Yves Germaine Gaston was a Frenchman who first visited Negros in 1844 was one of those who helped shape the sugar industry as we know it. Meantime, halfway around the globe in 1844, a young Spanish priest by the name of Father Fernando Cuenca de San José, was being ordained in Monteagudo, Spain (June 6, 1844). Fr. Cuenca was just 20 years old but at that time ecclesiastical law allowed ordination even at this young age.
In 1848, the young priest Fr. Cuenca led Mission 45 of the Recollects from Spain to the Philippines. The arrival was providential for at this time, there was a vacuum in the spiritual administration of the island of Negros. Governor General Narciso Claveria passed to the provincials of the four religious orders the option to take up the spiritual administration of the island of Negros to any of them. Two days after Governor Claveria's call, the Recollect Provincial replied accepting the island and promising to send six priests within six months.
Among those priests was Fr. Fernando Cuenca, who was assigned in Minuluan, the name for the place now called Talisay City.
Apart from establishing the parish in Minuluan, Fr. Cuenca helped shape the sugar industry Negros. Although sugarcane was already being cultivated in Negros by the time Fr. Cuenca came over, he is credited with pushing for its expansion. He identified the areas that were best suited for the crop. It was the time when large tracts of land were without owners and the government urged the landless in other province to come to Negros. Being from Spain, he tapped the Recollects vast knowledge of farming and provided technical assistance to hacienderos who were just starting the industry in Negros. He was also one of the first persons to establish a mechanized hydraulic sugarcane mill in the island. He also imported sugarcane 'patdan' (canetops for planting) from other places and distributed them among the different towns of Negros. He helped organize parishes to incorporate migrant workers into their communities and also find them jobs with the numerous hacienderos around the area. He was also a close associate of the father of the Philippine sugarcane industry, Nicholas Loney. When Nicholas Loney would dole out his famous sugarcane loans, Fr. Cuenca and other Recollect priests would act as guarantors of the loan. With these affairs, it was without wonder that Fr. Cuenca was rumored to even have his own hacienda in Minuluan (Talisay) where he would supervise the cultivation of sugarcane himself.
Father Cuenca was credited with the foundation of the three traditional barangays of Talisay City: Concepcion in the South that he dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, Dos Hermanas in honor of his two sisters left in Spain, and San Fernando in honor of his namesake, both barangays in the north-east.
Aside from blazing a trail for the sugarcane industry, Fr. Cuenca helped develop Bacolod's spiritual culture as well. In the 5 decades that he was in Negros, he opened 56 parishes. He was also a famed healer and healed both poor and rich alike. He had such high profile clients that they would come from neighboring islands and even nearby countries just to have him minister to them. He also had a hand in developing the coffee industry in Negros as well as propagating lanzones in Barrio Concepcion in Talisay. He was a very popular priest with the people and he was one of the only priests that weren't harmed by revolutionaries in the Philippine Revolution of 1898 (other priests and Spanish were killed outright).
He loved Talisay very much and was one of the people who laid the foundations that led to the construction of the San Nicolas de Tolentino parish in Talisay. He died in Talisay in 1902 and a local legend has it that the water well he dug there in the 1850s never ran out of water even in hottest of summers. Fr. Cuenca's well can still be found at the parish. It is located under the present day convent of San Nicolas de Tolentino.
Fr. Cuenca's Recollect legacy lives on in many ways today aside from the parish in Talisay. His colleague, Fr. Mauricio Ferrero began construction of the Bacolod Cathedral in 1876. The cathedral remains the corner stone of the Catholic faith in Negros island up to today. Also, his Recollect brothers purchased the University of Negros Occidental from Dr. Antonio Lizares and Dr. Fransisco Kilayko in 1962. This university then became University of Negros Occidental – Recoletos (UNO-R) and it was thusly proclaimed as the first Catholic university in Negros island.
Sources: Clash of Spirits - Filomeno Aguilar, Jr. , Modesto P. Sa-Onoy - Daily Star Sept. 16, 2014, Modesto P. Sa-Onoy - Daily Star August 5, 2014, The Evangelization of Negros and the Augustinian Recollects - Dennis V. Madrigal, Recolletio - Emmanuel Luis A. Romanillos
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