The arrival of American missionaries in Davao created historical implications. It paved the way for the introduction of Protestantism, the building of new schools in the region, and the rise of the first mission hospital in town.
Rev. Robert Franklin Black and wife accepted the challenge to be in Davao to spread the gospel with the support of the Protestant Church of America, which saw opportunities for growth in the region. Starting with the first mission in Santa Cruz, Davao del Sur, the couple propagated the faith and saw the number of converts multiplied in just a decade of preaching.
The transfer of Black’s ministry to the town of Davao was part of the Protestant’s expansion. In 1908, Charles T. Sibley, an American medical doctor, arrived in Davao. In collaboration with Black, they built the first 36-bed hospital, a church and, of course, their residences of the missionaries on “a fine new mission site…secured on the hill 100 feet above the hot and swampy town.” The location is where the Brokenshire Memorial Hospital is presently found.
Interestingly, this is also where the Blacks constructed their house with a chapel alongside it. In a poetic depiction, the reverend pastor described the location of his new home as:
“[W]here peace and quiet reigns; where the wild deer come up and challenge us less than 100 yards away at night; where the wild hog and jungle fowl creep up and investigate; where our boy has room to romp and yell; where the horses and chickens find sweet and abundant pasture; where—best of all—the people of the town like to come for a bit of freshness and a broad view.”
Attracted by the nourishing condition of the new site, Dr. Sibley, who arrived in 1908, also established his own residence in the area. Later, a school for the tribesmen was opened following the establishment of a hospital which would become the town dispensary.”
On the other hand, the Protestant church, Sibley wrote, was simple and small; it was regarded as “one of the finest Protestant churches in all the islands—the mother church of Congregationalism in the Philippines, in a field which no other religious worker than Jesuit priest or Mohammedan pundit has ever touched.”
In terms of schools built, Sibley wrote in 1914 that the congregation had already established two learning institutes for the Bagobo, and another for the Mohammedans, mainly Mandaya converts, which was constructed in a village near the gulf of Davao. Overall, the sect maintained five schools “in places where the government could not place them.”
Protestantism in the country is analogous with the arrival of the Americans in the islands in 1898. Joining the new colonial administrators were non-Catholic missionaries whose roles included military chaplains, Baptist teachers, pastoral workers and civil servants.
Rev. Black, sent by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions of Boston, Massachusetts, was the first American Protestant missionary to arrive in Davao on Aug. 4, 1903. He was later joined by his wife, Anna Gertrude Granger, who was his partner in the spread of Protestantism in Davao region, serving all in all, including their involvement in medical missions, sixteen years before returning to their homeland.
In 1909, the pastor founded the first Protestant campus in Melilia, Santa Cruz, Davao del Sur, and named it Robert Black Mission School. To address the problem of converting the natives calmly to the new religion, he appointed Maximiano Tongcaling as first Bagobo preacher.
One of the high-profile Protestant converts was Angel Brioso, the Bagobo leader of Santa Cruz who, before embracing the new sect after leaving Catholicism and the Aglipayan Church, “led an attack on the [Catholic] church, burning it and melting the church bell.” In the wake of his vandalism, Spanish religious icons and structures in town were destroyed. After converting to Protestantism, he was appointed presidente municipal (town mayor) and was instrumental in helping translate the sermons of Rev. Black into the Bagobo dialect.
The strengthening of Protestantism in Davao traces its roots to the Evangelical Union formed on April 26, 1901. It was initiated by Presbyterians who invited missionaries from other sects to discuss concerns and issues by which each denomination might direct policies and methods in order to create a united church. The conference agreed to establish regional boundaries. In 1929, the United Evangelical Church was formed, unifying under an umbrella the Presbyterian, Congregational, United Church of Manila and the United Brethren churches.
During the war, under Japanese dictates, the Evangelical Church of the Philippines was created. This meant the forced merger of the United Evangelical Church, Methodist Church, Baptist churches, the Disciples, the Seventh Day Adventists, and other churches. But the fusion was very porous; it eventually broke up.
In May 1948, the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) was formed. It enlisted in its roster the United Evangelical Church, Philippine Methodist Church, Evangelical Church of the Philippines, Iglesia Evangelica Unida de Cristo, Ilocano Convention of the Church of Christ (Disciples of Christ), Iglesia Evangelica Nacional and the Iglesia Evangelica Metodista En Las Islas Filipinas (IEMELIF). Today, it stands out as the largest club of Protestant churches in the county.
