Alonso Muñoz was born on January 21, 1776, in the Alcarria town of Renera (Guadalajara, Spain). At the age of 15 he entered the novitiate of Alcalá de Henares (Madrid), where he professed as an Augustinian Recollect in 1792.
From there he went to Valladolid to pursue his philosophical studies, but he soon volunteered for the missions in the Philippines, so he continued these studies during the same journey, as was customary at the time, thus taking advantage of the long travel time across two oceans and three continents.
He was part of the 26th mission of the Augustinian Recollects to the Philippines, which left Puerto de Santa María (Cádiz) on December 16, 1792. After arriving in Veracruz, on the Atlantic coast of Mexico, he crossed the country with a stop at the Hospicio of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine in Mexico City, and then to reach the port of Acapulco on the Pacific, where he boarded the Manila Galleon, in this case the frigate San Fernando.
On June 15, 1795, after two and a half years of travel, he arrived in the Philippines. In Manila, he finished his studies around 1799 and was ordained a priest, thus beginning his missionary apostolic life.
In Siquijor, in the Visayan Islands, he received his first assignment as parish vicar, while also learning the local dialect. He distinguished himself both for his dedication to learning and for his service to the People of God. He was subsequently transferred to Loon, in Bohol, and then, in 1803, as prior, to Romblon.
In 1808, he volunteered again, this time to serve Banton, one of the poorest, most isolated missions, vulnerable to violent pirate raids. His superiors granted his request, and he took a pontoon, a traditional local coastal vessel, to Banton.
Before reaching Cápiz, the ship was captured by pirates with great violence. According to the news that the provincial vicar of Mindoro communicated to the provincial prior on October 13, 1808, Alonso received “such a strong blow to his body that it broke one of his arms and half his body. The day of his death is unknown.”
Alonso knew he was going to a difficult place for his ministry: poor, isolated, and exposed. The pirates of the southern archipelago were especially cruel and violent toward the Christian populations and missionaries, given that they practiced Islam.
The list of Augustinian Recollect missionaries killed by these armed groups from Mindanao and Jolo is long; they carried out raids to plunder and capture prisoners with the intention of enslaving them or demanding ransoms.
Between the 17th and 18th centuries, 43 Augustinian Recollects were killed in pirate raids, and although the number of victims decreased in the 19th century, Alonso was killed for this reason. At the end of that same century, the Philippine Revolution claimed the lives of another 30, but for different reasons. They are the price, in blood, of the history of the evangelization of the Philippines by the Augustinian Recollects.
