Our Centennial Year... 2010. Reverend Mother Marie Louise DeMeester, Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Immaculati Cordis Mariae - ICM Congregation) - Foundress

Mother Marie Louise De Meester founded the Religious - Missionary Sisters of the Immaculati Cordis Mariae or the Immaculate Heart of Mary (ICM), which was formerly known as the Missionary Canonesses of St. Augustine, in Mulagumoodu, India in 1897.

Mother Marie Louise de Meester was born on April 8, 1857 in Roeselare, Belgium. As a teenager, she studied to become a teacher. Mother Marie Louise was a competent and kind teacher who was admired and respected by her students. Later, she decided to leave the school where she taught to be able to serve the poor.

On May 4, 1881, she joined the Canonesses-Regular of St. Augustine in Ypres (now known by its Flemish name of Ieper), Belgium in the medieval abbey of Notre Dame de la Nouvelle Plante to fulfill her missionary dreams.

After establishing missions in India, Philippines, China, the United States, Belgian Congo and other parts of the world, Mother Marie Louise returned to Belgium in 1923 and on October 10, 1928 died peacefully in Heverlee at the age of 71.
In 1963, the Congregation associated itself with the Congregatio Immaculati Cordis Mariae (CICM) for mutual help in spiritual matters as well as in missionary activities. (Wikipedia)

 
CICM Missionaries Come to Tagudin

The Municipality of Tagudin, a small seaport town along the Ilocos Sur coast just north of La Union Province, which was then part of the sub-province of Lepanto-Amburayan of the Mountain Province, became an important center for the CICM missionary ministry. The town of Tagudin remained part of the Mountain Province territory until 1920 when Amburayan was annexed to the province of Ilocos Sur.

Tagudin Mission was created in 1586. Fr. Matias Manrique, OSA, was one of the first of the Augustinian Missionaries to set foot in Tagudin. He was officially appointed in 1590. However, the parish of Tagudin did not have a permanent parish priest because it was part of a mission territory which included the neighboring towns of Santa Cruz and Santa Lucia to the north, and Bangar to the south. For two centuries, these neighboring towns did not have well defined ecclesiastical boundaries.

May 1809 saw the first resident priest assigned in Tagudin parish. It is not clear but he belonged either to the order of St. Augustine or to the secular clergy. After the departure of the last Augustinian friar in January 1898, diocesan priests took care of the Parish. They were Frs. Norberto Tamayo, Raymundo Quilop, Cosme Abaya and Quintin Donato. They succeeded each other until the arrival of Fr. Carlu. This uninterrupted ministry of good and loyal priests may account for the fact that Tagudin has always remained a devout Catholic community.

The Tradition Continues Today. . .

Building on what the CICM missionaries had started, Fr. Albert Rabe, the current diocesan parish priest, introduced on June 2000, pastoral renewal in the parish called GIMONG (community). This Gimong aims primarily to build relationships among people in small communities. It is also a way of responding to the modern day challenges we face today. This Gimong follows the pastoral framework of building Basic Ecclesial Communities (BEC), sharing gospel faith, and ministering that is linked with Church work.

The Tagudin of today was shaped, molded and guided by the Augustinians during the Spanish colonization and by the CICM and ICM missionaries who have worked in this parish for almost the whole of the twentieth century. Situated in the northern part of the Philippines, Tagudin became one of the centers of the CICM Missionary work. It is because of this influence that Tagudin has produced quite an impressive number of priests, deacons, nuns, religious, and teachers and other professionals influenced and inspired by the CICM charism. Some examples include, Fr. Eligio Lubina, (CICM), Sister Josephine Ong, (ICM), Sr. Crispina Lubina, (ICM), Sr. Cresencia Lucero, and the late Rev. Constante L Buenavista, Jr.

The ICM Missionaries Arrive

Some accounts recall that the Two Pioneers described as “crazy” were very daring for they left India to begin a new missionary congregation.

