Order of Malta

Works & Activities

Overview

Today the Order of Malta is one of the most important humanitarian organizations in the world. It is, at the same time, the most ancient and undoubtedly the most discreet. By nature independent of any state, its apolitical character and its numerous volunteers scattered over more than 90 countries make it possible for the Order to maintain its efficiency and skill with which it is historically characterized.

To defend the faith and provide service to the sick and poor, members of the Order of Malta Philippine Association volunteer their time, talent, and other resources. This section of the website is dedicated to works and activities of the Philippine Association.

The Membership Conferences provide an opportunity to discuss the key works of the Philippine Association and provide the Membership with inspiration and ideas for the future.

To learn more about these activities, go to Hospitaller Activities or Spiritual/Religious Activities below where you will find a more thorough explanation of these works and activities.

Spiritual/Religious Activities

• Spiritual Formations
• Assistance to the Feast of the Black Nazarene
• Mass of the Holy Spirit
• World Day of the Sick
• Conventual Masses
  • Feast Day of the Order of Malta
  • Requiem Mass
  • Investiture Ceremonies
• Grand Marian Procession
• Other Participation per request of organizations within the Archdiocese of Manila

Hospitaller Activities

• Disaster Assistance Program
  • Relief Interventions
  • Rehabilitation Program
    • Core Shelter
    • WASH
    • Livelihood
  • Medical Assistance Program
  • First Aid & Emergencies
  • Medical Missions
  • PMTCT/HIV & AIDS Advocacy
  • Visitation & Christmas Gathering with the Aged of Hogar San Joaquin

CULION AND TALA LEPROSARIA

How the Philippines and the Knights of Malta Helped the World Cure Leprosy

“Hundreds of thousands of lepers still exist throughout the world as social pariahs, thrust out of society because they have, through no fault of their own, contracted a repulsive disease.”

“An American Doctor’s Odyssey”
Dr. Victor G. Heiser

“The Land of the Living Dead” — that’s what the leper colony of Culion was once called.

Some perceived the exile of lepers from Manila to Culion in the Calamian Islands to be a cruel act. The American Occupation of the Philippines in 1898 led them to build a leper colony, to segregate the sick from the healthy population of Manila, as if to say, “The sick reside here, locked away, lest they burden the rest of humanity with their disease.” There had been no cure then; the only option was for the disease to “die out.”

What goes beyond leprosy’s physical deformation is accompanied by mental anguish — to be afflicted with literal loneliness. Hansen’s Disease, as it is referred to medically, was not only thought to be incurable, but was also undetectable at first glance, leading to the spread of the disease among the unsuspecting. In Europe, the slave trade helped the disease spread, unbeknown to Roman soldiers who brought home slaves stricken with leprosy.

In 1521, when Knight of St. John of Jerusalem Antonio Pigafetta had sailed alongside Ferdinand Magellan on the Europeans’ very first expedition to the Philippines, he had noted in his journal an island called “Pulaoan,” calling it “the land of promise.” Magellan’s fleet sailed by the Calamian Islands where Pigafetta’s keen observation (and eventual communication with natives), led him to acquire from them the islands’ names: “Big Calamian” for what is now known as Busuanga, and “Little Calamian for the present Culion. Today, Calamian is a small island cluster in the Palawan province, boasting many white sand beaches, coastal landscapes, and vermillion jungles.

Situated between Christianized Luzon and predominantly Moslem Mindanao, in earlier days the Palawan Islands were caught in tensions between “the cross and the crescent.” In 1622, Recollect missionaries settled in Palawan, where they built their first church despite the ongoing conflict. From there, they built churches from island to island, including one in Culion. Christened there in 1638 was the Church of the Immaculate Conception, which still stands today after much building, rebuilding, and refurbishing through the ages.

Culion’s history book describes how

The friars withdrew from the Calamianes in 1659 after they became targets of killings and abductions. When they returned in the late 1670s, they rebuilt their churches surrounded by fortresses. The Recollect friar Juan de San Severo became noted for building these church-fortresses using native labor. The masons and stone-cutters, probably Chinese, were imported from Manila. The island and the fortress’s barriers served as a refuge against Moslem invaders and slave traders, and the stronghold was refurbished and reinforced by Augustinian friars as a bastion of defense against naval threats. All the stone forts built by the Recollects in northern Palawan have a similar square-shaped layout.

