As heroes go, Boholanos have several in whom they can take pride but perhaps, save for Pres. Carlos P. Garcia, no one is held in a position of near-reverence as Francisco Dagohoy.
From the handful of facts listed in history books, we know that he was a cabeza de barangay of Inabanga. A position equivalent to that of today’s barangay captain. He was from the barangay of Pasanan. And they say his real name was Francisco Sendrijas.
We know that he led thousands of Boholanos to rise up against the Spanish colonial government. We know that the revolt he led was sparked by the refusal of the Jesuit curate of Inabanga and Talibon, Fr. Gaspar Morales, to give his brother Sagarino a Christian burial. We know that the name Dagohoy is likely from Dagon sa Hoyohoy (literally “amulet of the wind”) and that sometimes he was more fully described with the forbidding phrase “Dag-um ug dagook, inubanan sa hoyohoy” (or lyrically: a dark sky rumbling with thunder, and a windstorm). We know that the uprising began in late January of 1744 with the assassination of Fr. Guiseppe Lamberti, the Italian curate of Jagna. We know that for 85 years, from January of 1744 to August of 1829, Boholanos lived as a free people because of the leadership and inspiration of Dagohoy.
But we also know that people believed he could ride the wind, as his nom de guerre suggests. We have heard that he could leap from hill to hill, that he could slither through the tiniest crevices of a cave, like the snake trabungko, and that he could disappear or appear at a whim. We have also heard of how he is said to have died at the advanced age of 101 because of the bite of a rabid dog on his way back from a hunting trip.
