanette Garcia who found me a Cebuano wood carver, Gubalani was his name, to duplicate the lost statue of Saint Anthony. Four months later she and her husband, the Mayor of Cebu, Alvin Garcia, boarded a fast craft to offer the Baclayon Church a new Saint Anthony. And then the Church bells rang in joy.

Church bells gather devotees of God for Mass. They call to gather for elegant and candle-lighted processions to celebrate feasts that are very much part of the Filipino lifestyle to honor a town’s patron saint annually. They sound loudly to announce a baptism and the child’s acceptance into the Roman Catholic religion, and confirmations for children who have reached the age of reason. When a glorious wedding is officiated church bells sound in glee. Sad burials and beautiful vespers at evening and somber bells sound. In civil occasions, the sound of bells signal the arrival of important dignitaries, the marking of celebrated historical events, and the summoning of people to hear new laws at the plaza.

Huge bells are often historical sources, too. Permanent letters are engraved on them, making them epigraphic material witnesses exhibiting the manufacturer, its artist, year and owner for eternity.

How awed I was by the huge bells of Alicia, Isabela dated 1893.

Bells are indispensable. In fact, they were used to warn the community of menace. In times of war and slave raids, bells were used to warn the community of danger. Residents ran towards the hills to escape the attack of the Moros on the seashores of villages who captured Christians to make them slaves.

Bells in the Philippines suffered losses during the Philippine Revolution, Filipino-American War, and during the secessionist movement in Mindanao because they were made into cartridges. During the Philippine Revolution, the bells were fabricated into cannons. In Mindanao, even the gongs were melted and converted into bullets.

Various legends revolve around bells of certain towns, some even believed to be cast from melted coins and jewelry provided by the community appreciating the value of bells.

The bell is the result of man’s being a lover of sound. Hearing them, I become inspired. Why and how bells were manufactured could have come from the discovery of crude copper that was made into cooking pots. Bells are concepts of an open-ended pot that was the basis of its design. Even today, when speaking colloquially we refer to an inferior-sounding bell as an “old pot.”

In the early conquest by Spain, in their eagerness to evangelize the natives, the Spanish missionaries designed a strategy of information and communication for the locals and used bells to convey messages. The sound of the bells or bajo de las campanas guided the natives worshipping in a church.

Faith…as we believed in Camiling, Tarlac, was what we needed to atone to God because the monstrance and sacred host were stolen from the town church. We walked barefoot around the church for a whole month, reciting the rosary for someone else’s thievery and sin. In keeping with the required punishment, Bishop Cineses stopped Catholic services like Sunday Masses and therefore holy communion and baptism, and other rites of the Catholic Church. We never found the thief and Bishop Cineses was afraid the Catholics would become remiss of their devotion so he began the services again. The huge bell of Camiling Church cast by Hilario Sunico rung joyfully once more.

The majority of the bells found on our islands today were cast by Sunico. Some of his bells became booty and American soldiers brought them back to the United States as war trophies. One of these bells was that of Balangiga, Eastern Samar, which rang to signal the attack of the locals and the insurgents under the leadership of Major Eugenio S. Daza. The attack resulted in the annihilation of the whole company of American soldiers stationed in Balangiga. What is sad is that these American soldiers were all veterans of the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1901.

Sunico’s famous foundry lasted up to 1929. The last bells cast by him are found in Concepcion, Tarlac and in Borongan, Eastern Samar. Aside from Sunico, there was also a well known maestro fundidor in 1868, Don Juan Reina, a bell caster and a dentist by profession from Calle Fundicion, Molo district, Iloilo. In 1878 he cast the biggest bell in the country now found in Pan-ay, Capiz.

Benito de los Reyes of Binondo in the 1900s cast the bells of San Agustin Church in Intramuros where I used to go to Mass as a young child and eventually where I was wed. One of the biggest bells in San Agustin was cast in 1828. When the earthquake occurred in Manila in 1863 the bell fell down and today is exhibited in the lobby of San Agustin Convent. One of the last bells De los Reyes cast is found in the center of Victoria, Tarlac.

Today, all the foundries are gone. I had to seek out the bells from Tarlac to Isabela. The sound of bells at Angelus once made me stop playing and begin praying.

I love bells for many romantic and sentimental reasons. They are also mute testimonies of our history and watch over us religiously as they did our forefathers during their happy days in the plaza.