Sampaloc’s Sacred Ground: The Franciscan Backstory (1613–1918) by Martin R. Gaerlan

Abstract

Reviewed by: Sampaloc’s Sacred Ground: The Franciscan Backstory (1613–1918) by Martin R. Gaerlan Jose Victor Z. Torres Martin R. Gaerlan Sampaloc’s Sacred Ground: The Franciscan Backstory (1613–1918) Manila: Martin R. Gaerlan and Gaerlan Management Consulting, 2014. 176pages. A popular study in the field of historical writing is that of local history. For decades this branch of history has become popular among scholars and residents alike, with the latter becoming more interested in the stories of people and events in their localities while the former viewing it in the context of national history. Local history, of course, provides us with information on an otherwise unknown segment of people and on places, milieus, and events that general histories have placed in the background. Such interest has led to the publishing, by both commercial and private publishers, of a number of books and monographs on various provinces, towns, districts, and even barrios. These publications can be categorized into those with a scholarly undertaking for academic circles; those written with the lay reader in mind with, more or less, a sprinkling of scholarship; and those that have both academic and lay readers in mind. Sampaloc’s Sacred Ground: The Franciscan Backstory (1613–1918) falls under the third category. It is not written as an academic work but the scholarship in the research for this book shows the author’s deep knowledge of the place under study and his appreciation of its importance. It is privately published and thus of limited circulation—a regrettable circumstance considering its interesting topic. [End Page 575] The author, Martin Gaerlan, is both a business management professor and a corporate professional who dabbles in history, believing as he says that “a community without a sense of history loses their soul” (176). His research interests include the history of the Trinitarian devotion in the Philippines, coffee production in Lepanto province during the Spanish and American colonial periods, as well as human resources management. Sampaloc’s Sacred Ground is his first book. In 1994 he realized that fellow parishioners of the Most Holy Trinity Parish of Balic-Balic in Sampaloc, which was under the Franciscan Order, had no knowledge about their place prior to 1925, leading him to undertake the initial research on the church’s cemetery, the Cementerio de Balic-Balic. In 2011 he took a “sabbatical” from his corporate job to focus on his research, which led to a bigger project on the parish. This project included a history of Balic-Balic in the context of the development of the Sampaloc district during the Spanish period and, later, during the first two decades of the American colonial era. The result was this book, a well-documented work on a section of the City of Manila. The book does not follow or expound on any theory or idea. It simply follows a general narrative of the beginnings and development of three unknown places in the City of Manila: the area of Balic-Balic, its parish and church, and the Franciscan mission in Sampaloc. There are also side stories of the various establishments and places linked to the Franciscan mission: the printing press and the Cementerio de Balic-Balic. All narratives are based on available primary sources, mainly archival documents and rare books found in the Philippine National Archives, the National Library of the Philippines, the Archives of the Archdiocese of Manila, the Franciscan Archives in the Philippines, the Filipinas Heritage Library, the Lopez Memorial Museum and Library, the Ortigas Foundation Library, and the American Historical Collection in the Rizal Library, Ateneo de Manila University. Gaerlan’s work fills several gaps in the historiography of Manila to the benefit of a variety of historians and other professionals: the history and culture of a city district for local history and cultural scholars, the growth and development of an urban area and its related structures for heritage consultants and architects, social and economic life for social and economic historians, and the development of the Franciscan mission in Sampaloc for church historians. What is interesting is that Gaerlan does not merely [End Page 576] confine the historical narrative to the place itself (as some local historians do), but also discusses Sampaloc...