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While the common folk flock to the Apu chapel in the Dayrit estate every Friday, the city’s high
and mighty attend the annual Apu Fiesta procession sponored by the parish every last week of
October. This 1958 photo shows former mayors (left to right) Rafael Lazatin, Francisco
Nepomuceno, Juan D. Nepomuceno and Eugenio Suarez with parish priest Fr. Vicente Coronel,
right behind the carroza bearing the “official” Apung Mamacalulu image.
the plaintiff to recover of the defendants
the image and carriage which are the subject
of this action; and a writ for the delivery
of the same to the plaintiff will accordingly
issue from this court in due
course. So ordered, without costs.
Two Apu Images
As a result of the 1929 decision, the defendants
Navarro et al, delivered the image
to the parish priest of Angeles, the latter
acting for the interest of the Roman
Catholic Archbishop of Manila [ Pampanga
became a diocese only in 1948.]
For many years after the 1928 incident,
the issue of the image became the source
of friction between the Dayrits and the Angeles
parish priests. While the original image
was apparently returned to the parish
church, an identical image surfaced at the
chapel in the Dayrits’ estate about the same
time. Devotees remained with the Dayrits’
image, in fact increasing in number until the
shrine’s popularity reached cult proportions.
The two images were taken out in separate
processions, and on two occasions even
simulatenously. But the Dayrits’ processions
enjoyed more following.
Several prewar correspondences between
the Archbishop of Manila and Don
Clemente Dayrit show that requests for
Masses in the Apu chapel owned by the
Dayrits were all denied. Later, it was the
matter of accounting the donations to Apu
that became a major issue. The persistent
talk in town then was that the Church was
interested in Apu because it was drawing a
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big crowd of devotees on Fridays and that
the chapel was receiving huge amounts of
alms. The money issue became more
heated when the Dayrits began leasing
their lands and nearby alleys to transient
vendors who started making good business
on the Apu premises in the 1970s. Through
the years, the Dayrits managed to have
Masses said in the sanctuario sans permit,
by priests from faraway stations, and even
by non-Catholic priests. To avoid further
problems, Fr. Aquilino Ordonez, then Angeles
parish priest, brokered negotiations
with the Dayrit family and then San
Fernando Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz. He
thought that the best solution was for the
family to sell the chapel to the Church so
that it may attain full canonical recognition
and thereby become a seemly venue
for Apu devotees. Talks failed and no agreement
was reached.
Even long after the sensational Supreme
Court case, the story about the second
image just refuses to die. The authenticity
of the image surrendered to the Angeles
Parish Church following the court
order began to be doubted when rumors
spread that right after the court handed
the 1929 decision, the disputed image was
sent to Paete, Laguna, a town renowned
for its carvers, presumably to have a copy
of it made. Many also believe that neither
the image in the left niche of the
pisambang maragul (parish church) nor the
image enthroned on the altar of the Dayrit
owned sanctuario at barrio Lourdes Sur is
the original Apu.
So if indeed the original
image, subject of the 1929
suit, was not the one surrendered
by the Dayrits to the
then Angeles parish priest,
and the one in the Dayrits’
chapel is also a replica, then
where is the real image
snatched by Navarro and
company way back in 1928?
This remains a mystery. The
only picture which could lead
us back to the original image
is a pre-1928 crude print of
the Apu lying in the altar on
its side chapel at the
pisambang maragul. No
doubt this is a picture of the
original for this was taken
from the old house of
recamadero Eriberto
Navarro. Eriberto Navarro
married Paula Tuazon, and
lived along Alvara Fajardo
Street in barrio Salapungan.
Eriberto died in the late
1950s, without siring any son.
His descendants relate several
stories about the Apu and
its miraculous powers. There were times,
they say, that it refused to be carried, that
even six men could not move it. But when
Apung Mentu (as Eriberto was popularly
called) came, he could carry the image by
himself. The office of recamadero was
eventually turned over to his nephew
Santiago Julian, who performed the office
until his death in the late 1970s. The office
was later delegated to the househelps
of the Dayrits and some of the children.
Several persons privy to the Dayrits’ secrets
claim that the original image is placed
in this underground room of the old Dayrit
mansion. One of them even remembers having
seen the image in an underground room
in the late 1960’s. The image was much
darker than the one found in the sanctuario;
it was encased in a plain urn. There was
some talk later that the image had already
been spirited away to the United States by
one of the Dayrit daughters.
Apu is nowadays known by younger
Angeleños as more of a place to shop for
great bargains than as a miraculous, if controversial,
image. Apu has somewhat
morphed from a little makeshift sanctuario
to a local Quiapo. Old folks note that nowadays
many people go to Apu not so much to
pray as to buy a variety of goods at dirt
cheáp prices. Over the years, Apu has acquired
the hustle and bustle of Quiapo with
its own share of snatchers and pickpockets
and a motley Baclaran crowd of hawkers
and bargain hunters. It has evolved from a
shrine for the pious and desperate, into a
shopping mecca of sorts.