Pedro Chirino

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Pedro Chirino was a Spanish historian who spent 12 years^[1] in the Philippines as a Jesuit missionary at the beginning of the 17th century. He established a boarding school at Tigbauan in 1592,^[2] but the work he is most remembered for is his Relación de las Islas Filipinas (1604), ^[3]^[4]^[5] a record of life in 17th century Philippines which, Historian Ambeth Ocampo notes, is highly regarded "by those reading early accounts of the Philippines, including Jose Rizal." ^[6]

He recorded an example of an exorcism by a Catholic friar of a Filipino woman who had been bewitched and seized with trembling and paroxysms. Chirino wrote, "Our Brother was sent to ascertain what this disturbance meant, and when he learned what had happened, he called the husband and gave him a little piece of the "Agnus" in a reliquary, exhorting him at the same time to have faith, and promising that his wife would soon be healed.…The husband went home with the agnus, and no sooner had he applied it to his wife than she was freed of the trembling and terror and remained calm. This occurrence soon became public, and another Indian [the term "Indios" was used by the Spanish to refer to the people of the Philippines] who had been bewitched by the same Indian woman, on seeing this marvel, was convinced that God granted health to those who invoked him. Accordingly, he asked for the same relic, and he also was healed."^{[citation needed]}

Father Chirino also recorded the transition of Filipino writing from the Baybayin script to the Latin alphabet.^[7]^[8]