The first one, a professed Sister who left her congregation to live in India for her missionary vocation was Mother Marie Louise de Meester. The other one was only a novice but dared to follow all the way from India was Sister Marie Ursule.

The congregation of the Missionary Sisters of St. Augustine was one of the newest religious institutions in the Catholic Church. Its existence cannot be more than 63 years, having been founded in South India in 1897 by Very Reverend Mother Marie Luis de Meester, ICM who was then a Cannoness-Regular of St. Augustine from the medieval abbey of Notre Dame de la Novelle plants of Cypres, Belgium. At the request of Very Reverend Father Van Hecke, Superior General of the congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (CICM), His Holiness Pope Puis X, deigned to express his desire to have the Missionary Canonesses of St. Augustine cooperate with the Belgian fathers for the salvation of souls.

Very Reverend Mother Marie Louise de Meester, ICM, then active in British India, consented to make the Philippines her new field for the apostolate. And so it was in the year 1910 that Reverend Mother Foundress took this great country of ours to her heart and started from India for the Philippines. They arrived in Manila on 10th of June that same year.

On the foundation of Tagudin, Sr. Marie Lutgarde wrote:

“On June 20, we left for Tagudin by boat. We made a halt at Dagupan where we spent the night in a public inn, called “Rest House”. In the morning we took the boat again for Tagudin where we arrived at about 2pm. Crowds of people lined the shore, led by the Mayor of Tagudin, Don Apolonio Villanueva and assisted by the town's officials. They brought and escorted us in a kind of procession to the town. The two priests preceded us on horseback. Mother Foundress and Mother Charles had a carriage, the only horse-drawn vehicle in the region, it seems. Mother Vincent and I followed in an ox-cart. The people crowded upon us to kiss our hands - a pious custom derived from the Spaniards. It took us about half an hour to reach the plaza, from thence we went to the church for the “Te Deum”. The priests then led us to the rectory and afterwards to our convent, where the officials of the town, with their wives and their children, welcomed us with flowers and heaped platters of home-made sweetmeats. The language of the region is Ilocano, but many know Spanish. Among the children frequenting the public Schools, some speak in English, but the adults who know English are very few.”

The Mission would undoubtedly not have succeeded had the missionaries not been ready and willing to meet the struggles they faced. They donned the armor of their Foundress' unlimited trust in Divine Providence and followed her personal example of courage and devotion. The Foundress herself taught classes daily even while directing and sustaining the teaching efforts of her young and inexperienced companions. She found time to listen to the tale of human misery the townspeople were quick to recount and to pour out upon her sympathetic ears. Daily, after classes were over, she visited the homes of the poor and the sick and brought healing materials to help comfort them bringing their hearts nearer to God.

No labor was too hard or too strenuous for her zeal. The Sisters could not afford to pay servants to keep house for them while they were in the classrooms. Consequently, they divided the work among themselves. Reverend Mother Foundress was, as often as any of her companions, seen sweeping and scrubbing floors, washing clothes and cooking. Yet, inspite of their extreme material poverty and overwhelming manual labor which characterized those first few months in the mission, they were very happy, for they were very fervent in their devotion to duty, commitment to their mission, their faith in God and prayer life.

The congregation was barely past their having been founded. The demands on the sisters were great and mounting by the day. The Foundress could hardly wait for the hour when the novice sisters were going for their profession and become sisters in the congregation. She longed to be able to send them out to the field. For "the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few."

The Founding of the St. Augustine’s School Chronology

• June 21, 1910 - Excerpts from, "And Mission Goes on After 1910" by Sr. Asuncion Martinez, ICM.
  

