CARCAR FAMILIES: A Genealogy Blog for Carcar

Ezequiel “Papa Zequiel” Baran Barangan

(20-Oct-1916 – 14-Aug-1987)

“Go forth on your path, as it exists only through your walking.”  – St. Augustine

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Son of Santiago Quijoy Barangan and Luisa Alega Baran.

Religious community founder;

Great-great-grandfather (see Barangan in Keeping the records straight 2 ) and great-grandfather were cabezas; from youth, very active in Carcar church organizations; started a lay Missionary Catechistas sect whose members scoured the mountainside purging belief in diwatas and teaching catechism; when they went around town were easily recognizable by their all-white clothing, so much so that anyone wearing white would be teased as “sakop ni Zequiel” (Zequiel follower); even though people went to him for healing, still his community was looked upon as a cult and the sect underwent a long trial period of dismissive ridicule by thoughtless townspeople, some of it elitist (but uninformed) looking down on his as bumpkin cathecism; 2-Feb-1974 founded the Siervas de Nuestra Señora de la Paz with the help of Mons. Felino Caballa and Archishop Manuel Salvador and Carcar priest Fr. Pastor Ybañez; arrival of Monsignor Camomot in 1976  and his solidarity with Barangan soon erased all doubts and turned the town’s attitude around to what was the man’s basic holiness–a quality to a heroic degree only Camomot and he are unanimously acknowledged to have possessed–wonder, that the two were born–and also died–only a year or two apart; Papa Zequiel, as he was called by his members then and is still referred to today, was a man of deep faith strengthened by equally deep daily prayers; in 30-Nov-1987 the SNSP was approved by Rome as a diocesan congregation; like Archbishop Camomot, a cause towards canonization has also been advanced for him whom everybody now proudly calls a Carcaranon.

Carcar Apostleship of Prayer

(Ezequiel Barangan in white in middle row behind small altar)

(photo mid-1950s by Emigdio Sedon for Fe Studio)