A long time ago, in Bacolod - the new capital of Negros after it was transferred from Himamaylan, there were three men who constantly debated about their own vision of the afterlife. Confined together at Celda Dos in Fort San Juan, the three prisoners spent most of their time talking about heaven and hell to forget about their unfortunate fates.
The first convict was Diego Rivera, 22 years old, guilty of stealing his neighbor’s goat. The son of a poor fisherman, Diego was forced to steal the goat to save some dowry for his beloved Angelina. He was a tall man with a big scar on his forehead given to him by a carabao’s horns when he was nine years old.
The second convict was Saturnino Perez, 30 years old, guilty of killing a guardia civil. Saturnino had a very long history of grudge with the Spaniards. He grew up in Binalbagan where his parents were accidentally killed by a Spanish General who was practicing his rifle. When his sister Filomena was raped by one of the Spanish soldiers, Saturnino could no longer bear his anger. He avenged his sister the day after she was buried.
The third convict was Edilberto Zamora, 27 years old, declared guilty of treason. Edilberto had a twin brother, Norberto Zamora. It was Norberto who was caught red handed trying to plot an assault against the Spanish troops in Talisay. When Edilberto was arrested in his house for his brother’s crime, he didn’t argue with the authorities. He loved his brother and Norberto would do the same if it was the other way around.
It all began on a rainy afternoon in the labor grounds. The prisoners were being used by the friars to build a church which would soon be called the San Sebastian Cathedral. Saturnino was confined at Celda Dos for five years already. When his two cellmates were hanged that year, the replacements were Diego and Edilberto.
“Stupid fat friars!” Diego muttered wiping the mud off his face.
“You should keep your mouth shut if you don’t want to die.” Saturnino advised his new cellmate.
“Hijo de puta! We are all going to die anyway!” Edilberto ejaculated.
“I told you to shut your mouth! Calm down, brother. I’m with you. And besides, it’s better here than in hell.”
“Are you sure about that?”
And starting that day, the three of them had been sharing their thoughts about what would happen to them after they die. They talked mostly of hell since the friars condemned them that they surely would. It would look unfair for Edilberto since he wasn’t really guilty of his supposed crime. But human as he was and maybe he was keeping it for himself, Edilberto, too, got no hopes of going to heaven.
Hell, according to Diego Rivera, is like this…
“A totality of everything that we don’t like. If you smoke 10 rolls of tobacco a day, you can never do it there. If you drink 5 glasses of tuba a day, you can never do it there. It’s place where you can’t be with your mother, your father, and in my case, with Angelina. To each his own. That’s what I believe hell is, a land where all you need is not given to you. A land of absence. An eternal suffering for our ever needing souls. I don’t believe in those fires that the friars are using to scare us during their sermons. We leave the flesh when we die. I believe that souls cannot be burned by any fire.
“And I believe that we can cheat hell. Yes! Somewhere out there, there’s someone who observes us and records what we hate the most. If we keep deep in our hearts those things we loathe, those things we fear, then that someone won’t know what our hell would look like. We can bluff.”
Edilberto: I don’t believe that that someone is not all knowing.
Saturnino: So if I pretend I don’t like seeing friars getting roasted like lechon, my hell would be a banquet of roasted friars? Sounds like heaven to me.
Hell, according to Edilberto Zamora, is like this…
“The absence of God. Either we suffer or enjoy it. Suffer from the absence of blessings. But what for do we need of blessings when we are dead? Enjoy the ultimate freedom of godlessness! Now you can steal from your twin brother’s savings without being guilty. Now you can fuck your twin brother’s wife all over and over again without being guilty. Hell is a choice whether we want to be happy or not.
“I have a friend named Edilberto Cuaycong. Yes, my tocayo. He told me that in his religion, heaven is not a place but a state of the mind. I think we agree in some terms.
Saturnino: If people discovers that kind of truth, then what you believe as the afterlife will lose its balance.
Diego: The absence of God, but the presence of the Devil. Sounds worse.
Hell, according to Saturnino Perez, is like this…
“There is no hell. There is no heaven either. God doesn’t exist, so as the Devil. This, here, this is it! Destiny controls us, Time soon kills us. Happiness is here. Suffering is here. Live this or that, live either, live the best, live the worst.
“The afterlife is the universe’s ultimate lie. The ancient men made it all up for the fear of nothingness, for the fear of nonexistence, for the fear of oblivion. But accept the truth…death is the end.”
Diego: That’s pathetic.
Edilberto: That’s absurd.
Everyone’s thought differed from the other. Each belief was supported by a myriad reasons that the three prisoners of Celda Dos endlessly threw at one another. And the good thing was that, somehow, they respected each other’s thought. Diego, Edilberto, and Saturnino all knew that none of them could be right, and none of them could be wrong.
In 1882, the San Sebastian Cathedral was finally finished (but it wasn’t considered a cathedral by then until in 1933). In January 20 that year, the infrastructure which was the fruit of the labors of the prisoners of Fort San Juan was inaugurated and Fray Mauricio Ferrero became the parish priest. On the same day, something happened that stirred the minds of the garrison authorities the next day.