By Spanish royal decree, settlements for the lepers were established in Manila, Cebu, and Nueva Ecija in 1830. The afflicted were allowed to roam in public, and given more freedom during Lepers’ Day, which was Fridays. However, they certainly were prohibited from living with others who weren’t lepers. By this time, the leper population had reached 400.

Before the Philippine Republic was established in 1898 under President Emilio Aguinaldo, Rufo Sandoval, a member of a prominent Filipino family, was Culion’s gobernadorcillo from 1886 through 1889.

He joined the revolution and became a deputy leader of the revolutionary government in Culion, defending the Filipino government against the newly-arrived American forces and those sympathetic to them (“Americanistas”).

However, American ships were on the horizon, sailing from Puerto Princesa, a coastal town already waving America’s flag. To the invaders’ surprise, they were welcomed by Culion’s denizens, and soon captured a number of Sandoval loyalists. But there was no trace of Sandoval himself. Major George LeRoy Brown, leader of the American troops, pursued him on a trail to Bacuit Island — only to be told Sandoval had just left with an army of 30 with him. They never did find him, presuming him dead.

The American colonization of the Philippines came with a terrible price for the Filipinos: the loss of culture, identity, and patriotism, which only in recent decades we are struggling to regain. In their stead, and to their credit, the Americans also introduced education, and excelled in stressing health care and hygiene.

With the Philippines under American rule, Dr. Victor G. Heiser, the chief quarantine officer, gave quite a bit of thought to addressing the abundance of leprosy in their new colony. The disease thrived in towns in Cebu and in Manila; Heiser, who vowed to eradicate the disease, came to the conclusion that to save the healthy population, the only solution was segregation.

It weighed heavily on his mind how many other cultures had dealt with leprosy in the most inhumane ways — the Karo-Bataks of the East Coast of Sumatra, for example, would exile the leper, then burn down his hut where he lay sleeping in the dead of night. Others resorted to outcast the leper from the community, a common response to the affliction.

After giving it much thought, the idea of a leper colony came to Dr. Heiser: a community of lepers, where they needed not fear the stigma of infecting the healthy even as they were healthy communities’ pariahs, nor be subjected to the mental anguish of loneliness. The community would function like any other — a colony thriving on their own economy, with their own government which would be under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Health. The obvious exception was that additional medical care would be needed. Some deemed Heiser’s choosing to segregate the lepers a cruel act, but there was no cure for leprosy, which would have spread to greater numbers, if it weren’t for Heiser’s intervention. However, he realized this was no easy feat, for who would willingly separate themselves from their loved ones?

Molokai, an island colony in Hawaii, had been under American jurisdiction since the 1880s and served as a model for the Philippine leper colony. The choice of Culion was based on its distance, as it is one of the far-away Palawan Islands, where Spaniards had exiled Filipino criminals and rebels. However, Culion’s settlers had to be moved to prevent their contamination, for which Heiser had to convince all its residents to transfer to neighboring islands. The inhabitants were forcibly evacuated by the American government, but not without protest, stowing away church bells and Catholic relics. Settling on the coast of Busuanga (the biggest island in the Calamian Islands), they established the village of Concepcion, naming it after Culion’s patron saint, La Inmaculada Concepción.

Heiser told an interesting tale of how leprosy had befallen the Philippines in the first place. He had read a story told by Major E. C. Carter, in which during the 17th century, the Spaniards occupying Manila held religious conversion as a primary objective of the Catholic Church. Their efforts to spread Christianity in Japan had been met with abhorrence. Quietly, and in retaliation, the Japanese sent 134 persons on a ship to Manila: “If it is converts you want, begin with these.” All of the passengers were lepers.

The story was widely spread, but when the news reached Japanese ears, they angrily refuted the claim, and demanded a public withdrawal of the statement and an apology. Heiser had the documents in Seville’s archives researched, and lo and behold – King Philip IV of Spain had received a receipt from the Captain General of the Philippine Islands – 134 “converted Christians” sent to Manila Bay by the Emperor of Japan, who were later confirmed to be lepers.

