When My Father Said, They are Our Relatives-Part 2 of 2

When My Father Said, “They Are Our Relatives”-Part 2 of 2

When I was a boy in Barotac Viejo, my father would say it almost offhandedly, as if commenting on the rain: “They are our relatives.” He meant the rich and influential families of Jaro, the Lopezes, the Javellanas, the Ledesmas, the Jalandonis, the Hofilenas, names that surfaced in Ilonggo talk like old coins, bright with history.

I didn’t understand then. To a child, “rich” and “relative” lived in different worlds. One belonged to big houses near the plaza; the other, to the quiet routines of our own home. But my father was telling the truth. He was handing me a map I would only learn to read decades later.

Now, tracing my ancestral roots back to Don Manuel Javellana and Doña Gertrudis Lopez, my great‑great‑grandparents, I see how tightly the threads were woven. The Javellana and Lopez clan of Jaro did not just share a town; they married into one another, again and again, to keep land, influence, and faith within a small circle of families.

The Families of Old Jaro

Jaro, even under Spanish rule, was a place of consequence. By the late 1800s it had become a city, a center of faith, commerce, and power in the Western Visayas. Its elite was not a crowd but a handful of clans whose names still echo in heritage houses, church lapidas, and local histories.

Among them:

• Javellana – The family name itself is a story. Originally “Kim Byong,” of Chinese descent, the clan adopted “Javellana” during Governor General Clavería’s 1849 decree that required Filipinos and Chinese residents to take Spanish surnames. They chose a name derived from Avellana (the hazel), then added a “J” for Jaro.

• Lopez – A patronymic meaning “son of Lope” (from lupus, “wolf”), this surname became one of the most prominent in the Philippines. In Iloilo, the Lopez rise begins with Basilio Lopez, a Chinese‑mestizo trader who became Jaro’s district mayor in 1849, and his wife, Sabina Jalandoni.

• Jalandoni, Ledesma, Hofilena, Gamboa, Jayme, Grecia – These names appear again and again in marriage records, business partnerships, and political offices. They were the first aristocrats of Old Jaro, known as intellectuals, landowners, and benefactors of the church.

These families built sugar haciendas in Panay and Negros, owned brick factories and shipping lines, funded schools, served as gobernadorcillos and municipal presidents, and helped build the Saint Elizabeth of Hungary Metropolitan Cathedral in Jaro, where some of them are interred in honored columns along the aisle.

My Branch in the Family Tree

Most of what I know of my own line comes from the blog at www.javellana.wordpress.com, and from the stories my father told me when I was small.

At the top of my branch stand my great‑great‑grandparents:

• Don Manuel Javellana and Doña Gertrudis Lopez, who had at least nine children in Jaro during the 1800s.

Among their children were:

• Cristino Javellana (“Capitan Tinong”), the sixth child, a devout Catholic, brick‑factory owner, and former gobernadorcillo of Jaro in the 1890s. He and his son Cirilo are buried inside the Jaro Cathedral, honored for their philanthropy and dedication to the Church.

• Marcelina Lopez Javellana, the youngest daughter, who married Victoriano Catague. From this union came my grandfather, Roberto Catague, who married Consolacion Golez Jamili.

Roberto died while my father was still young. His mother, Marcelina, later remarried Ruperto, Roberto’s younger brother, and they had eleven more children. My father, David Jamili K(C)atague, and his two brothers, Guillermo and Julio, later changed the spelling of their surname from Catague to Katague, my father’s reason being that he wanted his name in the middle of the alphabet so a demanding teacher wouldn’t call on him first in class. A small, almost humorous detail in a saga of great houses and vast haciendas.

Through Marcelina, I am tied directly to the Javellana–Lopez knot. Through her siblings, I am cousin, in some degree, to many of the names that fill the pages of old Jaro: the Grecias, Gamboas, Jamoras, Jays, and more.

Casa Mariquit and Nelly Garden: Houses That Hold Our Name

When I think of these families, I cannot help but think of their houses, great stone-and-wood structures that still stand in Jaro, holding memory in their walls.

Casa Mariquit

On Santa Isabel Street, tucked behind a gasoline station and a huge banyan tree, stands Casa Mariquit, sometimes called the Javellana-Lopez Heritage House. Built in 1803 by the banker Ramon Javellana, it is considered the oldest existing heritage house in Iloilo.

The house began as both a bank and a residence; legend says money was once kept under its hardwood floors before a safe was installed in 1910. It later became the home of Ramon’s granddaughter, Maria Salvacion “Mariquit” Javellana, who married Fernando Hofileña Lopez, Sr.-“Toto Nanding”, the three‑term Vice President of the Philippines and longtime chairman of ABS‑CBN.

Casa Mariquit is now a museum, open to the public for tours. Its rooms still hold antique furnishings, old framed photographs, and the quiet weight of generations. Walking through it, I feel as if I am stepping into a branch of my own family’s story-one where politics, media, faith, and heritage intersect.