Along came a challenge that ended the disputes of the three convicts in Celda Dos. It happened a week before the church was inaugurated. When they arrived in their cell from their hard labors, Diego, Edilberto, and Saturnino found some interesting things. On their beds they found silver keys, one for each. The bows of the keys were curiously designed like that of a skull. And on the common table where they usually sat around and debate, they found another key, with the same design as the other keys but black in color. Along with the black key was a note that said:
Buenos dias, señores!
I was impressed by how each you fought for your thoughts about the afterlife. So I’m giving each of you a chance to prove yourselves.
On your beds lay the Llaves del Inferno, the Keys to Hell. Use it to unlock the door that will appear on this chamber on the 20th. The black key is the Llave Volver, the Return Key. I’m sorry but it means only one of you can come back.
You have a week to decide about everything.
Adios!
“Look at how serious our conversations have gone through,” Edilberto said as soon as they finished reading the note.
“Soundsike a prank.”
“Could be, Diego. But look at these keys. They look genuine. I think we should try.”
“We have nothing to lose anyway. And besides, we’re all desperate to know what’s beyond. I don’t fear death. I’d rather want it sooner than wait for my flesh to rot.”
The three thought about it for the whole week. It was indeed a challenge to prove among themselves who was right all along. And who was it who left them the keys, they never got to know. They wanted to ask the jail guards but decided against it for the fear of their keys confiscated.
In the end, the three convicts decided to open the Door to Hell. Everyone agreed that whoever proved his hell right, he would be getting the key to return back. It was fair.
On January 20, 1882, an hour before midnight, a mysterious door materialized on the wall of Celda Dos. It was Saturnino who saw it first. The edges of the door glowed brightly as if seducing anyone to enter.
“Diego, wake up. Diego?! The door has appeared as instructed. Edilberto?! Are you awake?”
When no one was answering him, Saturnino stood up from his bed and went to rouse Diego. “Diego?! Hey!” He shook him. There was no answer. When he finally pulled Diego’s blanket, he was horrified of what he saw. Diego’s mouth was bubbling white while his eyes revealed fixed dilated pupils. “Diego’s dead!”
“And you’re next.”
Strong hands suddenly enclosed Saturnino’s neck and he felt an excruciating pain. He wanted to scream but he couldn’t. Edilberto tightened his grip as he pinned his cellmate down to the floor. “Die, my friend. You don’t believe in hell, right? Die and end your existence.”
It only took a few minutes. Saturnino’s eyes remained open until he lost all his air, looking at his murderer. And when he was no longer breathing, Edilberto stood up and grabbed the Llave Volver from the table.
It was he who desired to go to hell more than anyone. Edilberto Zamora’s beliefs about the afterlife made him do it. For him, hell would be his only escape. And once there, he would only choose the best for him and live forever. If and only if his idea of hell would be true. If not, he needed the Return Key.
“I’m sorry, Diego. I’m sorry Saturnino. Thank you for the conversations.” And with that, Diego unlocked the Door to Hell and vanished from the world forever.
In the morning of January 21, 1882, the jail guards of the fort were surprised to see the two dead bodies in Celda Dos. The families of Diego Rivera and Saturnino Perez were notified and they were all stunned by the tragedy. Edilberto Zamora was presumed to be the murderer, a disappointment for the governor who signed his release papers that day after his brother Norberto surrendered to the authorities. Edilberto was then declared missing, a dangerous escape convict, the only prisoner who ever absconded the well guarded Fort San Juan.
In August 20, 1947, a man named Roberto Zapanta died at the age of 90 in Cebu. His eldest son received from him a diary which told of his almost impossible escape through an underground labyrinth in Negros filled with snakes, giant bugs, and hundreds of human skeletons.
A local newspaper in Cebu featured the son of Robert Zapanta three years later. “In his diary, my father said that he was hopeless of finding his way out. He almost died. He ate live rats to survive. Until he found some light and used a certain key to get out. He found himself on a cave near the sea.”
In March 1953, Merceditas Valderrama, a former Negrense who was already residing in Spain, went back to visit her remaining relatives in Bacolod. Merceditas, who was a good friend of the governor, was one of the first people who suggested of building a museum for the Negrenses. And with that, she donated some antique artifacts from their ancestral house where her father and her grandfather used to live. It was rumored that one of the artifacts was a delicate old parchment containing a blueprint of an underground passageway beneath Fort San Juan. Most of the artifacts were stolen before the museum was finally built and the blueprint was, and until now, a mere legend.
It wasn’t confirmed either if the man called Roberto Zapanta from Cebu was the same man named Edilberto Zamora who escaped Fort San Juan in 1882. In the 1980s, local historians and college professors proposed of the possibility of an underground escape route beneath Fort San Juan. But most from the higher authorities were not convinced of the labyrinth’s existence which was only based on rumors and some coincidences. And politics hindered the budget for digging.
For more than a century, Fort San Juan continued to serve as a penitentiary, until it was called, as known by the many these days, the Negros Occidental Provincial Jail. Early in 2011, however, all the prisoners were moved to the New Provincial Jail in Bago City which offers more space. Now the remains of the old Fort San Juan along Gatuslao Street waits for its own verdict: transformation to a heritage site or maybe, demolition.