BRIDGING THE GAP
Early Protestant mission work in Capiz
American colonial rule descended into the town and province of Capiz in mid-1899. The population of the province at that time was estimated to be some 288,000 and the town about 18,000 (Meyer, 2003). The Protestant missionary adjunct of the American administration arrived in the capital of the province in August 1903.
In the course of the American colonization of the Philippines, the various Protestant denominations in the United States, through mutual understanding, divided the archipelago into spheres of separate or shared administrative and missionary jurisdiction. This was to avoid overlapping of areas of responsibility. Thus, representatives from various Protestant missions gathered in Manila in April 1901 and organized the Evangelical Union of the Philippines that became responsible in delineating jurisdictional boundaries.
In the territorial administrative divisions that followed, the Baptists and the Presbyterians were assigned to work together in Western Visayas. Other Protestant groups were assigned in Luzon and in Mindanao. In 1901, in a supplementary agreement, the Baptists were assigned solely in Capiz, but they continued to share work in the other parts of the region. In that year, mission activity had started in Iloilo, noted to be the richest city and most populous province in Panay at that time. Pioneering Baptist mission work in Iloilo was started in 1900 by Rev. Eric Lund, a Swede, and Braulio Manikan, a converted Filipino from the Aklan section of the province of Capiz. In the next two years, there arrived via Manila in Iloilo seven more missionaries, including Dr. & Mrs. Peter H.J. Lerrigo who, for a while, operated a mission and clinic in Iloilo.
On August 1, 1903, Dr. Lerrigo, with his wife and a fellow missionary, Rev. George Finley, left Iloilo for Capiz and arrived there on August 3. This signaled the start of the Baptist mission work in the virgin vineyard of the town and province.
In Capiz, Dr. Lerrigo's party stayed with Don Manuel Gregorio and his wife, Andrea who lavished hospitality upon them in their three-week stay with the Filipino couple. The Gregorios became the earliest converts to the Baptist faith, together with Don Rufino Inocencio, Manuel's brother-in-law (Meyer, 2003). Manuel helped in finding a suitable dwelling for the American missionaries, while Rufino donated land on which to build a church. With great help from such native stalwarts, the Lerrigos embarked on the dual calling of evangelical and medical work in Capiz.
Initially, worship service and prayer meetings in various evenings of the week were held in the spacious front room of the Gregorio's residence. Later, these activities were moved to a provisional chapel until 1906 when a permanent one was completed. One evangelical outreach was a boys' Bible study class, one member of which was a brilliant Filipino boy named Manuel Roxas, who was to become the first president of the Philippine Republic in 1946. Another was the organization of a Protestant-oriented Boys' Club in the dormitory for out-of-town boarders at the only provincial high school located in the town (Lerrigo's Memoirs). Medical work, on the other hand, was done in the basement of the rented house of the Lerrigos. Doroteo Lopez Jaena, who was Dr. Lerrigo's assistant in his Iloilo clinic, came to Capiz with his family to help the latter in both clinic and church work (Ibid).
It must be pointed out that during that time, cholera, dysentery and other epidemics were rampant in the Philippines. Because of the limited facilities and resources, Dr. Lerrigo was not always able to meet the needs of the patients fully but, according to him, he was happy to be of any help. An indication that, indeed, the health situation in Capiz was serious at that time is that, in his Memoirs, he cited statistics that covered his medical activities from August to December 1903: consultations, 631; new cases, 222; return visits, 409; visits to patient's home, 231; and operations, 29.
Because of the untimely death of his five-day baby son and Mrs. Lerrigo's ill health, the missionary couple cut short their first Capiz term and returned home to the United States in February 1904. This marked the early Protestant mission work in Capiz that continued to prosper through the years.