132. REINA MERCEDES, CORN MILL CAPITAL OF THE PHILIPPINES

                        REINA MERCEDES, CORN MILL CAPITAL OF THE PHILIPPINES
                                                    Dr. Troy Alexander Gozum Miano
                                                                    17 March 2021

Almost daily, since 2015, I traversed the Pan-Philippine Highway, also known as the Maharlika Highway or AH 26, on my way to my work at the provincial capital in the City of Ilagan and would normally pass through the old town of Reina Mercedes. Since my childhood days, I enjoyed stating the name of this place since I am fond of royalties and it compliment the name of our province, Isabela which was also named after a queen of Spain. Today, the queen-municipality celebrates its 133rd anniversary as a community independent from the mother-town of Cauayan and I scribbled patches of history of the locality to commemorate this day.

There are several versions on the historical development of Reina Mercedes which was penned by the town’s former officials. However, I decided to write my own version which I based from a Spanish primary source translated by Dominican missionary Fr. Pedro V. Salgado in his book “Cagayan Valley and Eastern Cordillera 1581-1898” which he culled from the documentations of Fray Julian Malumbres and other Dominican missionaries of the valley. I also interconnected the history of Cauayan since it was the mother-town and so with the histories of Naguilian and Gamu.

The political territory of what is now Reina Mercedes had many old names. It was first known as Abbag, Calanusian, then Calering, and finally Reina Mercedes. In one account, Itugud was mentioned as the old name of the locality of what is now Reina Mercedes; however, records of the Order of Preachers revealed that old Itugod, founded in 1678 by Fray Pedro Jimenez, is actually Barangay Lenzon (Alenzon in old manuscripts) in Gamu town outside the present territorial jurisdiction of Reina Mercedes.

The native settlement of Abbag, the forerunner of the Municipality of Reina Mercedes, was formed near the Magat River when the Gaddangs came down from the Cordillera mountain range in the west. Abbag means “on the other side” which referred to its location from Gamu and Furao (now a barangay of Gamu), two old settlements, which were located on the other banks of the Magat River. Abbag is south of Gamu and north of Cauayan. To the east was Catalangan and the Sierra Madre mountains while to the west was the Cordillera Central and District of Ytaves.

The Dominican missionaries went to the Mallig plains with soldiers to bring down the Gaddang inhabitants. In a letter dated December 1, 1742, Fray Martin Hernandez related that after encountering much opposition from the native leader Malboran, he was able in the end to extract a promise from Malboran to settle in Abbag. “A brave native called Malboran who last year made much opposition in my incursions to the Gaddangs, promises to go down to Abbag with others”. Fray Antonio Campo, the overall head of the Missions, wrote in a letter to the Dominican Provincial, dated January 2, 1743 that “Some Kalingas have gone down who wish to settle in Abbag between Nacotan and Furao”.

Abbag was later renamed to “Calanusian”. The name was derived from a tree species of white ebony called “canusi” which abounded the locality. With the prefix “ca” and suffix “an”, the term means “a grove of white ebony”.

On May 4, 1743, missionary Martin Hernandez founded Calanusian as a Christian community and was accepted as an ecclesiastical mission under the patronage of Saint Anthony of Padua. In a letter dated April 19, 1743, Fr. Hernandez related that he had hired a master sculptor in Manila to make the image of Saint Anthony of Padua, the town’s patron. Up to this day, Reina Mercedes’ patron remains Saint Anthony of Padua.

On September 8, 1739, Cauayan was founded civilly with Calanusian as the first town site. The operation of the new town was effective only after a couple of years. In 1768; however, the town center of Cauayan was transferred from Calanusian to its present site in the left bank of the Cagayan River because of the frequent raids of the Gaddangs and Igorots coming from the Cordilleras and the infested Magat River.

In 1839, the politico-military province of Nueva Vizcaya was created with Calanusian as part of the new alcaldia and on May 1, 1856, the province of Isabela was created with Calanusian as one of its territory.

On January 20, 1886, Calanusian became independent ecclesiastically from Cauayan and on March 17, 1888, Calanusian obtained its civil independence and was renamed “Reina Mercedes” with Dominican Fray Estanislao Pinto as the first vicar.

