History of United Church of Christ in the Philippines, Cagayan de Oro

The Cagayan Evangelical Church was organized in January 20, 1917. The charter members of the church who signed the covenant numbered 66, which included Mr. and Mrs. Clementino Chavez, Mr. and Mrs. Porfirio Chavez, 10 young ladies, and 52 young men, mostly students. As Laubach would later described it in 1919:

The first people to join the church in Cagayan were the students in the intermediate and high schools. This was because the new missionaries were able to speak English only, and also because public schools had given the students a good deal of faith in American institutions. Until very recently, they were out strongest and most numerous members.

The Presbyterian Mission had sent a fresh graduate from the Cebu High School named Proculo A. Rodriguez, from Surigao, to serve as Laubach’s assistant.

With the establishment of a regular evangelistic program, Laubach and Rodriguez extended their work to the nearby seaside barrios of Macabalan and Lapasan.

Before the end of 1916, a Christian Endeavor Society was organized, with Rodriguez quickly emerging as the natural leader, while another local youth named Longino Daamo distinguished himself as a good teacher and a dynamic song leader.

This work among youth proved to be the backbone of the Cagayan mission, for it gathered a core of zealous high school students who were to become the future pillars of the local evangelical church.

As more preaching places were established in outlying barrios, Rodriguez and Daamo were entrusted with responsibility for the religious services in Macabalan and Lapasan.

The Cagayan Evangelical Church was immeasurably blessed by the presence of a zealous group of lay workers, many of whom were still in high school.

Serving as a volunteer Sunday School teachers, this group included such future church leaders as Paulino Avanceña, Emiliano Chacon, Esteban Eduave, Matea Mercado, Agapito Raagas, followed later by Pedro Acero, Vicente Baz, H. Capillo, Leoncio Madroñal, Laureana Rabe, Crispin Ramos, M. Seriña, Juan Roa, Mamerto Siapit, and Francisco Tabian, with Juan Uriarte, who like Rodriguez, came from Surigao, later arriving to join the group.

By 1919, extension Sunday School classes were flourishing in 15 different barrios on both sides of Cagayan River, including MAcabalan, Lapasan, Gusa, Macasandig, Telegrapo, Barra, Bonbon, and Kauswagan.

These were taught by 5 paid and 30 young volunteer workers, nearly all young people. Laubach at the time described this extension work as “the most outstanding feature of the Mindanao work to date.”

With total attendance of 400 to 1,000, the Cagayan Sunday School system was by then “the largest” in Mindanao and the Visayas, and “perhaps in the Philippines.”

By 1921, the Cagayan Evangelical Church had more that 300 communicant members, including the most leading citizens of the town, who, through their own efforts, had built a chapel inside the Cagayan Mission Hospital compound on Calle Real.

Some elder citizens, who were the founding fathers of the local Iglesia Filipina Independiente, did not themselves join the evangelical fellowship, because of their position in the Aglipayan Church.

But they gladly lent a helping hand, and did not object when nearly all their children became protestants.

Reasons for Early Rapid Church Growth

The early rapid church growth of the Cagayan Evangelical Church was due to a number of converging factors. Firstly, Cagayan, a provincial capital, was a strong center of Aglipayanism, with the officials and civic leaders almost all Aglipayans.

Secondly, Laubach had a dynamic character, which so impressed the local people with his intelligence, leadership, and oratory, that some openly wondered why he was a missionary and not a representative of the U. S. Congress.

Moreover, Cagayan at that time was the sole educational center for all of Northern Mindanao, and Laubach’s special attention on youth was largely responsible for the overwhelming number of young students in the membership rolls of the church.

The dormitory work of the Fox sisters – Anna Isabel, a Bible teacher; Florence, a trained nurse; and Evelyn, who had been sent by the American Board at various times between 1918 and 1923, also became a powerful instrument of conversion of a good number of young girls in the provincial high school.

Furthermore, much credit should be given to the strong evangelistic program carried on by the young lay members of the church.

An equally important reason for rapid evangelical growth in Cagayan at this time was weakened state of the Catholic churches in northern Mindanao until 1926, when the first contingent of 10 American Jesuits came to northern Mindanao.

Thereafter, more Jesuits came to put up a very stiff opposition to both Aglipayanism and Protestantism in Misamis Oriental, Misamis Occidental, Bukidnon and Lanao.

Though Protestantism continued to grow, its advances in 1930s were not as significant as in earlier years. Though this was partly due to Catholic resurgence for which the American Jesuits of the state of New York should be given credit for, part of the resulting loss of Protestant momentum was the transfer of Laubach to Manila (as dean of UTS), and later to Dansalan, Lanao.

Some Protestant old timers, who lived through the exciting years of the late 1910s and the early 1920s, unhesitatingly affirm that if Laubach had stayed in Cagayan much longer, this capital town would have largely turned Protestant.

[Return to first page. See also the Facebook of UCCP-Cagayan de Oro.]