Rev. Fr. Ericson Borre, OSA was one of the twenty speakers at the Annual Philippine Studies Conference organized by Dr. Cristina Juan of SOAS, University of London, and Dr. Christina Lee of Princeton University last September 16-17, 2022.
The two-day blended webinar and conference was held at the University of London and centered on “The British Invasion of Spanish-Ruled Philippines, 1762-1764”.
Fr. Borre spoke about one of the best-chronicled experiences of an Augustinian friar in the Philippines during the British invasion by Fray Agustin Maria Castro, OSA.
Fray Castro was a biographer, and a librarian of several Augustinian convents in the country, including San Agustin in Intramuros. He was in Manila and was its librarian when the British soldiers ransacked the convent and left almost nothing, “even a single nail head where to hang a jacket,” he said in his narrative.
Aside from the much-detailed content of the convent, especially the friars’ library, Fray Castro makes mention of the same religious Order’s participation in the war, resisting the British forces – from bomb-making to recruitment of local soldiers. The conventional archive of the Augustinians in Valladolid (Spain), where the original documents are kept, corroborates such an important event in Philippine history, explaining the many items found in the library catalogue, but are nowhere to be found.
Fr. Borre is currently finishing his doctoral studies in Mundo Hispanico at the Universidad de León. Ericson is also a member-correspondent of the Augustinian Historical Institute (Rome).
Watch the full talk of Fr. Borre in this YouTube Video.