"On June 21, 1910, the obscure little town of Tagudin, Ilocos Sur, was all astir and - to a person - in a highly festive mood. Something most unusual was going to happen. The mayor of the town, Don Apolonio A Villanueva was busy making final arrangements with the Parish Priest, Fr. Florimund Carlu, for the arrival of four Belgian Missionaries of the Missionary Canonesses of Saint Augustine: Mother Marie Louise de Meester, foundress of the congregation, Mother Vincent, Mother Charles, and Mother Lutgarde. They were to arrive by steamboat scheduled for a 2 pm landing at Farola Beach. Arrayed in colorful attire and exuberant in festal rejoicing, Tagudinians lined the shore to welcome the new arrivals, led by Mayor Don Apolonio A. Villanueva and accompanied by the town officials. There was to be a colorful welcome for them in the town plaza, a solemn Te Deum in the church, and a formal reception by town officials in the "convento" (sister's convent). The very next day after their landing and arrival, the missionary sisters opened the health clinic."

• July 4, 1910 - just two weeks after their arrival, these missionary sisters started the St. Augustine’s School in the basement floor of their big convent. 255 pupils registered on that very first day of classes. Thus began the first mission of the Missionary Canonesses of St Augustine in the Philippines.

• Four weeks later, school enrollment increased to 300 pupils.

• The first building of St. Augustine’s School is the old convento (Sister's convent) built in 1832.

• The first elementary classes where held there in the old convent in 1910.

• The European missionary sisters ran the new St Augustine School using the same school system as used in Belgium. They taught reading, writing, arithmetic, needlework and a very intense course in religion and apologetics. At no time did they administer written examinations, not even at the end of the school year. They issued no report cards except a report for conduct.

• Oral examinations were conducted before a board of examiners comprised of Father Carlu, Mother Superior and the student's religion teacher.

• After the oral examination the students obtained a commendation expressed in terms of “excellent,” “very good,” and “good”. Achieving any of these three terms facilitated the promotion and advancement of the student to the next higher grade. Those who failed to achieve any of the three passing terms received a term “fair” and were reassigned to repeat the grade in which they failed to pass.

• The next year 1911 saw the enrollment increase to include 697 children.

SAS Buildings and Facilities

The building north of the belfry was built by Father Octavio Van de Walle, CICM in 1918. It used to be a one-story building made out of river stones taken from the Amburayan River south of the Poblacion (main town). When Fr. Van De Walle moved out of Don Pablo Lagunilla's house where he had been lodged, the building served as the priest's rectory.

When Fr. Moricio Vanoverbergh built the present rectory east of the church in 1912, the building was renamed the “Los Dos Camarines" (the two building warehouses). It also served to house the classroom for the junior normal school.

During his term as parish priest of Tagudin (1924-1932) - Rev. Honorato David built a second floor to the “Los Dos Camarines” building. He too, built the building west of the church which was popularly called “hidden beauty”. These two buildings and the sister’s convent served to house the high school and elementary school departments of SAS respectively before World War II.

In 1952, Rev. Carlos Desmet made further improvements to this “Los Dos Camarines” building by replacing the original stonewalls with cement and wood. When Rev Alberto Van Overbecke returned to Tagudin as Parish Priest after his long stint as college teacher and later as University rector of St. Louis University in the city of Baguio, his first project for SAS was the construction of a "lean-to" annex in the southside of “Los Dos Camarines”. Next he built the school building south of the church.

The construction of the stately looking U-shaped 20-classroom building northwest of the sister’s convent was started in 1952. On that same year its west wing was completed. Because of soaring enrollment a south wing to the building was constructed. It sits south of the priest's rectory and was constructed by Rev Jaime Quatanens in 1970. In 1988, Rev John Anthonissen annexed three additional classrooms to the same building.


SAS During World War II

During the Japanese occupation (1942-1945), the school opened its elementary department. Calisthenics in Japanese, Commands and Counting in Nippongo (Japanese language) were subjects added to the pre-war school curriculum. When the “Liberation” of the Philippines took place in 1945 teachers and parents fled to the evacuation centers at the foot of the Cordillera Mountains. Eleven ICM sisters, most of them coming from Manila, evacuated to Alilem. Three sisters chose to remain in their convent, resigned to whatever fate awaited them. The CICM fathers in Tagudin, also chose to remain in their rectory.