In a display of gratitude for what he thought had been their conversion (which may or may not have been the case), Philip IV, ignorant of their disease, ordered a great welcome for the passengers: a parade was held in their honor and a grand reception was laid out which cost 500 reales. The king allotted an additional 200 reales for their maintenance.

Later that year, when it was discovered that all 134 of them were afflicted with leprosy, they were confined at the San Lazaro Hospital. The oldest hospital and still active to this day, San Lazaro, named after St. Lazarus, the patron saint of lepers, was constructed in 1557 by Frey Juan Clemente, a Spanish friar. By 1578, the hospital was admitting and caring for lepers.

When Heiser brought the account to the Japanese government’s attention, he was met with a bland admission, with the Japanese withdrawing their demand for the statement’s retraction. They offered a lame explanation —the deportees’ “unsanitariness” – as the reason for their exile. However, there “might have been” some lepers aboard the ship who were banished when the feudal system was established and dominated Japan’s social structure.

Civil Governor Luke Wright issued Executive Order No. 35 on August 22, 1905, naming the island the “Culion Leper Colony Reservation.” This enabled Heiser, who was promoted to Director of Health that year, to start building there. As construction began in Culion, Filipino politicians openly opposed segregating the lepers, doubting that segregation would exterminate the disease, and arguing that construction and maintenance—which would be highly expensive—would be shouldered by the Philippine treasury, not by the Americans. Despite opposition and constant delays, the leper colony was completed by 1906.

“Culion Island: A Leper Colony’s 100-Year Journey Toward Healing,” a book published by the Culion Foundation, Inc. and Fundacion ANESVAD, states that

The buildings included patients’ dormitories and quarters for 400 employees. There were streets and alleys, a theater, a town hall, a school, a piped water supply and reservoirs, a sewer line, docks, warehouses, dining halls, a post office, a store, a garbage disposal plant,
and the church was repaired as well.

Secretary of the Interior Dean C. Worcester issued a call for a Catholic chaplain for the colony. Volunteers from the Jesuit community elected to travel to Culion, ultimately replacing the Diocese of Jaro, which lacked priests. Along with the American Jesuits were four French nuns, the Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres, trained nurses who voyaged from France purposely to care for the lepers of the colony.

Now, it was time for the lepers to be whisked away to their “island paradise.” Heiser himself was on board the ship that carried 365 patients from Cebu. He remarked that the journey, albeit a jittery one on the crew’s part given the state of their human cargo, had been smooth sailing, arriving safely at Culion in 1906.

Heiser’s solution as to how to “popularize” the island was by having photographs taken and moving picture reels made not only to convince unwilling lepers that they would be welcome, but also to showcase the beauty of the island of Culion — perhaps in hopes its inhabitants would not be thought of as “the refuse of the earth.”

Heiser realized that simply grouping the patients together had solved the problem of distancing the disease; the next problem, however, lay in how this new society, into which the lepers had been thrust, would function. He need not have worried; over time the lepers had begun to form new friendships with one another in their new community. Slowly, they had gotten used to the warm touch of another human being, which they cherished without fearing the spread of their shared ailment. Nevertheless, the longing for their families left behind grew stronger as time passed.

They also had very limited freedom, did not have the right to marry, and should they bear children, the babes had to be taken away six months after being nursed by their mothers, in hopes the infants would not contract the disease. The question had arisen as to whether or not leprosy is hereditary, but only later did conclusive studies find that fortunately, that was not the case.

But for now, their home would continue to be the Culion Sanitarium Hospital, the island’s leprosarium. For many decades, this was how daily life operated, with the lepers cut off from the outside world, while more assiduously than ever, medical teams continued the search for leprosy’s cure.

THE TALA LEPROSARIUM

Tala Leprosarium, also known as the Central Luzon Sanitarium, was founded by the American colonial government in 1940 in Caloocan, on the northern fringe of Manila. It accommodated sufferers of Hansen’s Disease on the island of Luzon.

It was renamed the Dr. Jose N. Rodriguez Memorial Hospital and began treating general medical cases after a cure was formulated for Hansen patients in the 1990s.

