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Santonilyo: The Pagan Origins of Santo Nino

Santonilyo was said to be an old and a new god to the pantheon of ancient Visayas. In relation to this, it was also believed that this was also connected to the Santo Nino de Cebu.

In Cebu, some, if not most, establishments or residences have always kept an altar or a pedestal with a carved wooden statue of a little king, clothed in rich fabric of red or green, wearing a golden necklace and bearing a scepter and a globus cruciger in his hands. This figure was brought by the Spaniards and is known as Santo Niño. This image is revered by Cebuanos,  holding festivities in honor of the miraculous child Jesus.

During the pre-Spanish colonial era, our ancestors had similar wooden idols named as guardians, protectors and pagan deities. This brought a similar legend about a piece of drift wood that turned out to be miraculous, and scared away creatures when placed on the farms. Let’s take a look at the origins of the religious image that once was said to be a pagan god and converted to the catholic path to many of us believe in.

Ifugao “Bulul” Pair Rice God Statue with Inlaid bead eyes considered as a Lianito credits to www.tribalasia.com

 The Lianito Idol

The Animist people of the Visayas region worshipped a time god known as Kaptan, equivalent to the creator god Bathala of the Tagalogs. He was the supreme deity in the Visayan pantheon, but relatively distant. To bridge the gap of the activities of heaven and the mortals, the ancient people replaced mediators such nature-based deities known as diwatas (fairies and elementals) and anitos (ancestral spirits) who supposed to give blessings and abundance on a family or a society.

Furthermore, these “Anito” spirits are usually old ancestors who have lived a virtuous life when they were alive. Each house in the ancient Visayas was supposed to carry a “tawu tawu”(idols) made out of wood, stone, gold or ivory whom the family pay honor in resemblance of offering food or flowers and “pag-anito”(worship) to ensure and continue daily blessings upon them. When the head of a family dies, everyone in the village help make the statue, they would carve out an androgynous (to further symbolize gender-equality), child-like image, and always smiling to what they would call the “Lianito”, the collective embodiment of the ancestor spirit of a family and territory and they would dress the doll with gold and would place the image among the other idols.

Painting of Queen Juana (Hara Humamay) by Filipino artist Manuel Panares

The Baptism

The birth of Catholicism in Cebu was through the image of Santo Niño de Cebu, brought by the Spanish Occupation through Antonio Pigafetta, an Italian scribe of Ferdinand Magellan, given as a gift to Hara Humamay the royal consort of the chieftain of Cebu of 1521, Rajah Humabon, as token of good relations and allegiance to Spain. The queen was baptized to Catholicism and renounced her animist beliefs and dubbed a new Christian name, “Juana”.

Queen Juana loved the image so much that according to the account of Pigafetta upon receiving, she bathed the statue with her tears of joy as she is hugging it. Eight hundred Cebuanos were baptized as well and were given an image of the Virgin Mary, a crucifix and a bust depiction of Jesus before Pontius Pilate. The Spaniards underestimated the animist faith that Magellan discovered that the king and queen still keep their Lianitos. The queen perhaps readily accepted the Santo Niño because it looked more regal and refined. Rest of the history follows of another chieftain’s refusal of conquering the land and instilling tradition that was Datu Lapu-Lapu and had a violent conflict which caused Magellan’s death.

Moving on its dark past of the conquest through religion, 44 years after Magellan came Miguel Lopez De Legazpi, arrived Cebu and found the native’s hostility and fearing the retribution for Magellan’s death. The villages were burned during the progressing conflict. Juan Camus, a Spanish mariner found the image of the Santo Nino in a pine box amidst the ruins of a burned-down hut. Presented the image to Legazpi and the Augustinian priests; the natives denied the gift was associated to Magellan and claimed it have been there for a long time. A church was built on the spot to where the image was found that was originally in bamboo and mangrove palms then was reconstructed later and claims to be the oldest parish in the Philippines.

The Youthful Deity of the Rain

Visayan natives submerse the Santo Nino image to venerate with and call out for the rain.

