TRACING THE GROWTH OF CHRISTIANITY
IN MANGALDAN
The Augustinians (1575)
The Augustinians then were the first wave of religious missionaries who attempted the conversion of Pangasinan. Disembarking on Pangasinan soil, they erected a small chapel on the bank of the Toboang creek (not far from the place which the present town of Labrador occupies). It was the first chapel to be built on the land of a people who had known no religion but paganism with all its attendant idolatry and superstitious beliefs.
Unhappily, due to the stiff resistance that the early natives of Pangasinan offered to any attempt of conversion, the Augustinians were unable to make such headway for the Faith. With heavy hearts, they left Pangasinan and proceeded to the Ilocos provinces but not before establishing the missions of Lingayen, Bagnotan (the present Dagupan) and Santa Monica (the present Manaoag) which were later turned over to the care of the Dominicans.
(Arnaiz, Gregorio, OP. Ministerio Espiritual de los Dominicanos en Pangasinan in Missiones Catolicas en Extremo Oriente. Cacho Hermanos, Manila. 1937, p.132.)
The Secular Priests and the Franciscans
After the Augustinians , a group of secular priests whose names history does not record and some Franciscan friars notably Fr. Juan Bautista Pisaro and Fr. Sebastian de Baeza came to evangelize the province. But, like the Augustinians, unable to withstand the resistance of the “ferocious” people, they abandoned “this barren and ungrateful people”.
The Dominicans (1587)
To the Dominicans belong the glory of being the most successful missionaries to being about the conversion of Pangasinan where they remained until the Revolution in 1898. The first Dominican friars who came to Pangasinan were Frs. Bernardo de Santa Catalina (who acted as the superior of the small group), Gregorio Ochoa, Juan de Castro, nephew of Fr. Juan de Castro, the first Provincial of the Dominican in the Philippines), Pedro Soto, Marcos de San Antonio and Juan de la Cruz. Arriving in the province in September 1587, they settled in Binalatongan where they were first accommodated in a small hut : made of branches and palm leaves” provided them by the Spanish feudatory of Binalatongan, Jimenez del Pino. In this place, they lost no time in erecting a small chapel which they placed under the patronage, appropriately enough, of St. Dominic.
As the Dominicans embarked on their noble task of conversion, they did not find the situation any better than what their predecessors had found. But after three years of initial difficulties, the rapid growth of their work is attested by the successive emergence of towns and parishes. No less than 30 towns in Pangasinan, two of which are present-day cities, were founded by the Dominicans.
(Taken from Mangaldan: 1600-1898. Fr. Rafael S. Magno, Jr. Maramba Press. Dagupan City. 1981. Pp. 6-9).
