MAGDALENA JALANDONI BY WINTON G.

LOU YNION
􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠􀁠
She remains the reina of Hiligaynon
literature. No one knows if she once
had dreamt of herself as a reina for
the feast of Candelaria, or if she ever
imagined of Jose Rizal escorting her
down the plaza.

BY WINTON LOU G. YNION | PHOTOS BY TED MADAMBA

August 2009 | balikbayan 41

42 balikbayan | August 2009

The belfry of Jaro C hurch in Iloilo.

August 2009 | balikbayan 43

MAGDALENA JALANDONI WAS FIVE YEARS OLD IN
1896 when her first love was sentenced to death by firing squad by the
Spanish authorities. The man, who was known as José Rizal, was an
ophthalmologist who, in his times of passion, wrote reformist novels that
provided an indelible momentum for the Philippine Revolution in 1898.
His life had been accentuated by women of different languages. He left
Leonor Rivera, his childhood love, when his family sent him to Europe
for further medical studies, only to fall in love with a German dame in the
person of Josephine Bracken. When he visited Japan in 1888, he wrote a
woman named O-Sei-San about the equation of her beauty and that of
the blooming sakura. There were other women; some of them were kept
in secrecy along with José’s indecent encounters while sojourning with
other ilustrados who established relationships with women of European
lineage. His looks were ordinary; Filipinos, in fact, felt deceived when he
once came home and packaged himself as a doktor Aleman. But he was
gentle and, perhaps, romantic that Magdalena, heiress to the incredible
fortune of Francisca Gonzaga and Gregorio Jalandoni, fell in love with
him.
Magdalena’s father died when she was two. Her brother Luis was
only three-months old and her mother was only twenty-three. After
Gregorio’s death, the Gonzagas supported the Jalandonis, sending
Magdalena to Colegio de San Jose. At night, she would hear stories from
her mother. At one instance, she asked if the happenings and situations
in the narrative were true. Having told that the storyteller imagined the
story, Magdalena resolved to make one. And the household was amazed
that she narrated a story that she originally owns. At ten, she wrote
her first corrido, Padre Juan kag Beata Maria (Father Juan and Mother
Maria). At 13, she has four of the same genre, manuscripts of these were
submitted by her mother to La Editorial in Iloilo City, which published
them in 6”x8” softcover newsprint edition.
When Magdalena was sixteen, almost ten years after her first love’s
death, she wrote her first novel, Mga Tunoc sang Isa ca Bulac (Thorns
of a Flower). It was becoming evident then that she would be a wellknown
writer like her José. But writing was a male-dominated sphere, so
Magdalena was prohibited by her mother from producing more literatures.
She would write at night and keep her notebooks under her clothes in
her trunk. When she was 18, her mother wanted her to get married. The
bothered Francisca had chosen a prospective husband for her daughter.
Magdalena, out of obedience, agreed to marry the man of honorary
stature; but she had one unjust precondition, that he should write a novel
within the year. So, Magdalena remained single, and wrote 37 novels, 5
autobiographies, 8 narrative poems, 6 corridos, 10 plays, 213 lyric poems,
132 short stories, 9 essays, and 10 melodramas. Not almost over José, she
transformed into painting all that was imagined by him in his novels. Along
with her dioramas of Filipino life, society, culture and history are striking
canvasses of scenes from Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo.
From her room, Magdalena could view the quarters of the Spanish
priests ruling the Archdiocese of Jaro. So religious that she ornamented
her inherited house with wood statues that she personally carved. In
present Iloilo, the house, located at No. 84 Commission Civil Street in
Jaro, no longer bears the sophistication of Magdalena’s isolated world.
Perhaps, even the local government lacked the funds to preserve the
grandeur of the history of Jaro. The Jalandoni house was among the balay
na bato styled after European architecture, and was among the mansions
that decorated the vicinity of the bell tower and the Cathedral of St.
Elizabeth of Hungary where the statue Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria
can be found. On the streets of Jaro, formerly known as Salog, rumbled
the carruajes driven by cocheros.
The feast of the Señora or the Lady of Candle has been celebrated
ostentatiously with a reina, a festival queen chosen from among the
daughters of the richest and the famous of Ilonggo families. She is often
considered as binukot (literally means “isolated”) or family treasure for
her affiliation with powerful, usually through marriage, could bring more
affluence. Contemporary Ilonggos continue to observe the spirituality
and essence of the Virgin who is believed to have been discovered by a
fisherman in the banks of Iloilo River. It was only a foot high then but was
dreadfully heavy until folks decided to bring it to Jaro. Since then, she had
the habit of disappearing in the early mornings. Stories say that a beautiful
lady with long hair had been seen bathing her child at the artesian well at
the plaza.
The Candelaria, as colloquially known, called for an extravagant
procession of Jaro’s material assets, a practice that Ilonggos were not able
to protract along the onset of inequities in a colonial society. Unwritten,
it must be celebrated every 2nd of February to commemorate the
presentation of Jesus at the Temple and the purification of the Blessed
Virgin. Once, perhaps was just imagined, when the wealthy families were
broke and cancelled the feast, Great Flood came. The lineage, wealth, and
opulent lifestyle, and prominence of affluent personages of Jaro largely
contributed to the glory of Iloilo as the “Queen City of the South.” In
its streets figure the gem-bathe mansions of the Lopezes, Montinolas,
Ledesmas, and, of course, the Jalandonis. But the heirs could only
imitate the arrogance of colonial models that Jaro lost from the track of
development and progress.
When she was 75, Magdalena wrote about this leitmotif of losses and
finds in Juanita Cruz, her most mature novel according to scholar Lucila
Hosillos. Conscious of the depreciating affluence of Jaro, she wrote about
Juanita who is a binukot of her family, a treasure kept by her father to the
highest bidder who offers the greatest wealth and power. But she fell in
love with a poor choirmaster Elias. Disinherited, she disguised as Celia de
Asis, went to Manila, found a surrogate family, and became heiress of her
foster parents. Juanita was reunited with Elias in the end only to discover
that he is involved in the revolutionary movement against Spain. He was
killed in a victorious battle and now, Juanita, or the old woman who tells
the story, or Magdalena, confronts Elias’s monument at the plaza.
On the 70th anniversary of her first love’s death, Magdalena wrote
about an undying love – whether filial, agape, nor eros, it was a passion
toward a country finding golden meanings out of its centuries of feasts.
From her glass windows, Magdalena might have had internalized, more
than ever, her life role of a binukot, isolated and untouched.
In 1978, 80 years after the realization of José’s dream, Magdalena
died at the age of 87. She remains the reina of Hiligaynon literature. No
one knows if she once had dreamt of herself as a reina for the feast of
Candelaria, or if she ever imagined of Jose Rizal escorting her down the
plaza.

Magdalena Gonzaga Jalandoni was a Filipino feminist writer. She is now remembered as one of
the most prolific Filipino writers in the Hiligaynon language. Wikipedia
Born: 1891, Philippines
Died: 1978, Jaro, Iloilo City
Parents: Gregorio Jalandoni, Francisca Gonzaga

Books: Juanita Cruz