Originally comprising 130 hectares, the government whittled down the property to 70 hectares in compliance with Republic Act 7999, which dictated that the 70 hectares “are alienable and disposable for use as a housing site for the bona fide residents, Hansenites and their immediate families… RA 7999 will give Tala residents titles to the land they occupy – but not without payment.”

Fr. Javier Olazabal, an old Jesuit priest hailing from Spain, landed in Culion on October 15, 1971. He said that it had been his dream to reach Culion and be its Catholic chaplain. The simple man who suddenly came on its shores won the hearts of the community quite easily. Demonstrating genuine care for the afflicted, showing no fear of contracting the disease as he mingled with them, they so much appreciated his empathy. While addressing the islanders’ spiritual needs, he prioritized the leprosy patients’ welfare.

Affectionately called “Father Ola” by the islanders, he was not only a holy man, but also a thinking man. The spiritual aspect of Culion could not thrive without tangible development in its inhabitants’ lives, and he was determined to fix that, as well. He would need the help of philanthropists, and he knew just who to contact first: his former student from his years as a Deusto University professor, Don Jose Luis Gamarra, who was president of Fundacion ANESVAD, a prominent Spanish non-government organization. The foundation was unstinting with its financial aid to support the island’s livelihood and infrastructure requirements.

It is a mystery how Father Ola knew who to approach in the Philippines, but through his contacts, he may have acquired enough information to see his plans through to further improve conditions in Culion.

Don José Maria Soriano, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the Sovereign Order of Malta to the Philippines, is the co-owner of a top Philippine firm, San Miguel Corporation together with his brother, Andres. He was also CEO of its sister firm, A. Soriano Corporation.

Don José had searched through his companies and found three competent officers as candidates to join the Philippine Order of Malta and help him see his plans through in his work with the Order.

“The Three Musketeers”

Pedro Picornell, Ramon Pedrosa, and Antonio Infante had been picked by Don José to be his “Three Musketeers.” It was at this point that Soriano, being a devout Catholic, businessman, and philanthropist, was approached by Father Olazabal.

Don José often frequented the Casino Español de Manila in Ermita during the annual Dia la Hispanidad with his family (no gambling there — it was the Spanish community’s social club). Amid the fiesta, Father Ola came knocking, and Culion was introduced to Don José for the first time. One of the Musketeers, Pedro Picornell, was with him at the fiesta.

Marilen Picornell, Pedro’s daughter, recalls that “what Don José did that my dad didn’t like was that whenever a problem cropped up requiring a solution, Don José would say: ‘Ask Picornell, he will be the one to solve it.’”

The first course of action vis-à-vis Culion, a faraway island, was getting there.

The strenuous journey entailed a three-day boat ride from Manila to reach Culion. Nonetheless, Don José and the “Three Musketeers” had set to work the minute they reached the colony, responding to the Spanish priest’s concerns.

An abandoned, worn-out airstrip constructed by the Americans in the Second World War, was just what Don José needed. He would reconstruct the airstrip, shortening travel time from three days to two hours in San Miguel’s company plane. He shouldered the entire cost of the project, completing the airstrip’s reconstruction in 1978.

Some years before that, in 1972, when His Excellency Bailiff Quintin Jeremy Gwyn, the Grand Chancellor of the Order of Malta, had visited Manila, he had signed a tri-party agreement promising the care and supply of medicines to the Culion Leper Colony. Donations came from the Order of Malta’s financial arm specific to that purpose, the Campagne Internationale de L’Ordre de Malte Contre la Lèpre, or CIOMAL, based in Geneva. On the Philippine end, after Don José committed to help Father Olazabal, the Soriano Foundation, Inc. would take charge of receiving and transporting the medicines from CIOMAL to Culion.

Don José’s efforts did not end there. Together with Father Olazabal, he jump-started the Culion Foundation, Inc., establishing it in 1976. Designed to be the financial arm of the colony, it would also be responsible for planning and implementing development programs. These would focus on the social welfare of the leper patients, improving infrastructure, improving roads, renovating structures, and the like — with the help of funds from ANESVAD.

