Donato Guimbaolibot

Msgr. Donato Guimbaolibot
Born	Donato Bago Guimbaolibot December 5, 1866 Guiuan, Samar, Philippines
Died	September 9, 1949 (aged 82) Guiuan, Samar, Philippines
Citizenship	Filipino
Occupation	priest; vicar general
Religion	Roman Catholic

Donato Guimbaolibot (December 5, 1866 – September 9, 1949) was a Catholic priest from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Borongan and the vicar general of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Calbayog. He became known for his efforts in building up Guiuan, Eastern Samar. He is also called as The Saintly Priest of Balangiga and was involved with the Balangiga Massacre controversies. In 1995, the Parish Church of Guiuan formally launched a beatification movement for Msgr. Donato Guimbaolibot to the Vatican Council. Msgr. Guimbaolibot is now revered to as Servant of God in many parts of the Samar and Leyte Regions. ^{[1] [2] [3]}

Biography

Guimbaolibot was born in Guiuan on Dec. 5, 1866, the second child of Tomas Guimbaolibot and Narcisa Bago. He had three sisters: Felipa, the eldest, Faustina and Maria. Local accounts had it that the Guimbaolibot children were raised in a simple but religious life at home.

Padre Atoy, as Guimbaolibot was known, studied for the priesthood at the San Carlos Seminary in Cebu, where he was ordained priest at the age of 28 in 1894. He taught at the seminary before his first parish assignment in Tanauan (November 1898 to May 1899). At that time, the islands of Leyte and Samar were under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Cebu.

Balangiga was his second parish assignment. His assignment to Guiuan would be his last. He served his hometown for nearly half a century until his death in 1949. There, he founded a parochial school for children, built a hospital, a high school and a new convent, and saw to the repair of the centuries-old parish church in the 1930s.

He was elevated to the title of monsignor around the late 1930s, during which he also assumed the position of vicar general of the Diocese of Calbayog.

Guimbaolibot had never been at ease with the Americans since his release from prison. At the end of 1944, when the American forces established a naval base in Guiuan, he was heard saying: "Take note, the American presence here is not a blessing; rather, it is a disgrace."^[1]

Guimbaolibot suffered a stroke and became bedridden in July 1949. For a month, he hovered between life and death. He showed some improvement after that, but he never fully recovered. He died on Sept. 9, 1949 at the age of 83.

Arrest in Tanauan

The two Americans known by the Balangiga plotters to have survived the massacre fled by paddling a banca toward Tolosa, Leyte, and proceeding to Tanauan. While they were telling their story to an American captain staying at the Tanauan convento, they allegedly spotted Guimbaolibot in the same parish house and had him arrested.

In the book Revolutionary Clergy (1981), Fr. John N. Schumacher, SJ, quoted a document that described Guimbaolibot's hiding in Tanauan:

"This Felix Vara (de Veyra) has another son, Jesus Vara (de Veyra) who is now in the field with the insurgents of this island under Capili; he also has a nephew, Julian Vara (de Veyra), who is with the same outfit, and is understood to be second in command of these forces." "Padre Pantaleon Vara (de Veyra) of Tanauan, Leyte is a cousin of Felix Vara (de Veyra), and it was to this padre's house that the padre of Balangiga took refuge before the massacre at that place." This document seemed to impute guilt by association on Guimbaolibot. Thus, since he was living with a relative of the "insurgents," then he must be an "insurgent" himself.

The arrest of Guimbaolibot was apparently influenced by dirty local politics and intrigues that involved Daniel Romualdez y Arcilla, the patriarch of the Romualdez family that is now making a comeback in Leyte's political scene. A Tagalog teacher who migrated to his wife's home province in 1872 to find a cure for his tuberculosis, Romualdez was capitan municipal (mayor) of Tolosa town at the outbreak of the Philippine Revolution in 1896. Under the Aguinaldo government, he was somehow appointed capitan municipal of nearby Tanauan. But he left this post in haste due to alleged threats to his life and returned to Tolosa. As luck would have it, Sgt. George F. Markley and another American survivor in Balangiga landed from their banca on Romualdez's Tolosa domain. They were given shelter by Romualdez, who apparently used them as pawns to prove his family's allegiance to the new regime, to hit back at his political enemies in Tanauan, particularly the influential De Veyra family, and to extract future favors from the American colonial rulers.

The incriminating information in the document quoted by Schumacher probably came from Romualdez. Romualdez's family had known motives to shame the De Veyras. He probably even provided the tip that led to the arrest of Guimbaolibot in a De Veyra house. The report of the priest's arrest in the convent looked like an official cover to hide the real informant. Two sons of Romualdez eventually became prominent officials during the American era. Norberto, the eldest, became an associate justice of the Supreme Court. Miguel, the second son, was appointed mayor of Manila.

Water torture

In his doctoral dissertation, Dr. Reynaldo H. Imperial mentioned that Guimbaolibot was brought to Calbiga, Samar, following his arrest. He was subjected to "water torture" by Lt. Julian Gaugot, to extract information on the whereabouts of the leaders who plotted the massacre and on the priest's participation in the planning.

Gaugot was eventually court-martialed for "this disgrace upon the (US) military service" and was proven guilty. He was suspended from the command for three months, forfeiting $50 of his monthly salary for the same period. The torture of an innocent priest was perhaps the official basis for the bribe-offer that was spurned. While undergoing torture, Guimbaolibot admitted that he was aware of a plot being organized against the Americans in Balangiga, but that he himself had no part in it and even left the town so that he would not be involved. Later researches and documents bore out the priest's story. But at that time, the American military officials seemed convinced that Guimbaolibot had a principal role in an event that almost wiped out a company of US troops.

