Historian Teodoro A. Agoncillo described the IFI as “the only living and tangible result of the (1896) Revolution.” And rightly so, for it was founded by people who were key players in the ferment of 1896 – a revolutionary armed struggle against Spanish colonialism.
Religion and resistance
With religion historically having taken deep root in the Filipino consciousness, it is not at all a wonder that nationalism in the Philippines has at times taken religious aspects.
In the early revolts, which were all localized struggles, the rejection of the Spanish-imposed Roman Catholic religion often took the form of a return to pre-colonial religious beliefs and practices. As Roman Catholicism sank deeper and deeper into the popular psyche, rebels began blending some Roman Catholic doctrines and rites with their old religious beliefs and practices. The combination contained more and more Roman Catholicism and eventually, the religious aspect of resistance took on the demand for equal rights for Filipinos within the Roman Catholic Church.
In the controversy between regular and secular priests, lay Filipinos generally sympathized with the latter because native priests were seculars. The campaign for the Filipinization of the clergy became an important part of the nationalist agitation which resulted in the 1896 Revolution. Filipinization called for an end to the monopoly of Spanish priests in the Roman Catholic Church and granting their Filipino counterparts the same rights and positions they enjoyed.
Many native priests thus sympathized with the Revolution, even as they had to resolve the conflict between their patriotic sentiments and their allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church which opposed the Filipino people’s anti-colonial struggle.
Gregorio Aglipay
One of the priests was Fr. Gregorio Aglipay. Born in Batac, Ilocos Norte, he was orphaned at an early age and grew up as an agricultural worker in the tobacco fields. He had deep grievances against Spanish colonialism, having been arrested at 14 for not meeting his tobacco quota.
He had been a priest for only six years when the Revolution broke out. He would be the only priest to attend the Malolos Congress.
When the U.S. intervened in the war with Spain, Aglipay accepted from Abp. Bernardino Nozaleda the mission of trying to win over the Filipino revolutionary leaders to the side of Spain and against the American forces. Failing to convince them, he decided to join them and Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, president of the Revolutionary Government, appointed him as military vicar general on Oct. 20, 1898.
Before that, cabinet president Apolinario Mabini had prevailed upon the Revolutionary Government to declare civil marriages valid, based on the doctrine of separation of church and state.
Also at Mabini’s instance, the Revolutionary Government served notice that it no longer recognized Nozaleda’s authority. It even instructed Filipino priests not to occupy vacant parishes nor perform religious services without its approval.
Aglipay followed this up with a letter urging Filipino priests to rally to the side of the Revolution and create a council that would work for the Filipinization of the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines while retaining its loyalty to the Vatican.
Aglipay found himself being excommunicated by Nozaleda in May 1899 though he had not expressed schismatic intentions. In a subsequent manifesto, Mabini supported Aglipay and urged Filipino priests to elect an Ecclesiastical Council to set up a provisional organization for the Filipino National Church – one which, though still loyal to the Vatican, would work in harmony with the Revolutionary Government.
On Oct. 23 that year, Aglipay called an Ecclesiastical Assembly in Paniqui, Tarlac. The body adopted a temporary constitution for a Filipino Catholic Church and that the body would not recognize any foreign bishop unless he had the approval of a majority of the Filipino priests – a position the Spanish hierarchy refused to give in to.
The Roman Catholic Church authorities’ inflexibility and the pro-friar leanings of the first American Apostolic Delegate, Msgr. Placido Chapelle, gained more supporters for the idea of a Filipino church independent of the Vatican. But soon after the Paniqui Assembly, Filipino-American hostilities intensified and Aglipay left for the Ilocos to fight as a guerrilla general. He surrendered in May 1901.
Birth of the IFI
In August 1902, the revolutionary scholar and journalist Isabelo “Don Belong” de los Reyes – who a year before had founded the country’s first labor union, the Union Obrera Democratica (UOD or Democratic Labor Union) – proposed to his membership the establishment of the IFI with Aglipay as supreme bishop. Aglipay headed the new church a month later.
De los Reyes was arrested the next year after a series of strikes by the UOD. He was, however, pardoned by Gov. Gen. William Howard Taft and released after a few weeks in detention. Shortly after, he retired from unionism and ran for public office.
Aglipay ran for president in the 1935 Commonwealth election, but lost to Manuel L. Quezon. He died shortly after.