Nelly Garden

A few streets away, in the same district, stands Nelly Garden, also known as the Lopez Heritage House. Built in 1928 by Don Vicente Lopez and his wife, Doña Elena Hofileña, it sits on a four‑hectare property and is often called the “Queen of Heritage Houses in Iloilo.”

The mansion was named after the couple’s eldest daughter, Nelly Lopez y Hofileña. In 2004, it was declared a National Historical Landmark. Its Beaux‑Arts style and grand interiors speak of the extravagant lifestyle of Iloilo’s most affluent families during the American colonial era.

Vicente Lopez was the son of Eugenio Lopez y Jalandoni and Marcela Villanueva, making him part of that formidable third generation of Lopezes who turned sugar plantations into an empire. His marriage to Elena Hofileña further tied the Lopez and Hofilena clans, just as my own ancestors tied the Javellanas and Lopezes through marriage.

When I stand before images of Casa Mariquit and Nelly Garden, I do not see mere tourist attractions. I see family homes, cousins’ homes, where my bloodlines once walked, prayed, celebrated, and grieved.

A Lineage Knotted by Love, Strategy, and Survival

When I look at the family trees, the word that comes to mind is knotted. Not just connected-knotted. Cousins married cousins. Brothers married sisters from another clan, then their own sisters married those brothers’ in‑laws. Wealth was preserved not only by frugality and business acumen but by the careful choreography of marriage.

Take the Lopezes: Basilio and Sabina had sixteen children; their son Eugenio had sixteen more. Their descendants spread across Iloilo and Negros, becoming planters, politicians, newspaper publishers, and philanthropists. Fernando Lopez-three‑time Vice President of the Philippines, chairman of ABS‑CBN, co‑founder of the University of Iloilo, married Mariquit Javellana, tightening the Javellana‑Lopez tie once more.

On my own branch, Don Manuel Javellana and Doña Gertrudis Lopez had at least nine children, among them Cristino Javellana-“Capitan Tinong”, a devout Catholic, brick‑factory owner, and former gobernadorcillo of Jaro. His remains, and those of his son Cirilo, rest inside the Jaro Cathedral, honored for their philanthropy and dedication to the Church.

My great‑grandmother Marcelina Javellana, the youngest of those children, married Victoriano Catague. From her line came my grandfather Roberto Catague, and through him, my father, David Jamili K(C)atague, who later changed the family name’s spelling so he wouldn’t be called first in class. A small, almost humorous detail in a saga of great houses and vast haciendas.

Why These Roots Matter to Me Now

I did not grow up in Casa Mariquit or Nelly Garden. I did not inherit sugar fields or newspaper presses. Yet I carry this history in my blood and in the stories my father told.

When he said, “They are our relatives,” he was doing more than naming famous people. He was saying:

• You belong to a larger story.

• Your identity is not just personal; it is communal, historical, even archival.

• The privileges and burdens of the past are part of your inheritance too.

Now, as a senior blogger and cultural essayist, I feel the pull of that inheritance more strongly. In an age of AI, global news cycles, and rapid change, I find grounding in asking: Where did I come from? Whose prayers, labors, and decisions made my life possible?

These questions are not about pride. They are about responsibility. If my ancestors helped build a cathedral, a town, a region’s economy, then what am I building with the time I have left? If they preserved wealth through tight kinship, how do I preserve meaning through connection, memory, and story?

For My Worldwide Readers

To my readers around the world,Filipino and non‑Filipino alike, this is not just a family chronicle. It is a window into how colonial rule, local elite formation, and family strategy shaped a society.

The Jaro elite during the Spanish colonial period and into the early American occupation were led by only a handful of families. Their power rested on land, faith, education, and intermarriage. That system produced remarkable achievements and deep inequalities. My own lineage sits precisely at that intersection: privilege and piety, opportunity and obligation, beauty and complication.

I write about this not to claim status, but to claim truth. My father’s casual remark—“They are our relatives” was a seed. Decades later, it has grown into a desire to understand, to honor, and to tell the story honestly, with all its tangled branches.

A Quiet Promise

I do not know if I will ever walk every aisle of the Jaro Cathedral or trace every name on the lapidas. But I can do this: keep writing, keep remembering, keep weaving these threads into essays and poems that speak to senior life, cultural roots, and the quiet courage of ordinary people born from extraordinary histories.

And perhaps, somewhere in Jaro, another descendant is reading these same names, hearing an elder say, “They are our relatives,” and feeling, as I do, both the weight and the gift of that truth.

Lastly, Here the song using my Lyrics by Musicful AI Apps. The melody of the song is so beautiful and makes me feel like crying, but at times I feel like dancing, and sing along with it as well.👏 I'm proud to say, I did IT! 

https://www.musicful.ai/song/53345588655452167/