By Gene Alcantara
London, United Kingdom
As early as the mid-19th century, the first wave of Filipinos traveled to France to study and engage in business.
They were among the rich clans who could afford the cost of living then, as well as the most illustrious heroic icons in Philippines history.
Jose Rizal and Juan Luna left an indelible mark in arts, medicine and history, and yes, a few even chose to lay there in eternal repose like the Pardos de Tavera.
On the eastern side of Paris, France lies some 44 hectares of burial grounds called Père Lachaise cemetery.
An estimated 77,000 departed are buried there, with 100 new cadavers added every year whenever they find abandoned plots.
The huge cemetery is divided into sections called Divisions, for ease of management and referencing.
But little do many people know that among those interred there were world famous personalities.
I have long heard of the story that some Filipinos were buried in Père Lachaise (with a Metro station of the same name), probably the largest and most organised cemetery in the world.
So during a recent visit to Paris, France, I spent some time exploring the graves and mausoleums at the cemetery.
I saw the graves of Jim Morrison, the legendary US singer, songwriter and poet who died unexpectedly in Paris in his bath at age 27; Frederick Chopin, the Polish composer; Edith Piaf, French chanteuse; Amedeo Modigliani, Italian painter (who also painted my favourite Russian poetess Anna Akhmatova); and Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright and poet.
There are many more to explore including writers, playwrights, opera singers such as Maria Callas, politicians and other famous or historical names. That would take days though.
But I was really more intent on searching for burying places for Filipinos especially, since I saw them mentioned on social media postings.
The divisions are huge blocks of old and new tombs and ornate mausoleums with statues of all sorts. I had made a note of Divisions 36 and 96 from my online searches so I sort of knew where to go.
It still took a long time to check out the names on the last resting places and mausoleums but I was not disappointed.
In Division 36, I found the sepulchre of Joaquin Pardo de Tavera, the Filipino reformist born in Manila in 1829 and died in Paris in 1885. It stood along the main cobbled path, by some stone steps to the higher burial grounds.
Then in Division 96, I found the mausoleum of Paz Pardo de Tavera-Luna and her mother Juliana Gorricho de Pardo de Tavera. The two were murdered in October 1892 by none other than that great Filipino artist, Juan Luna, Paz's husband.
Both mausoleums are not well taken care of, at all.
The Division 96 one was locked solidly so I could only try to wipe some of the dust away from the green metal door and clear the dried leaves around the base. Its cemented front was falling off, some of the flowery tiles were damaged, and the family crest on top was tearing apart.
The Division 36 one however had a broken lock and windows. I was trying to get a photograph of the plaque on the left wall, but the metal door was stuck. I pushed the metal door several times until it suddenly swung open.
I was then able to get inside which was full of old dust and dried leaves. I cleaned it a bit using a long fallen branch nearby, and some spare tissues I had in my pocket.
Unfortunately the cross on top of the altar was already broken and leaning back.
I said a little prayer for them and wondered if they still had any relatives in this part of the world (or in the Philippines) who might remember their mausoleums here.
If not, I wondered if the Filipino community in Paris could maybe try to maintain the mausoleums, even clean them up periodically.
Perhaps the Philippine Embassy in Paris could send their junior assistants to organise a cleaner/painter once a year to maintain the graves.
Perhaps they could also campaign for more markers on buildings which had a connection, good or bad, where our heroes lived or stayed.
After all, they are part of our country's history and every Filipino who visits the cemetery will probably want to see the monuments.
How does one merit remembrance?
How does one become a member of the early Filipino community in Europe, and then be forgotten by everyone else after a hundred or more years?
Is this because they may not have done enough for the community? Or they may have done something that shamed our people?
Or maybe people just do not even know who they were and what they have done?
How do we address this?
Take the case of the Pardo de Taveras. A prominent surname back home in the Philippines (financially and historically) and shouldn’t they be also familiar if not well-known in the Filipino community in Paris?
Or is it because the city was once home to former members of the eminent family who lived and died there, apparently among the wealthy French residents, and hosted and cavorted with our national heroes during their time?
Who were the Pardo De Taveras of Paris?
Joaquin Pardo de Tavera
The earliest record of the Pardo de Taveras appears to be that of Joaquin Pardo de Tavera.
We do not really know much about him apart from some notes on Wikipedia, the Kahimyang Project and Facebook pages which described him as part of the Reformist movement and early supporter of reforms for Filipinos.
Born on 9 November 1829 in San Roque, Cavite, to parents from Toledo, Spain, he went to the College of San Juan de Letran and read law at the University of Santo Tomas.
He became a professor at UST and was active in the Comite de Reformadores which advocated for reforms.
When the Cavite Mutiny took place in 1872, de Tavera and other members were implicated, arrested and exiled in the Marianas.
The three Filipino Catholic priests known as Gomburza were executed at Bagumbayan on charges of subversion arising from the mutiny.
