In Search for Don Marcelo Madrid
On 28 January 2006, Don Alfonso Ceballos-Escalera y Gila, Marques of La Floresta and Cronista Rey de Armas of Castilla and Leon, granted the Registration of the Coat of Arms of Eduardo Brillantes y Madrid. The grant was given by virtue of Eduardo's Spanish ancestry, being the grandson of Don Marcelo Madrid, who was born and raised in Barcelona, Spain.
Who is Don Marcelo Madrid?
Documents (Canonical Books) in the Parish of St. John the Baptist in Banate, Iloilo (Philippines), state that he is the father of Josefina Madrid y Balderas in his marriage with Doña Maria Balderas y Baviera, daughter of Don Martin Balderas, who was Gobernadorcillo of Banate, and of Doña Apolonia Baviera (daughter of Doña Juana Barte and Francisco Baviera - son of the first Gobernadorillo of Banate Don Felix Baviera and his wife Doña Rita), as shown by the Registry of Marriage of Josefina with Francisco Brillantes y Pelagio, on 7 January 1923.
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| Burial Registry of Doña Apolonia Baviera y Barte, wife of Don Martin Balderas, Gobernadorcillo of Banate; daughter of Don Francisco Baviera and Doña Juana Barte; grand daughter of Don Felix Baviera, first Gobernadorcillo of Banate, and his wife Doña Rita. Burial Registry of Clara Madrid, daughter of Don Marcelo Madrid (son of Timoteo and Francisca Madrid of Barcelona, Spain) and Doña Maria Balderas (eldest child of Don Martin Balderas, Gobernadircillo of Banate, and Doña Apolonia Baviera). |
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The Burial Registry of the Parish states that Don Marcelo was buried at the Roman Catholic Cemetery on 1 August 1921. He died more than a year prior to the marriage of his daughter.
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| Registry of the Burial of Don Marcelo Madrid at the Catholic Cemetery of Banate, Iloilo (Philippines). |
The Report of Fray Agapito Lope (Parish Priest of Banate in 1893), done in Cornago, La Rioja (Spain), on 4 August 1911, identifies Don Marcelo Madrid among the "vecinos distinguidos" of the town of Banate.
N.B
In the context of the colonial rule in municipalities of the Spanish Empire, the phrase "vecinos distinguidos" was attributed to residents to whom the honorific addresses "Don" and Doña were strictly limited. In the colonial Philippine context, this phrase refers to the Principalía. The authors Schröter and Büschges say: "También en este sector, el uso de las palabras doña y don se limito estrechamente a vecinas y vecinos distinguidos." Beneméritos, aristócratas y empresarios: Identidades y estructuras sociales de las capas altas urbanas en América hispánica, BERND SCHRÖTER and CHRISTIAN BÜSCHGES, eds., Acta Coloniensia: Estudios Ibéricos y Latinoamericanos, no. 4. Frankfurt: Vervuert Verlag; Madrid: Iberoamericana, 1999, p, 114.
The Annual Report of the Philippine Commission/Bureau of Insular Affairs, War Department to the President of the United States, Washington D.C.: 1901, Vol. I, p. 130, lists Don Marcelo among the first officials of the Town in 1901, when order was restored after the Filipino-American War. Later, as the Family tradition says, he also served as the town's Sanitary Officer.