“Reina Mercedes” was the name christened to old Calanusian in memory of the first wife of King Alfonso XII of Spain (1857-1885), Maria de las Mercedes of Orléans. Research from the net reveals that she was born in Madrid on June 24, 1860 and was the daughter of Antoine of Orléans, Duke of Montpensier and of Infanta Luisa Fernanda of Spain (sister of Queen Isabella II). Although Mercedes was patrilineally a French princess, she was also a Spanish infanta and spent the first eight years of her life in Spain. Her childhood was spent at the palace of San Telmo in Andalusia. When Queen Isabella II was deposed in 1868, Mercedes' family also left Spain for exile. In 1872, while in exile, she met her first cousin, Alfonso, Prince of Asturias and the future king, who was also living in exile. Upon restoration of the monarchy, King Alfonso XII married María de las Mercedes at the church of Atocha, in Madrid on January 23, 1878, following a huge ball in December 1877. Shortly after their honeymoon, it became evident that Queen Mercedes suffered from typhoid fever. The marriage would last only six months, during which she had a miscarriage. She succumbed to the illness in Madrid two days after her 18th birthday, on June 26, 1878, having been unconscious for several days.

Fr. Salgado further wrote that the Spaniards were not able to make a church nor convent of stone and bricks in Reina Mercedes. Dominican Bishop Francisco Gainza donated P1,200 for the purpose, but the most that was done was a church with “walls of wood and a roof of galvanized iron, made by Fray Miguel Garcia, its Vicar”. Fr. Garcia also built a magnificent convent of wood, with roof of galvanized iron, but was not finished due to the onset of the Philippine Revolution of 1896-1898. The town also had a Tribunal or Municipal Hall, a school for children, and a cemetery.

Towards the end of Spanish rule, Reina Mercedes had a population of 2,850 individuals, living in the poblacion and the barrios of Callering, Banquero, Santo, Malattagu, Mallalatang, Palattao, Tagaran 1 and Tagaran 2, Mererao, Piddon, Comillas and the Hacienda of the Augustinian Fathers, it had a normal number of private houses made of wood, five of which had galvanized iron for roof.

Fr. Salgado further narrates that the inhabitants primarily cultivated tobacco and secondarily rice and corn for home consumption. They irrigated their rice fields with water from Macañao Creek through canals made by the earlier missionaries. The primary of tobacco in Reina Mercedes could be seen from the fact that it had “12 warehouses to tobacco of which the most notable are that of the Compania General de Tobacco and that of the Augustinians in their Hacienda.”

In 1901, during the early stages of Amercian colonization, several towns in the country, including in the province of Isabela, were reverted from a town to a barrio of the adjacent larger towns. Reina Mercedes, and its neighboring villages, were attached to the mother-town Cauayan and some to Naguilian town. After a decade, several barrios grew in population including Barrio Callering which prompted its prominent citizens to petition to the municipal council of Cauayan for segregation. On June 13, 1913, Barrio Callering and its integral parts were created as an independent municipality and was rechristened to its old name, “Reina Mercedes”, with Don Santiago Respicio, as the first municipal president.

Before Reina Mercedes became an independent municipality, the seat of the municipal government was situated in Reina Mercedes Viejo, now barangay Dangan, along the Magat River, which was two and one-half kilometers away from the national highway. In the 1920s the seat of government was transferred to Callering along the Cagayan River. At the end of World War II, during the incumbency of Municipal President Lucio Cammadu, the seat of government was transferred for the second time to its present location along the national highway now officially known as Barangay Tallungan. The name is an Ibanag term which means “entrance”.

Leaders of Reina Mercedes available on record are as follows: Don Juan Evangelista (c.1848), Don Santiago Respicio (ca.1886, 1913-1916 & 1922-1925), Don Domingo Ferrer (ca.1901), Don Lucio Camaddu (1916-1922 & 1948-1951), Don Jose Alindayu (1925-1928), Don Ciriaco Respicio (1928-1934), Don Antonio Telan (1934-1937), Hon. Francisco Villanueva (1945-1946 & 1956-1959), Hon. Alfredo Martin (1952-1955 & 1986-1987), Hon. Santiago P. Respicio (1960-1982), Hon. Restituto P. Respicio (1982-1986, 1987-1998 & 2007-2010), Hon. Anthony P. Respicio (1998-2007 & 2010-2019) and Hon. Maria Lourdes P. Respicio-Saguban (since 2019).

The Municipality of Reina Mercedes, situated in Central Isabela, is a satellite municipality of Cauayan City, a growth center of the province of Isabela. Its terrain is generally flat rolling. The poblacion is approximately 23 kilometers south of the capital city of Ilagan on the national highway and 10 kilometers north of Cauayan. This 4th Class municipality has a population of 29,998 with 6,270 households in 20 barangays with a land area of 3,540 hectares. Reina Mercedes, the corn mill capital of the Philippines, have survived the test of times with its resilient residents boldly facing the various challenges of the past century.