THE TALA FOUNDATION

Don Antonio Infante, one of Don José Soriano’s “Three Musketeers,” started a non-stock, non-profit foundation, called the Tala Foundation Inc., in 1974, as an adjunct to the Tala Leprosarium founded in 1940. In 1975, after helping one of their geologists identify a deposit of clay in Tala, Don Antonio developed an idea to make use of it with the birth of Cardinal Ceramics. Danish ceramics experts helped him set up the business to offer Tala residents — Hansenites and their out-of-school dependents — gainful employment in a ceramics and pottery workshop.

Starting with only a handful of trainees and several investors, including Don Miguel and Doña Alice Guerrero, in 1975, both members of the Order, helped Cardinal Ceramics which grew to become a factory providing employment for over 200 Tala residents, and generating millions of pesos annually. The enterprise accepted orders for platters, coffee cups, bowls, and other ceramic tableware from as far away as Denmark, Portugal, and Spain, among several other countries. Overruns of the exquisitely designed handcrafted pieces were sold locally to a loyal set of customers in a shop on Dao Street — now Sacred Heart Street — in Makati.

Tala Leprosarium eventually deteriorated when leprosy was eradicated; the government land was sold to private entities. Cardinal Ceramics was then spun off to another group of investors who converted the business into a regular stock corporation. The ceramics enterprise flourished with its beautiful, handcrafted products, but Cardinal’s loyal customers here and abroad were sorry to see the company and its local outlet shut down sometime in the 1990s, after its founder, Don Antonio Infante, passed away.

The Tala Foundation, as approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission, was later renamed the Philippine Hospitaller Foundation, the financial arm of the Order of Malta in the Philippines. Today, it owns 14 hectares of what was once a sprawling 130 hectares, where the Tala Leprosarium once stood.

Led by Don José Soriano as the first Ambassador of the Sovereign Order to the Philippines, the Embassy of the Order of Malta was officially created in the country in 1978. The embassy’s establishment enabled it to collect and distribute medicines without impediment, making foreign donations’ processing time quicker, and saving the Order the additional cost of paying for the Customs duties and taxes, a significant boost to the Hospitallers’ work.

A GRAND MASTER VISITS CULION AND TALA

Philippine Ambassador to the Holy See Antonio C. Delgado arranged a State Visit to the Philippines by His Highness, the Prince and Grand Master Frá Angelo de Mojana di Cologna, on February 1st, 1979. While in the country as guest of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, the Grand Master visited the Leprosaria at Culion and Tala in the company of Sovereign Order of Malta Ambassador José Soriano and Ambassador Delgado, and observed, first hand, the Order’s work with Philippine Hansenites. Before the Grand Master’s departure, President Ferdinand Marcos conferred upon him the Order of Sikatuna (Rank of Raja), the highest of the Philippine diplomatic orders of merit.

Among other charities, the AmeriCares Foundation, a non-profit disaster relief and global health organization, began donating medicines to the Embassy of Malta in the Philippines as early as 1984, some donations of which were shipped to Culion. A long-term partnership between AmeriCares and the Knights of Malta was forged worldwide in 1982, with AmeriCares officially partnering with the Knights of Malta in the Philippines in 1985, providing humanitarian aid such as food, relief goods, and medicines and hygiene kits.

In the meantime, improvements kept being made to Culion’s house of worship, which the colony was so proud to have.

Benjie Layug, a blogger, describes Culion’s Church of the Immaculate Conception:

The painted ceiling inside the church is obviously new, but before it was repainted, the original ceiling was painted in 1978 by leper patient Ben Amores, based on the design of Jesuit Fr. Javier Olazabal. To do the paintings, the handicapped Amores, who had no hands, had brushes tied to his arms and was hoisted up to the ceiling. In 2003, Jesuit Fr. Gabriel Gonzalez initiated the restoration and renovation of the church.

Other forms of financial and moral support were given to Culion by a good number of dedicated and loyal Knights and Dames, some of whom sat on the Board of the Culion Foundation — Jesus Cabarrus, Pedro Picornell and Ernesto Lagdameo who in 1980 was the first Filipino ambassador of the Sovereign Order of Malta to the Philippines. They are gone now, but Dame Rosemarie Prieto continues to sit on the board of the Culion Foundation, and is also a board member of Tala Foundation. Her son Ramon is a Knight.