Filipino Historian Nico Marquez Joaquin’s workes in 1980 state that it was also within the time gap of those 44 years since Magellan that the natives discovered a new god in the pantheon of the Visayas. The new deity in the form of a child they call Santonilyo. Influenced in its Spanish title, they recognized the statue as a lianito describing both an old and a new god to the Visayans.

Santonilyo is the child deity of good graces who was worshiped as a rain god for four decades since the Spanish first arrived. Fray Gaspar de San Agustin wrote about it in 1565 book “Conquistas de las Islas Filipinas”, that during drought, the ancient Cebuanos would bathe the image in the sea.

“Cun ulan ang pangayoon, ug imong pagadugayon. Dadad-on ca sa baybayon, ug sa dagat pasalomon. Ug dayon nila macuha ang guitinguha.”

Which translates: “If they seek rain and you delay it, you’d be brought to the shore and bathed in the sea. They then obtain the rain they desire.” The practice of immersing the sacred image is also mentioned in the Sto. Niño’s Gozos (prayer hymn) published in an 1888 novena.

However, Santonilyo’s popularity was already widespread among the Visayan islands reaching the Panay, Mindoro, Negros, Bohol, Siquijor, Samar and Leyte. The Santonilyo as mentioned by Felipe Landa Jocano, an anthropologist and author of “Filipino Value System”, as one of the supporting Upper world deities along with Ribung Linti (god of thunder and lightning) who assisted Tungkung Langit (the creator god of Panay Islands) in the creation myth known as the “Sulod” Epics.

In its connection of the legend of Panay that Santonilyo was said to have reached the islands as a fisherman caught a piece of “agipo” (or a driftwood) but couldn’t catch fish the whole day. Dismayed, he threw it back soon after, felt another tug to his net and realized it’s the same driftwood and over and over again would dump it on the sea, known only to catch the same agipo again.

Tired and frustrated, the fisherman decided to keep the driftwood in his boat, and like a miracle, fish flocked towards his boat and returned to the village with a bountiful catch. The villagers soon discovered that the piece of wood had other magical powers used as a scarecrow to keep the birds and animals away in drying the grains and in times of drought, only had to immerse the driftwood in the sea to produce rains.

This agipo became an idol in their pantheon, and like the venerated Holy Child, Santonilyo is also prayed for graces. The Lianito idol then on was called Lisantonilyo. As Santo Nino has been honored and prayed in Cebu, we are able to peak in the origins of our faith based on discovery and documents not diminishing the fact on what we truly believe in which is God represented as a sweet, youthful child that would save the whole world from sin.

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Arts & Culture

Kundiman–A Collaboration Between Charles Lahti and Francis Dravigny at the Qube Gallery

by Oj Hofer

“Collaboration is like carbonation for fresh ideas “-Anonymous

Kundiman—drawn from the Filipino tradition of lyrical love songs marked by longing, devotion, and emotional depth—unfolded not merely as an exhibition but as a dialogue between two artists whose practices, though formally distinct, share a common goal: that creation is never singular, never complete, and never entirely one’s own. The word itself carries weight. In the Philippine cultural imagination, kundiman is not passive sentiment but a mode of endurance—a way of loving what one cannot fully possess, of honoring what exceeds one’s grasp—and to name an exhibition after it is to make a claim about the nature of making itself: that art, like the song, is an act of devotion directed toward something larger than the maker’s intention. It is a form that does not declare but lingers; not spectacle, but the quieter and more demanding thing called intimacy.

The collaboration between Charles Lahti and Francis Dravigny operates at what might be called the threshold of language—the place where gesture becomes structure and structure, over time, turns into meaning. Their working relationship is less a merger of two styles than a negotiation between two modes of listening: one drawn to the decisive mark, the other to the patient accumulation of woven form. Lahti’s mark-making is grounded, deliberate, and unambiguous in its commitment to presence; his lines carry the quality of breath, each stroke an event rather than a flourish. Observers familiar with East Asian ink traditions will recognize this sensibility immediately, for in Zen ink practice and Japanese calligraphy, the practitioner does not decide what to draw so much as prepare the conditions under which something may reveal itself—the mark that emerges from this discipline is not decorative but testimonial, evidence of a moment of full attention. Lahti’s work operates within this logic even when the cultural references are Western, and what anchors it is not style but stance: an ethical relation to the act of making that distinguishes genuine presence from the mere performance of spontaneity, a distinction far rarer in contemporary visual art than it ought to be.

