Official Record of Apostolic Succession of

The Apostolic Succession from
Iglesia Filipina Independiente
(The Philippine Independent Catholic Church)
With a membership well in excess of one million members, the Iglesia Filipina Independiente has long
been considered one of the largest Catholic jurisdictions not under obedience to Rome.
Sometimes called the "Aglipayan" Church, this national Church is the daughter Church of The Roman
Catholic Church of The Philippines rather than a result of the movement to restore Orthodoxy to the
Occidental Church of Europe during the Middle Ages. Her history, however, is firmly linked to the history of
Spain.
Almost four centuries ago the power of Spain overshadowed all other European nations in the Americas. In
the same year that Cortes conquered Mexico, Magellan discovered the Philippines in the Pacific - which
Spain governed, robbed, and oppressed for three hundred and seventy-five years (until she lost control on
May 1, 1898, when the U.S. fleet, under Commadore George Dewey, sailed into the Bay of Manila and won
a victory as complete and astonishing as that of Cortes in Mexico).
Spain's misrule in her colonies (Magellan began his rule in The Philippines by decapitating the beloved
native ruler) produced a chronic state of insurrection; one after another, her colonies slipped from her grasp
(Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, The Argentine, Mexico, Louisiana, Florida, and the greater part of the East Indies).
She ceded Louisiana to France in 1800, Florida to the United States in 1819, and a few years later Mexico
achieved her independence. Yet Spain still had the rich islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico in the West Indies
and The Philippines in the East Indies; but these were quickly lost after her humiliating defeat by the
Americans.
Just as the Spanish colonial government had oppressed the Filipino people, so also the Church of Rome
(thru the rule of the local parishes by the Friars) greatly oppressed the native population. When Commadore
Dewey won The Battle of Manila and occupied the city, he had to set up an American defense force to
protect the former Spanish colonial rulers (civil and religious) and allow them to leave the islands. The
National Philippine Militia was at the gates of Manila and had vowed to kill all Spaniards. Commadore
Dewey was later commended by most European powers for the honorable way in which he had handled this
matter.
It was not that The Church of Rome and Her clergy, even the Friars, had worked in vain. The native
population had been brought the hope of The Gospel, which survives today in the vigorous folk devotion in
the villages and the equally vigorous intellectual life of the larger cities of The Philippines.
Never the less, the Spanish colonial system, which identified The Church of Rome with the official colonial
government (State), had put into the hands of the religious a tempting power which bore seeds of abuse and
corruption. By the nineteenth century, the Spanish Friars enjoyed such a suffocating monopoly on farmland
that they became the main target of the revolutionary literature which finally united the Filipino people in
armed rebellion in 1896.
Within the Church of Rome in The Philippines, the Filipino clergy agitated against the arbitrary power of the
foreign Friars. They also suffered from what might be called "racial discrimination" in that native clergy
always occupied second-rate positions, and none were ever elevated to the episcopal rank.
In 1872 three native priests were executed for taking an anti-friar stand, an act not forgotten by the native
clergy.
But Commadore Dewey's arrival in Manila Bay revived the stalemated native Filipino-Spanish hostilities.
After the Battle of Manila and the occupation of Manila by Dewey, Father Gregorio Aglipay (of Illocos Norte)
was appointed Vicar General of the Revolutionary Army by General Emilio Aguinaldo. In addition, the
Spanish Bishop Jose Hevia Campomanes, a prisoner of the Filipino forces, named Fr. Aglipay the
Ecclesiastical Governor of Nueva Segovia, a huge Episcopal See covering all of Northern Luzon.