VOLUME XXVI

NUMBER 3

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TOT that there has ever been dissension among the bodies of our obedience there, but Scottish Rite bodies acknowledging allegiance to other Supreme Councils have for years continued to exist there alongside our own. The reasons for this are mainly historical, and call for a brief review.

In the Philippines, Masonry considerably antedates the American occupation. As long ago as 1856 the Spanish admiral, Malcampo, later Governor General, organized a lodge at Cavite under the Grand Orient of Portugal, which was known as the Lodge Primera Luz Filipina. For some years, however, Masonic membership in the Philippines was restricted to Spaniards. Finally, in the later eighties, a movement was inaugurated in Spain itself by Miguel Morayta, recently deceased, then head of the Spanish Grand Orient, and Marcelo H. del Pilar, a Filipino, residing in Spain, which resulted in admitting some leading natives of the Philippines into the ranks of Masonry, and then it began to exert a real influence upon the affairs of the archipelago. It was the ideas of the Scottish Rite which largely furnished the inspiration for the uprising against the Spanish govern. ment in 1896. All Masons were then under suspicion; many suffered and

others died for their allegiance to the craft and its principles. Then, too, the Spanish Masons were practically the only Spaniards who sympathized with the Filipinos in their struggles for a more liberal form of government. It was not strange, therefore, that in the hearts of the latter Spanish Freemasonry won a high place, and those who had allied themselves therewith were loath to leave it, notwithstanding changed conditions. We must remember that to be a Mason in Spain involves a great personal sacrifice, and that few but the tried and true are found in their ranks. Perhaps for that reason they are extremely careful whom they receive, and require a long period of probation, such as formerly prevailed in our own jurisdiction.

American Masonry, coming into the Philippines with the army, followed for a time the course of its predecessor in admitting only Americans, just as the Spanish lodges at first received only Europeans; but in establishing the Scottish Rite there the deputy of the Supreme Council insisted that there should be no invidious distinctions of nationality, and the first class upon which the thirty-second degree was conferred in 1911 included a well-known Filipino, now a judge, who has been very helpful to us ever since. Other

Filipinos, not inconsiderable in number, have joined the Manila bodies from time to time, and, so far as has been possible to prevent it, there has been no deviation from the principle upon which those bodies were started.

Meanwhile, not unnaturally, some of the lodges and other bodies claiming authority from the Spanish Grand Orient continued to work. The transfer of sovereignty had severed that authority as completely as it had the political tie, but it was difficult to make this clear to Masons who knew little of the AngloSaxon doctrine of exclusive territorial jurisdiction, who felt a sentimental attachment to the Spanish Grand Orient for the reasons already mentioned, and who as yet saw little manifestation of a similar attitude among American Masons. It seemed like asking much of our Filipino brethren to require them to surrender an affiliation which had cost them so dear while nothing was offered in its place, and when they were not responsible for the grounds on which the requirement was based.

While, therefore, our Scottish Rite bodies in the Philippines could hold no official intercourse with those claiming authority from Spain, it was quite possible to get their viewpoint and to prepare the ground for a solution of the most important problem which confronted us the union under one head

of all Scottish Rite Masons in the Archipelago.

By February of 1916 conditions were ripe for opening a new Lodge of Per fection. The petitioners for Letters Temporary were all members of the Manila bodies, but the new lodge was soon exercising its express authority to receive new members by initiation and affiliation. In August, 1916, under Letters Temporary, Burgos Chapter of Rose Croix was opened; in December, Malcampo Preceptory was opened; and, finally, on February 14, 1917, the group was happily completed by presenting, with imposing ceremonies, Letters Temporary to Rizal Consistory.

Meanwhile, the work of winning over our brethren of the Spanish allegiance had been actively proceeding, and in

this Brothers Craig and Camus had found an active ally in Brother Manuel L. Quezon, then of the Spanish bodies. Toward the close of prolonged negotiations and innumerable conferences with members of the last-named bodies, the deputy of the Supreme Council addressed to them the following letter:

MANILA, P. I., Feb. 5, 1917. To the Scottish Rite Masons Residing in the Philippines, but Belonging to Bodies Chartered by Other Recognized Supreme Councils.

VERY DEAR BRETHREN:

In the name of universal Masonry, for whose realization we all hope and strive, and in behalf of the Mother Supreme Council of the World, whose deputy I have the honor to be, I take pleasure in extending to you a cordial and fraternal invitation to present applications for affiliation with the bodies of the Rite now working in this Valley under the authority of said lastnamed Supreme Council.

It is of the utmost importance to the interests of the Craft in these islands that Masonry in all its forms be united. In union there is strength; in division, weakness.

The growth of the bodies referred to has been gratifying and rapid, but the Mother longs to bring under its protecting aégis all Scottish Rite Masons residing within its territorial jurisdiction and to enlist them under a common banner.

Come with us, brethren, and make the union complete.

Fraternally yours,

CHARLES S. LOBINGIER, 33° Hon..

Deputy of the Supreme Council. The members of the Spanish bodies finally decided to dissolve their organizations, return their charters, and petition for affiliation with the new Philippine bodies. They did this without exacting any concessions in return. They surrendered a status which was to them cherished and valuable; they even paid the fees of "newly created" members under Statutes, Article VI, Section 6. and they did not reserve the small privilege of continuing their former bodies under new charters.

Their petitions were acted upon favorably by such of those bodies addressed as were then organized, and they were ready for affiliation in the highest degree which they had received in the Spanish bodies. Not many of them, however, had passed beyond the 30°; for in Spain, as elsewhere in

Europe, the 31° and 32° are not conferred generally, but are confined to a limited number, much like our 33° Honorary, and, as has already been said, the regulations of the Spanish Supreme Council require a much longer interval to elapse between the reception of degrees than do those of our own.

