The King, The Healer, and the Crucible of 1924: Unraveling the Legend of Lantayug

24 September 2025 Feature | Surigao Historical Society | Local History
 

In the quiet, rocky expanse of Bucas Grande Island, 35 miles southeast of what is now Surigao City, the year 1924 remains etched in memory not for its serenity, but for the burst of violence known as the Colorum Uprising. At the heart of this bloody and misunderstood conflict stood an itinerant faith healer named Felix Bernales, better known by his enigmatic alias, Lantayug.

Lantayug was many things to many people: a Colorum, a madman, a con-man, a faith healer, and, crucially, a subversive.

The Water and the Word

A man of curious habits, Lantayug advocated a form of "water therapy". He urged the populace of Socorro, one of Bucas Grande's oldest settlements, to construct a public bathing tank, or tangke, which replaced a natural spring called Puyangi. This tank became the focal point of his ministry, a place where he regularly conducted mass-healing sessions well into the early morning hours. The villagers revered the structure, considering it both sacred and miraculous, believing its waters possessed unusual curative powers.

Lantayug’s appeal, however, went beyond simple medicine. He cultivated a bizarre public persona, one that tapped deep into the nation’s latent revolutionary sentiment. At 63 years old when he was active in Bucas, he sometimes appeared wearing an Americana (suit) and boldly claimed he was the reincarnation of the late national hero, José Rizal.

His claims to grandeur had deeper roots; he had previously been arrested alongside his mistress, Eusebia Puyo, for posing as the King and Queen of the Philippines. Furthermore, he was deemed subversive because he frequently assailed the government and fiercely demanded complete Filipino independence.

Lantayug’s ambitions appeared territorial and religious. He was connected to Laureano Solamo, a Colorum leader operating in Cebu, and the ritual construction of his tangke—which he also built in mainland towns like Tubod, Mainit, and Jabonga, Agusan del Norte—indicated his ultimate intention might have been to establish a cohesive sect.

The Reckoning

The fragile peace on Bucas Grande shattered in January 1924. The true spark of the conflict, according to accounts, was the arrogant use of force by government authorities. Captain (Valentin) Juan, believing the island was a hive of seditious plotting, ordered the destruction of the miraculous bathing tank that Lantayug had helped construct. This prized village possession was smashed, elders were physically abused, and religious articles were publicly burned.

These "brutalizing pressures" and the destruction of the tank—a central symbol of Lantayug’s ministry and the people’s faith—produced a spontaneous and violent peasant reaction. The resulting attacks on Constabulary troops transformed Surigao into the national "flashpoint" of feared general uprising, capturing headlines even in the New York Times.

Yet, in a striking historical irony, Lantayug, the acknowledged leader whose destroyed creation triggered the conflagration, was absent. When the violence erupted, he was "not even on the island or anywhere in the province, but somewhere in Samar".

Despite his distance from the actual bloodshed, Lantayug was prominently named and severely punished once the revolt was brutally suppressed by Philippine Constabulary soldiers, who were assisted by U.S. Navy and Marines equipped with machine guns and artillery.

Lantayug was subsequently tried at the Court of First Instance in Surigao for multiple murders [Source: Previous response]. He was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment [Source: Previous response, 278]. In passing the severe sentence, the presiding judge, Ricardo Jalbuena, recorded that he had shown mercy only because the accused were "uneducated and ignorant".

The judicial proceedings mirrored the widespread official failure to seek a fundamental explanation for the upheaval. Instead, the uprising was dismissed as mere ignorance and fanaticism. The term "Colorum" became an "ugly stereotype label", blurring the reality that the event was a "spontaneous violent reaction" against oppression and a form of unrecognized peasant nationalism.

Lantayug’s trial and life sentence, therefore, stand as a tragic denial of justice, marking the fate of a visionary, a rogue, and a symbol of suppressed native hope in a dark chapter of the province's history.

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