During the “liberation” period (1945-1946), the school resumed classes in its elementary department. Classes were conducted in private houses near the school compound because classrooms, the school grounds, and the town plaza were used to accommodate wounded soldiers in the fight of Bessang Pass. The town of Tagudin, particularly the SAS buildings and grounds, was commandeered as a Base Hospital of the USAFIP-NL. Thus, the school buildings, excluding the big convento of the sisters, were transformed into a “Nazareth” (infirmary) for soldiers. The Sisters, including those who returned from their evacuation house in Alilem, devoted themselves in caring for sick and the dying.


Post World War II

In 1946, the school reopened its high school department. The students were quite noticeably older, way past the age group for their year in school because they were delayed by the war. Nevertheless, they were determined to finish high school and to contribute to the great task of the national rehabilitation. Many students, particularly third and fourth year boys, came to school in soldier’s khaki or fatigue uniforms, complete with combat shoes, army belts and helmet liners such that the school looked like a military camp. To neutralize this impression and for the purpose of economy and identity, a new school uniform was designed. It is the same uniform worn by the girls of the high school even to this day.

A six-month typewriting and stenography course was offered to third and fourth year high school students in 1950 by the school. The course was discontinued in 1962 because of bureau restriction.


A Pall of Gloom and Grief at SAS

On the night of March 16,1992, a fire of mysterious origin razed to the ground the eleven room building near the parish belfry which was originally called “Los Dos Camarines”. Almost two years thereafter on the night of October 2, 1994, the stately U-shaped 20 classroom building situated northwest of the sister’s convent all went up in smoke, again because of a fire of suspicious origin. Both tragedies cast a giant pall of intense and traumatic shock, gloom and grief to all students, teachers and parents and all who believe and share in the sublime vision and mission of SAS.

Government authorities blamed these tragedies to faulty electrical wiring but attendant facts bearing on the two fires definitely negate the explanation given by the authorities. The facts remain that both fires came in the heels of an earnest pastoral crusade for social, economic, political and moral reforms directed towards Philippine contemporary society in general and the local and national government in particular.

A few days thereafter, Catholic School Religious and Lay Leaders from the provinces of La Union, Ilocos Sur, Ilocos Norte, and Abra gathered and held sympathy-prayer rallies for truth and justice at the school gymnasium. As of this printing, the school still awaits its right, truth, and justice relative to the two tragedies of its school buildings.

“SAS, Ever Onward” Position and Stand

True to its school hymn, “SAS ever onward,” St. Augustine School rises from a temporary setback and marches ever onward to accomplish its mission. “Despite trouble, despite pain. . .” reconstruction of the “Los Dos Camarines” building started just several days after the stinging tragedy. The following year saw students trooping to their new building, a completely solid cemented structure except for its galvanized iron roof.

Resolute and resilient, the school did not waste the remaining part of the schooyear after the tradegy on October 2, 1994. Direct victims of the fire, third and fourth year high school students resumed their classes a week thereafter in an all available makeshift classrooms.

SAS Schools in the Barrios

In 1912 the sisters started the work of education in the barrios (Barangays), an important, fruitful and counseling apostolate. Barrio schools were opened in Bitalag, San Pedro and Becques. These schools were intended to give only catechetical instructions, but so as to interest both the parents and the children, lessons in Language, Arithmetic and Geography were also taught.

In 1913, more barrio schools were opened:
1. San Miguel School in Salvacion
2. Saint Marguerite School in Garitan
3. Saint Adeltrude School in Ag-aguman
4. Saint Vincent School in Ambalayat
5. Saint Paul School in Cabugbugan.

All of these schools offered primary education, which gradually developed from grade one to grade four. And these barrio schools including the main SAS school in the town proper made the town of Tagudin the “First Living Community Museum of the Philippines".