To complete the affiliation of the petitioners it was necessary that each take all the pledges and vows of all the degrees of the body with which he affiliated. For this purpose they were assembled in large numbers on the evenings of February 12 and 14. Our obligations had all been translated into Spanish by Brother Leo Fisher, 32°, Secretary of the Philippine Bodies, for the benefit of those of the petitioners

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who understand that language better than English, and were administered in full form after the body to which they corresponded had been duly opened.

The new Philippine bodies will need to work in Spanish as well as in English, and it will save them a tremendous and unnecessary burden if they can have the benefit of what has been done in Porto Rico.

Thus through organization of the new Philippine bodies, the unification of the Scottish Rite in the Archipelago has been accomplished. This result cannot but be regarded as one of the most important and far-reaching achievements yet consummated within the jurisdiction of our Supreme Council.

HERE was an historic fitness in the fact that the second of the Philippine bodies-Burgos Chapter of the Rose Croix-was opened under Letters Temporary on August 14, 1916, the eighteenth anniversary of the American advent in this archipelago. For the hoisting of the Stars and Stripes marked the realization of most of the ideals and reformsfree speech, free association, freedom of conscience, and the separation of Church and State for which Philippine Masonry had stood and Philippine Masons had suffered, from the beginning.

The truth is that Philippine Masonry can be understood only in the light of general Philippine history. Hence, in selecting names for the new bodies, a careful sifting has been made by competent hands in order to secure those names which best exemplify the great elements and factors in Philippine history and will, at the same time, show the connection therewith and depend

ence thereon of Masonry in the Philippines.

The names thus far selected are:
Lakandola Lodge of Perfection.
Burgos Chapter of the Rose Croix.
Malcampo Council, or Preceptory.
Rizal Consistory.

These na nes ought to be household words in the mouth of every Mason, American or Filipino, in these islands. But are they? Is it not rather true that the local history of the craft as well as that of Far Eastern Masonry in general has been sadly neglected by the nembers of our craft? And does not this journal, now devoted in name as well as in fact to our brotherhood in the Far East, offer the best medium for correcting this defect:

LAKANDOLA

Rajah Dula, to put the title in more familiar form, was the last King of Tondo. His was the largest of the

settlements, at the mouth of the Pasig River, which grew into the city now known by the name of the Walled City's predecessor, Maynila, or Manila. He is generally believed to be the "Old Rajah" (Matanda) of whom the chroniclers of Legasi's time made so frequent and so favorable mention. Of the Bornean (Brunei) royal house on his father's side and his nother, the Sultana of Pasig, he nust have had Sumatran (Menangkabau), Bisayan, Chinese and Tagalog blood mingled in his veins; and legend credited his paternal ancestors with being descendants of Alexander (Arabic, Iskander), the Great; for on his claim of such distinguished lineage did the wanderer who visited Menangkabau come to supplant the regular chief and head the migration to the Malay Peninsula, whence they passed to Borneo.

Lakandola, of course a Moro, was commander-in-chief or "admiral," of the formidable Bornean fleet, and to the north the kingdom of Pangasinan was under his protection. On his conversion and baptism, he was given the Christian name of Carlos. No bad faith was ever attributed to him, though, after spending a fortune in Spain's service, he found, just as his descendants ever found, that official Spanish promises to Filipinos were not made to be kept. His will directed that for two centuries his descendants should abstain from all political activity, so no one could charge them with self-seeking ambitions, or perhaps that the Spaniards might not find a pretext for exterminating a family of whom they were unduly suspicious and jealous.

A son and a grandson were both field marshals in the Spanish military service, with creditable records, and his own loyalty had earned the promise that never should his descendants be taxed; nor was the obligation ever denied in the numerous cases that were brought at frequent intervals during the three centuries of Spanish sovereignty.

His family jewels, said to have been buried near where the Magellan monument now stands, have been the "Captain Kidd's Treasure" of the Philippines for which there have been many (fruitless, of course), searches.

An aged Pampangan is credited by Mr. Luther Parker, who has given considerable study to this notable family, with the boast that every prominent Filipino leader in the later agitation against Spain's misrule belongs to Lakandola's family; and that this is true of those whose ancestry has been traced inspires some confidence in the claim.

Of Masonic connection there is only the remote possibility that the Filipinos, who used the blood-compact for sealing alliances and had been in close communciation for several centuries with China, may have gotten the custom, which flourished, especially among the adventurous spirits who traveled in foreign lands, from the Chinese secret societies that affected it. But even if this could be established there would remain a still harder task: to determine how much of real Masonry there was in these ancient organizations whose symbolism somewhat resembles our own.

BURGOS

The Very Reverend José Burgos is said to have had among his ancestors one of those Japanese noblemen who, in the early part of the eighteenth century, because of their conversion to christianity, were exiled to Manila.

Brilliant in scholarship, thrice a doctor-in theology, in canon law and in philosophy-Doctor Burgos was the favorite of the famous Filipino pulpit orator, Doctor Pelaez, who was killed in the cathedral by the earthquake of 1863, and the idol of the students who thronged his classroom in San Juan de Letran College and Sto. Tomás University.

Burgos maintained a vigorous campaign for more liberal conditions in the Philippines, through newspapers published in the Peninsula (Spain), and with success; for just then Freemasonry had come into control by the movement that dethroned Queen Isabela II of unfortunate memory. Despite papal bulls fulminated when elements desirous of political power have been in control of the Church machinery, our Masonic institution has always numbered among its members, in Spain and