“The line is not drawn but revealed—through stillness, breath, and a quality of awareness that the discipline of reduction alone makes possible.”

Dravigny’s woven interventions introduce a different, though deeply complementary, temporality. Where Lahti works in the decisive instant, Dravigny works in accumulation—the slow building-up of material over time—and his use of abacá, a fiber indigenous to the Philippine archipelago, is not incidental. Abacá carries its own history: long harvested by hand, traded across colonial networks, woven into ropes and sails, and more recently reclaimed as a medium of cultural expression, so that to bring it into an art context is to activate this history without necessarily declaring it. In Dravigny’s hands, textile transcends its usual function as background or support and becomes instead an act of preservation—a material archive that holds within its weave the gestures of another artist. This concept, which the exhibition implicitly explores, speaks to something the atelier tradition has long understood: that a work of art may pass through multiple bodies and multiple intentions and still emerge with coherence, provided each maker brings to the passage not assertion but responsiveness, the capacity to receive another’s action and carry it forward without erasing it. Dravigny’s woven interventions propose a similar ethic, made visible rather than concealed.

What Kundiman ultimately stages is not the product of collaboration but its conditions: the particular quality of attention required when one artist’s gesture enters the field of another’s practice, and the willingness to wait that such attention demands. The Japanese aesthetic tradition names this interval ma—the generative pause, the charged space in which meaning gathers before it resolves into form—and the exhibition’s restraint is precisely its argument. There is no excess, no spectacle, no rhetorical gesture toward significance, only a sustained attentiveness to process that runs counter to the dominant logic of contemporary exhibition-making, in which legibility is prized and impact must be immediate. Kundiman refuses this, trusting the viewer to do the work of attending, and in this refusal it finds its deepest kinship with Zen aesthetics: the discipline of reduction, the clarity of intention, the respect for what is essential over what is merely present.

“What Kundiman proposes is more radical than most exhibitions dare: that the self, in the act of making, becomes temporarily permeable—open to the gesture, the material logic, the devotion of another.”

The concept of interbeing—rooted in Buddhist philosophy and carrying the understanding that nothing arises independently, that every form is the result of conditions and every maker is in part made by what they make—finds in this exhibition its material proof. What was created here does not belong to one hand alone. It emerges in the space between, where gesture is received, transformed, and returned; where material listens and form responds and meaning unfolds not as conclusion but as continuation. The exhibition ends. The dialogue does not. This is the space between hands: where making becomes meeting, and where interbeing quietly, insistently gives rise to form.

Charles Lahti with his latest works—layering print with bandana textiles to create tactile, hybrid surfaces where image, pattern, and material converge.

Francis Dravigny in his Cebu studio—transforming abacá and found materials into layered, sculptural weavings.

A wall of interbeing—where weave, gesture, and form dissolve into quiet harmony and non-duality.

A flat surface transformed into a quiet weave—drawing the eye inward, where structure softens into stillness and resonates with Zen practice.

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Arts & Culture

Kundiman After Dark: Traditional 19th Century Filipino Musical Genre Continues to Inspire

by Kingsley Medalla

The Kundiman is a traditional 19th-century Tagalog musical genre that served as a profound source of inspiration for many sophisticated, classically trained artists. The name is derived from the Tagalog phrase “kung hindi man,” literally translating to “if it were not so.” These musical pieces were often performed as poignant love songs characterized by smooth, flowing melodies containing emotional depth. Originating as a serenade in poetic Tagalog lyrics, it features a minor-to-major key progression expressing longing, devotion, patriotism, and a yearning for freedom.

