The Rizalistas of Rongot

Surprised by Nanay Gloria's question, I meekly reply that I am interested in learning about the indigenous religions of the Philippines. And being an admirer of Rizal, I am fascinated that their Iglesia worships Dr. Jose Rizal.

Nanay Gloria is visibly pleased by my answer. “What do you think of our group?” she asks. I say they are a very religious and nationalistic people because of their reverence of Philippine heroes like Rizal, Bonifacio, and Mabini.

“You are correct,” she says. She then approaches me and raises her right hand to bless me. She touches my head, telling me I am fortunate to have traveled to this remote barrio because it pleases Amang Rizal, and that I am now blessed. Then she turns to her flock once more and delivers another long and rambling speech -- somewhat disconnected but with only one important message -- that they should forever love God in their hearts, and to follow the 10 commandments. At one time she tells them they should be thankful I visited them, coming from a place as far away as Manila.

Nanay Gloria as Rizal's medium

It is only after the sermon that I learn it was no longer Nanay Gloria who was talking. The Iglesia members revealed to me that the spirit of Amang Rizal possesses Nanay Gloria every time she delivers her sermons. It was not Nanay Gloria who touched my head and blessed me. It was Amang Rizal. I have been blessed by Amang Rizal himself. Indeed, after the sermon, Nanay Gloria appeared more like her usual self: gay, smiling, and humble. She no longer had the fierce voice and penetrating gaze of God the Father.

After their rituals, they all stand up, bow to the altar and rest on the wooden chairs. They all smile at me, bowing, their hands on their chests as as sign of respect. Meanwhile I focus my attention on the numerous Rizal statuettes and photographs on the altar. At the center is the bust of an old man. For me, the figure doesn't resemble Dr. Rizal in any way, even if I mentally added years to my personal image of the hero. The old man has a shawl on his head and sports a long white beard. One cannot mistake his identity because written below the statue is his name: Apo Asyong. His full name, according to Nanay Gloria, is Senor Don Ignacio Coronado.

Fascinated, I ask Nanay Gloria who Apo Asyong is. She answers that Apo Asyong and Dr. Jose Rizal are one and the same person. I complain to her I get confused over who God is: Rizal or Apo Asyong?. She taps my forehead as if to teach a young kid: “Don’t be confused!” she says. “Amang Rizal and Apo Asyong are one person! Sometimes Rizal appears as Apo Asyong, sometimes Apo Asyong appears as Amang Rizal. Amang Rizal is the Diyos Anak, Apo Asyong is the Diyos Ama! But they are one!”

And then I ask the inevitable question: “Then who is the Diyos Ina?”

Nanay Gloria, now visibly exasperated by my ignorance, taps my forehead again: “Inang Adarna is the Diyos Ina!” She giggles through her revelation as though it were the most important thing she has ever said to anyone.

Forgive me, my dear Nanay Gloria, I say. “So Inang Adarna is also Amang Rizal who is also Apo Asyong, am I right?”

“Yes!” she said. “They are the Holy Family! Three persons in one God!”

I close my eyes to ponder on what she is saying. I realize that this is the reason they call themselves the Iglesia Sagrada Familia or The Church of the Holy Family, because in their belief, God consists of a family: God the Father, God the Mother and God the Son. The Most Holy Trinity.

“Have you seen Apo Asyong?” I ask Nanay Gloria.

“Yes. I lived in his house when I was still a young girl” she says proudly.

The story of Apo Asyong

Don Ignacio "Apo Asyong" Coronado, I later found in my research, lived in Sitio Aplaya, some three kilometers away from Calamba town proper (about seven kilometers from Rongot). Apo Asyong's house, though old and very dilapidated, continues to stand to this day, now inhabited by his numerous grandchildren and great grandchildren.The house also doubles as Apo Asyong's temple, where many Rizalistas still come to worship. In Sitio Aplaya, many old residents still remember Apo Asyong as a good and helpful man.

Born on February 2, 1890, Apo Asyong preached in the 1940s that he was the real Dr. Jose Rizal -- and that the man killed by the Spaniards in 1896 was a fake, a Rizal double. Apparently, many people believed him, and he was thus worshipped by followers (including Nanay Gloria and the entire Sagrada Famila sect) as the true living Jose Rizal. Interestingly, Nanay Gloria and Apo Asyong's grandsons never use the term "death" when referring to Apo Asyong's demise. Instead they prefer to call his death as "paglisan" (leaving). "Apo Asyong will never die, just as Amang Rizal did not die in Bagumbayan," she told me.

Apo Asyong's core teachings are basically the same as those preached by Rizal -- love of God, love of fellowmen, and love of country. Apo Asyong -- if we are to believe the testimonies of his followers -- has the power of teleportation and can be in several places at the same time. Like Rizal, he is also said to be a linguist -- fluent in all the major languages of the world, even though there is no record he had had formal studies in schools. When Apo Asyong and his followers would go to Calamba town proper, they would visit the old Rizal house (the reconstructed house, actually) and he would point out his bedroom, his sisters' bedrooms, as if he was indeed the young Rizal who lived there in the 1860s.

Apo Asyong suddenly fell ill in the morning of 21 December 1957, and died at midnight. His remains were interred at the public cemetery in Lecheria Hill, the place where Rizal was believed by Rizalistas to have spent his childhood and youth. His grandchildren still faithfully keep his old things -- his clothes, his pillow and bed (still arranged in the same way as when he died), his pipes (he smoked tobacco), and his old tumba-tumba chair. They regard him as God the Father.

There is one extant photograph of Apo Asyong, and it is always prominently displayed in many Rizalista temples that worship the kindly old man.

One rainy Sunday afternoon (after attending the worship rituals for Apo Asyong), Joseph, one of Apo Asyong's grandsons, asked me if I wanted to visit his lolo's mausoleum in Lecheria. Although it was raining hard, I agreed to go to the cemetery to visit the tomb of this mysterious man. The grandson assured me it was still existing and that the family visited it annually every November 1. Because of the heavy rains, we slushed through mud, clambering atop old tombs to individually search the tombs and mausoleums, but alas, we couldn't locate Apo Asyong's final resting place. "It was just here," Joseph told me, pointing to an empty plot in the cemetery. "He already took his bodily remains to heaven," Joseph concluded.

Fascinated with this mysterious man, I asked Nanay Gloria how they first came to know Apo Asyong. In reply, Nanay Gloria told me a fantastic story of how Apo Asyong built their church. It was not easy. They lived a very difficult life. Many people accused them of being lunatics. But the people just didn’t know what Nanay Gloria and her group had gone through - their travails and hardships just to build this church. They persevered because they knew Amang Rizal/Apo Asyong would reward them in the near future.