Doña Policarpia Villaseñor de Manrique, by Don Vicente Villaseñor, 70.5 cm x 57.5 cm 1870, courtesy of Mr. And Mrs. Leandro Locsin. This portrait of Doña Policarpia Manrique (1843-1915) was signed and dated July 2, 1870 by Don Vicente Villaseñor. Doña Policarpia was then 27 years old. The portrait is considered one of the existing portraits of the 19th century, fittingly the cover picture of the July 1979 issue of ARCHIPELAGO.
Juan Alvarez Guerra (de MANILA A TAYABAS, 1878) gives us a description of young ladies of Lucban:
The dalagas of Lucban give a distinctive seal of all their feasts, be it religious or civic. The Lucbanenses do not forget, by any circumstance, the social rank to which they belong. In that town the woman are divided in three classes: to the first or the taga-bayan, belong the blue-blooded, or what we might call the aristocrats. The taga-bayan speak Spanish, wear shoes during major feast days, stockings, with embroidered slippers, in minor feasts days and ordinarily, naked feet in painted wooden shoes, sometimes a loose saya, with a tight fitting tapiz with an opening at the back, and sometimes, they allow themselves a loose saya made of silk supplemented by costly camisas made of piña with artistic embroidery. In church they kneel down near the sanctuary, and the taga-bayan has never been seen without her prayer book and her rosary made of coral, silver or mother of pearl. Almost all of them have been to school, they know how to read, write and embroider, a bit of music, and also on some occasions, they even compose a ‘kundiman’ dedicated to a friend on her last birthday. The high point of a taga-bayan is the distinctive pride with which she keeps her hierarchy. Any intrusion from a dalaga of the second or third class, in the boundary of the upper class would positively provoke a feminine revolution.
The second class is called the taga-tabi, who generally live in the borders of the town and their customs and habits are not much different from those of the first class. They attend the parties given by the upper class, but they cannot mix with them; the taga-tabi do not speak Spanish, do not wear shoes, although they have the money to buy them, have never been to any school, and all they know about it is what they hear from the taga-bayan, when allowed to be near them. A taga-tabi is anxious to become a taga-bayan, and this anxiety is such, that sometimes they sacrifice their happiness by marrying old men and ex-capitan or an ex-cabeza, thus acquiring the rank od a taga-bayan.
A real difference exist with the third class, called the taga-linang which is made up of the common people, all of them peasants.
Leandro Tormo Sanz, Translated by Antonio Serrano, LUCBAN (A Town the Franciscans Built), Historical Conservation Society XX, Manila, 1971. pp. 50-51.