There had been no previously recorded detail on how Guimbaolibot was tortured. But The College Tradean, a student publication in Guiuan, published in 1994 a folk account of how this was done:

"His body was tied with a rope, hoisted up to the ceiling, and then abruptly loosened, thus bringing the body down very hastily, after which he was made to drink sea water. This treatment was repeated a number of times." The article further said that, after all the tortures, Guimbaolibot and the other suspects were kept in jail and told that they would be killed.

Martyrdom

The island of Samar lacked priests at the turn of the century. Schumacher wrote: "(T)here were only 14 priests from Samar ordained from Cebu Seminary between 1867 and 1903 … and there were only 13 priests in Samar in early 1900 … for at least 31 parishes." After the Balangiga event, nearly half of the Samar clergy were herded in a single prison – the convento of Calbiga. They were later transferred to Catbalogan. The Jan. 29, 1902 issue of El Nuevo Dia, edited by the young Sergio Osmeña and Jaime de Veyra, reported the death of Fr. Bartolome Picson and the imprisonment of Fathers Nicanor Acevedo (Acebedo), Donato Guimbaolibot, Maximo Ponson (Conzon), and Jose Diasnes by the Americans in the Calbiga convent. What happened to them there was described in terms perhaps intended not to unduly provoke the American censor but sufficiently clear to give an idea of the American treatment of the Filipino priests: "In Samar, they (Americans) meant not merely arbitrary imprisonment but torture for not a few." In Los Sacerdotes en Samar, El Commercio, in its Feb. 4, 1902 issue, reported that the inquisition of the priests was intended to find who were cooperating with the revolution, especially those who were helping the Filipinos still in arms with rice and money. And, of course, the priests had to know this information, according to the way of thinking of the American officers, especially that (since?) they possessed the secret of the confessional.

In The Ordeal of Samar, Joseph L. Schott wrote that one of the imprisoned priests, Fr. Nicanor Acebedo, parish priest of Basey, was "water-cured" by Capt. Edwin F. Glenn of the US Infantry. The assistant parish priest was also "water-cured." Both were injured for life; the assistant became insane. Father Picson was "water-cured" to death by Captain Glenn. His sister was also bayoneted to death upon Glenn's order. Glenn was an expert in torture both in Panay and in Samar. He was later court-martialed for "water-curing" the town mayor of Igbaras in Iloilo, and for burning that town. He was punished with a mere fine and reprimand, and continued to serve in the US Army. He retired as a brigadier general. A folk account has it that the threat of execution did not faze Guimbaolibot. He was prepared to die. His calm demeanor in prison was said to have inspired his fellow prisoners not to lose hope.

The College Tradean article said that on the scheduled date of his and other prisoners' execution, Guimbaolibot was able send word to the people of Catbalogan about the decision. He requested them to pray for their (prisoners') deliverance and for the enlightenment of their executioners. It was about 3 p.m. when the Americans deferred the sentence. Guimbaolibot and a few other suspects were turned over to the people who fetched them from jail. Their caretakers tended to their bruises, for they were beaten all over their bodies. Guimbaolibot went home to Guiuan to recover his health. He returned to Balangiga on April 22, 1903. He served the town one more year, after which he was transferred to his hometown, in Guiuan, Samar.

Beatification process

Fr. Maximo Arganda, a retired 83-year-old priest in Guiuan, revealed in a 1995 interview that Guimbaolibot was a "silent type of person, devoted to prayer. He lived a pious, humble and simple life. He was offered to become a bishop many times, but he humbly refused all these offers." "I consider him a saint," Arganda then told Bankaw News, now re-launched as a cyber-magazine after four years of dormancy.

Arganda was a former sacristan (altar boy) of Guimbaolibot. He later became his assistant priest who took over the parish during the illness and after the death of the monsignor. "Buotan hin duro adto nga Monsenyor (The monsignor was an extremely good man)," was a usual comment about Guimbaolibot from those old folks who had seen him in life.

In the 8th of December 1995, the Parish Church of the Immaculate Conception, Guiuan formally launched a beatification movement for Msgr. Donato Guimbaolibot, coinciding with the town fiesta and the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the town's Christian evangelization to the Vatican Council.

Publicity about the movement, which was reported by several Manila newspapers, continues to raise eyebrows, more so among many people who associated Guimbaolibot with the killing of American soldiers by native bolo fighters in Balangiga, and not with the priest who suffered because of an erroneous suspicion by the Americans

A proud moment in our historic struggle for freedom, the Balangiga event has remained misunderstood by many Filipinos. Whatever outsiders say about him, Guimbaolibot was the only priest from Leyte and Samar with a monument erected in his memory right in his hometown. His statue stands on the western lawn of the centuries-old Guiuan Parish Church.

This monument and the beatification movement are supreme tributes to a priest who showed that his love of country and his sacrifice for the defense of his faith and vocation could not be bought. Msgr. Guimbaolibot is now revered to as Servant of God in many parts of the Samar and Leyte, while still waiting for an official diocesan opening with the cause of martyrdom ex acertatibus et vexationibusque pro fidei quibus pertulit, which means that he died a martyr as a result of physical/moral violence he endured for the sake of the faith.

References

1. "Library Link - Featured Article". Retrieved 26 September 2016.
2. "Gala Pinoy Redux". Retrieved 26 September 2016.
3. "St. Mary's Academy of Guiuan - History". Retrieved 26 September 2016.