De Tavera was granted a royal pardon in 1874 and moved to Paris with his wife Gertrudes Gorricho. He stayed there until he died on 19 March 1885.
Trinidad Pardo de Tavera
Trinidad or Trini, Joaquin’s nephew (13 April 1857 – 26 March 1925) was a notable physician, writer, historian and politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the First Philippine Republic in 1899 under President Emilio Aguinaldo and Prime Minister Pedro Paterno.
Trini was educated at College of San Juan de Letran, the University of Santo Tomas and the University of Paris.
He was recognized as the first Filipino to publish a medical article in a professional journal, as he wrote down La medicine a l'Ile de Luzon, Archipel des Philippine.
He is celebrated for his contributions to understanding Philippine culture, history, and language. Although he spent time in Paris, he was born and died in Manila.
Paz Pardo de Tavera de Luna
Paz Pardo de Tavera de Luna (1862-1892) was probably the more well-known name for being the wife of the greatest Filipino artist Juan Luna (October 25, 1857 – December 7, 1899).
It was said that her mother Juliana Gorricho (Joaquin’s sister-in-law) was initially not in favour of the marriage, the Pardo de Taveras being a wealthy prominent family with estates in Manila, while Juan Luna was a Filipino Indio.
But by this time Juan Luna was fresh from his victory in Madrid, Spain with his monumental prize-winning painting, “Spoliarium”.
The two got married in 1886, spent their honeymoon in Italy and settled in Paris initially on their own, and then in the Pardo de Tavera family mansion.
The couple had two children, Andres o Luling, who became a famous architect and who designed iconic buildings in Manila including the Victorian-style Legarda Elementary School in Sampaloc and the neoclassical and beaux-arts style of Regina Building in Escolta.
The other child, called Bibi, died at two years of age and her death worsened the already strained marital relationship of the couple.
The situation was aggravated by the financial situation of Luna’s parents back home and the need to support his brother, Antonio Luna, who was then studying in Spain, with money from his wife Paz’s family.
The couple eventually moved to the exclusive Villa Dupont at 48 Rue Pergolese in the 16th Arrondissement and lived with Paz’s mother, Juliana, in order to save money on renting a separate apartment.
When I visited the street, the entrance to the exclusive row of houses still had two secure gates from the main street.
Luna had an atelier (studio) there and as the national hero Dr Jose Rizal was a family friend and a colleague in political activism, he would visit the family regularly, and were shown fencing in one photograph.
Rizal was then staying with another friend, Valentin Ventura, near the Gare du Nord station where a little plaque commemorated its one-time famous Filipino resident.
The book “Juan Luna, The Filipino as Painter” by Santiago Albano Pilar had a section on the murder of Paz and her mother by Juan Luna in a fit of rage.
Paz apparently had an affair with a M. Dussaq and Luna caught them in a tryst.
Afterwards, he purchased a pistol, apparently to use on his wife’s lover.
However Paz continued to go out and one time brought home some coloured pencils which angered Luna and beat her up.
The situation worsened one day when Luna tried to enter their room but was locked from inside by Paz and her mother and would not let him in.
Her brother Felix tried to intervene and Luna shot him in the chest (which he recovered from).
Luna then rushed upstairs and was shooting at the lock to open the door, but the mother and daughter were barricading the door when they were hit by bullets.
Juliana was killed instantly and Paz was seriously wounded and died 11 days later in a hospital.
Luna was arrested by police and jailed for four and a half months until the court decided to free him on the basis of “crime of passion” or adultery his wife had committed.
Besides the shots were aimed at the door lock rather than at the women, and the fact that he had powerful patrons in Madrid and Paris.
Luna died of a heart attack in Hong Kong at age 42.
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No markers at all places frequented by heroes
Interestingly and disappointingly, there were no markers at the beautiful Villa Dupont house that I saw which was weird because a lot of the places where Rizal lived or frequented at, had plaques.
Rizal was supposed to have spent time at the Villa Dupont house and he and Luna practiced fencing there. Luna is considered a hero for his art and political activism.
Was it because of the public shame of Luna's actions that whoever made decisions on plaques avoided putting markers where he murdered his wife and mother in law?
That he killed both his wife and mother in law is not in dispute as the scandal was apparently the content of French newspapers at the time.
Having said that, Luna's other studio at Boulevard Arago had a plaque on a wall by the entrance. In this place he was surrounded by other famous painters such as Paul Gauguin and Amedeo Modigliani.
So what criteria did the decision makers use to decide where to place plaques? Rizal himself has plaques in several places in Paris.
There are supposed to be around 50,000 Filipinos in France, maybe a bit more if one includes the undocumented.
Across Europe, there are an estimated 1 million Filipinos. Will we who reside in France now end up in French cemeteries, unlamented by future French Filipinos, our graves forgotten in time?
How about those who live in other European countries? Or will we return back home to the Philippines, at least to be buried there and our graves and mausoleums possibly cared for by future generations?
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Paris, Pinoy Portal Europe
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