Religion

A Visayan Saint
BY JD VELEZ

The Philippnes will have its second saint in San Pedro Calungsod, a Visayan martyr who was with the Jesuit mission in Guam led by Blessed Diego.Luis de San Vitores. Thousands of Filipino faithfuls, especially Cebuanos are in Rome to witness this rare event to unfold on Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012.

Claims have been flying as to the saint's genealogy following his canonization. There are those who say he is from Ginatilan in Southern Cebu. Some say he is from Bohol and others say he is from Iloilo. There are only two clues to help us based on his name in official Spanish records which was Pedro Calonsor Bissaya. He was from the Visayas which was then part of the Cebu archdiocese. And that his surname is Calonsor.

Calonsor is most likely a Spanish version of a native name, Kalonsor, How it became Kalungsod or Calungsod is probably the result of the effort to discover his roots in the Visayas.

Prior to the Claveria decree in 1849, Filipino surnames were very confusing to the Spaniards. There were Spanish as well as indigenous surnames that were commonly used like delos Santos and dela Cruz, Abaya, Abad, etc. The Claveria decree issued on November 21, 1849 by the Governor General of the Philippines, Don Narciso Claveria y Zaldua required Filipinos to adopt Spanish and indigenous names from the Catalogo Alfabetico de Apellidos for civil and legal purposes.

San Pedro's surname which his family carried 200 years before the Claveria decree is likely to be indigenous. And one close Bisayan name to it is Calungsod. D and R tended to be interchanged which probably prompted the adoption of Calungsod. The singular noun lungsod (town) becomes kalungsoran in its plural form. Kalonsod or Kalonsor very likely referred to the same thing. Spaniards often mispronounced Visayan words and hispanized them in spelling and pronounciation to suit their own tonque.

Calungsod is likely to be a Central Visayas surname as there are Calungsods in Cebu, Duhaylungsod in Siquijor and Cal in Bohol. There is high probability he is from the region. Besides in 1600s the Jesuits were active in the area. It was them who Christianized the Chinese of Parian in Cebu where they established a school and a parish.

However, with the claim of some Calunsods in Iloilo based on their family's supposed oral tradition, the search for the saint's roots need to be widened. It's rare to have oral traditions going as far back as the 17th century (if theirs indeed go that far back). By nature, oral traditions are prone to inconsistencies and need to be verified by historical evidence to be accepted as true.

Iloilo, however, used to be part of the Cebu archdiocese. And there's also probability he may have come from that area. But wherever St. Pedro's roots in the Visayas was, the fact remains that he is our first Visayan saint. It's a cause for unity, not discord.