Sometime in 1986, the World Health Organization suggested, and it was agreed, that Culion Island could be experimental ground for the multi-drug therapy, with doctors’ and the administration staff’s wages to be shouldered by the organization.

Fundacion ANESVAD acknowledged that “had it not been for the experience [the medical staff] gained in Culion, they would have never been able to help lepers in other countries.” Dr. Arturo C. Cunanan, Jr., who grew up in Culion, studied leprology abroad after earning a scholarship from the Culion Foundation. His parents were not Hansenites, although his grandmother was. He became the primary force advocating for the implementation of the Multi-Drug Therapy (MDT) for lepers in 1987. It was a daunting task, given the community’s fatalistic orientation, which had long been resigned to accepting the normality of leprosy in their daily lives — they who had no hope. After years of relapse monitoring, still, no treatment had been found, with various drugs only serving as temporary relief rather than all-out cures. But the multi-drug therapy pioneered by the World Health Organization aided, among others, by a Filipino, was, fundamentally, and finally, the cure for Hansen’s Disease.

Father Ola had even lived long enough to see the first healed patients that same year — dying in peace only a year later on September 10, 1988, only a year later. He was laid to rest by an entire procession of his flock who loved him and mourned his passing deeply. He was buried at the church, his coffin draped in both the Spanish and Philippine flags (after some debate, which ended in the compromise). His death symbolized the end of an old era, and a new beginning for Culion, to which he had contributed so lovingly in so many ways, materially and spiritually.

By 1998, the experiment had been a surprising success: only four patients remained who were leprosy-positive, from the original 780 who had received the multi-drug therapy; Hansen’s Disease was officially declared a non-public health hazard by 2000. The World Health Organization then finally declared Culion Island leprosy-free in 2006 — a century later.

No longer is Culion the “land of the living dead,” but a fellow-island of the nation, which houses precious history on the Philippines’ role in eradicating leprosy worldwide, and the important role played by the Philippine Order of Malta largely through the efforts of Don José, and his merry band of Three Knights. Ultimately, the world can thank Culion and all the people and organizations that cared for it, to make leprosy worldwide a disease of the dark past.

CECILIA PIÑONES

The Sovereign Military Order of Malta’s Executive Director, Cecilia Piñones was born to former Hansenite parents in Culion on December 17, 1959. Being the fourth child, she said that, as an infant, no longer was there a need for her to be separated from her mother, (whose illness had already started to subside from years of treatment), unlike her two older siblings who had to be reared in nurseries after their sixth month. Growing up, neither she nor her four brother and sisters were struck with leprosy.

She recalls being tested by Culion’s first leprologist, Dr. Casimiro Lara, who was also the chief physician at the Sanitarium.

Cecilia, nicknamed Cecille, applied for and was granted a scholarship by the Culion Foundation, after her high school graduation. She traveled to Manila and took up Pharmacy at the University of Santo Tomas, excelled, and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1982. Instead of returning to Culion, she applied for and was accepted for work in the most prominent pharmaceutical companies, including a position at the Makati Medical Center.

Life took a turn of events for Cecille when she was asked by her father to return to Culion. A job opportunity was waiting for her there, he said. After much deliberation, Cecille chose to return, in gratitude to those who had given her the opportunity to live and attain a college degree.

At the Culion Foundation where she was assigned, Cecille forged close friendships with members of the Order of Malta who also were members of the Foundation’s board.

“They were very much like family,” she said. Don Pedro Picornell invited and recommended her for work at the Order of Malta office in Manila which she accepted, starting work there in 1987, where she continues to serve with great fervor, to this day.

As part of her Hospitaller duties, she travels all over the Philippines, giving out medicines, relief goods, and implementing livelihood projects in both rural and disaster areas. How she manages to keep several balls in the air without dropping one is a miracle in itself. Everyone loves Cecille, overworked but forever cheerful — and ever at the ready to help the needy in the hinterlands, as well as city-bound Dames and Knights of Malta.