Fray Diego de Herrera’s impressions of the Spanish settlement along Panay River

On June 4, 1570, three ships from New Spain reached the Philippines. It contained the much-needed reinforcements for the tired and hungry Spanish troops who transferred their settlement from Cebu to Panay River. On June 7, they reached Mariripi where they rested for a while. Here they learned from the natives that the governor, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, had moved to Panay. In Fray Diego de Herrera’s letter to the viceroy of New Spain written in the last days of June 1570, he reported that from Mariripi, he and Captain Juan de la Ysla went to visit the Governor to Panay so that they may know where he wanted the vessels to go “for there is no port in Panay  and ships must take cover near a small island lying at the mouth of the river where the governor lives.” He adds that the island was “dangerous for vessels as the pilots and quartermasters believe.”

However, reading Herrera’s letter, one could surmise that he was disappointed with the governor’s decision of settling in Panay. He even remarked that “many were of different opinion” when he told de la Isla to send the ships to Panay. 

Part of Herrera’s letter also gives an overall impression at how badly he disliked the place: 

“I myself thought that his decision was wrong for the port was bad and it would be hard to unload the vessels. Also there was over one league and a half from the anchorage to the town and the sandbar at the mouth of the river made passage difficult. Nevertheless, on June 22, the vessels got there and when the men aboard saw this sad and stricken place in which we are now settled they were sad. The swamps looked bad  and the houses were built by the bank of the river where the water is brackish so that when the river rises it is necessary to go by the boat from house to house. It is hot and unhealthy and it rains day and night and although before we came, food was abundant now we lacked food.”

Herrera also reported to the viceroy the abuses committed by the Spanish soldiers and observed that they “despised” Legazpi. 

When he arrived in Panay, Herrera noted:

“I found the land in ashes and the soldiers free to do all sorts of wrong so that they are stealing and ravishing the land and they hunt the natives to sell them as slaves and I learned that there had been so much bloodshed that that I was sad in my soul especially as I learned that these wrongs were not unpunished.”

In fact, all these wrongs unpunished went on for the next 300 years. Today, while we prize the town of Panay as the second Spanish settlement in the Philippines, we should not forget as well that the colonizers also pillaged our land and abused our forefathers all for the name of gold and glory.