Social Science Diliman (Dec 2012)
Manuel Grijalvo, Un Obispo Burgales en Filipinas. By Roberto Blanco Andrés. Burgos: Publicaciones de la Excma. Diputación de Burgos, 2011. 88 pages, plates.
Abstract
This brief biography is one among many published works by RobertoBlanco Andrés, a Spanish historian who specializes in the history of religious orders in the Philippines, particularly the Augustinians. The aim of the present work is simple. It is to recount Fray Manuel Grijalvo’s life as a religious priest who occupied key positions in the Augustinian Order and in the Philippine church as bishop of Nueva Caceres (now Naga) in the first half of the 19th century, at a time when both the Order and the church in the Philippines were undergoing transition. This succinct narration of an Augustinian bishop’s lifeopens a window through which one can appreciate Philippine history in the 19th century. Although brief, the summary of Grijalvo’s years in the Philippines, spent in Manila and Nueva Caceres, gives a relatively complete view of the challenges that the Catholic Church was facing in this era, both within the Augustinian Order and in the Diocese of Nueva Caceres. This is so because Grijalvo was an Augustinian missionary who also occupied key posts as parish priest in Batangas towns (1814 -1818) and in Pasig (1833 -1839 and 1831-1847). He was also procurator and prior of the Order between 1818 and 1832. In1848, he was appointed bishop of Nueva Caceres, a post he occupied until his death in 1861. His life, therefore, encapsulates the struggles and challenges of the Philippine Catholic Church and the Spanish colonial government.