Sine Pop, a boutique theater in a 1948 post-war heritage house located in Cubao, Quezon City, serves as a charming venue for cultural events and intimate performances with a small ensemble. Recently hosting Kundiman After Dark, a recital honoring the legacy of Nicanor Abelardo (1893–1934), a highly esteemed Filipino composer and pianist hailed as the “father of the sonata form in the Philippines” and a master of the art of the Kundiman. Carlson Chan, founder of Sine Pop, clarifies their unique model: the performances are open to the public and are, as such, complimentary, as its primary focus is to promote the performing artists per se.

The performances featured beloved Kundiman classics including Mutya ng Pasig (1926), Naku… Kenkoy (1930), and a personal favorite, Bituing Marikit (1926). These musical pieces were brought to life through the solo acts and live vocals of tenor Erwin Lumauag, Japanese violinist Shiho Takashima (who has since made the Philippines her permanent residence), and the renowned composer, pedagogue, and pianist Augusto Espino.

“Nasaan Ka Irog,” written in 1923, drew inspiration from a romantic tale shared by Nicanor Abelardo’s friend, who went overseas leaving behind his beloved in the Philippines. Years after, this man eventually became a doctor and, upon his return, discovered that the love of his life had been married to someone else. He also learned that the letters he had sent were never delivered to her, as they were kept by the doctor’s family, secretly away from her. A classic case of unrequited love. Kundiman serves as the heart and soul and the pinnacle of Filipino musical artistry.

Violinist Shiho Takashima and pianist Augusto Espino

Tenor Erwin Lumauag

Art patrons; Pacita Agoncillo Sode, Marilou Khan Magsaysay, Patricia Cepeda-Sison and this writer Kingsley Medalle

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Arts & Culture

Art Beat: Scenes From the Manila Art Fair 2026

photography by Doro Barandino

“Art is unpredictable and goes in different directions. I have no idea. I would rather live the present moment.” —Bencab, National artist of the Philippines.

Vinta by Protegeri, collaboration art piece by Leeroy New, Solenn Heuseff and Vito Selma

Q&A with interior decorator and jewellery designer Doro Barandino

Which of the participating art galleries had the most unified and exciting theme?
Leon Gallery had the most amazingly put-together collection. Though the gallery engaged various artists, the overall visual effect felt like one unified theme. Leon Gallery used a sack-like cloth (most likely raw linen) as the background for the booth, and it brought the collection together. It had an old-world feel in a chaotic setting.

Who were the artists that were the most visually engaging?
The works of Carlo Tanseco were definitely my favorite. The artist used an eye chart (Snellen chart) as the background for the image of Dr. Jose Rizal giving us the middle finger—such an “in your face” message. The concept of our national hero as a modern-day provocateur was a wake-up call to everyone. Very subversive and underground material. I was also attracted to the works of Japanese artist Tadashi Kogure; they’re very architectural.

Was the choice of venue and its layout helpful in engaging the whole art vibe?
What I noticed was that the masters like Juan Luna, Fernando Amorsolo, and Fernando Zóbel still attracted the most viewers at the art fair. People are naturally drawn to their masterful strokes and historical significance, or perhaps these artworks are not readily accessible for public viewing. Or maybe those booths that carried the masters’ works were strategically positioned right after the registrar.

The choice of venue at Center One was a good move—it created a total art vibe. Manila Art Fair remains the premier art fair in the country today, showcasing the finest modern and contemporary art while offering curated projects and immersive installations.

The Standard by Thai artist Pitchapa at the Triangular durational, performance art.

Bato Bato sa Langit by Filipino artist Carlo Tanseco

Stocking Proportions Menumpuk Proporsi by Indonesian artist Labadiou Piko

Untitled by Indonesian artist Yunizar

Filipiny, wool tapestry by national artist of the Philippines,Federico Aguilar Alcuaz.

Untitled by German artist Valentin Elias Renner

Interior decorator and jewellery designer Doro Barandino is also a regular contributor for zee.ph

 

 

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