AUTHOR’S NOTE: I am reproducing here a series of articles that appeared in my SISAY KITA? column in the Catanduanes Tribune under the pseudonym “tataramon.” Part 4 was in the November 1, 2023 issue.

Editors’ Note: We thank the author and THE CATANDUANES TRIBUNE for allowing us to feature this article, Part 4 of a series of 4. THE CATANDUANES TRIBUNE is a monthly print and online publication. It was founded in 1981.

For the first three parts of this series, we closely examined the broad geographic layout and details of an aerial photo of Virac población taken in 1936 to get a good picture of the sort of physical environment our forebears moved in and about during that era. We have so far taken up the political and the economic implications. In this last part, we will look at the social-cultural aspects of daily life kang mga panahon. We touch here the religious, educational and health aspects, plus the social class configuration so far as the geographic features tell us.

In 1936, Virac was arguably 100% Catholic. We do not know of any non-Catholic establishment that took root at this time. While the parish church was the center of religious life, the poblacion barrios, like the rural ones, maintained their own religious calendar around their patron saints housed in ermitas (chapels). In addition, smaller shrines called cruz would have dotted the poblacion landscape for neighborhood devotions. In the aerial photo, visible were the ermitas of Ilawod (San Pablo, San Juan and Concepcion). The one at Rawis was likewise unmistakable, although still in its seaside location; in the early 1950s it would be relocated to its current site.  Others are difficult to figure out in the photo. They may have yet been of modest proportions, or else obscured by nearby structures. The ones in Sta. Elena and Sta. Cruz, both of the traditional coral adobe should have already been in place.

One ermita worthy of special mention here is that one of Gogon (featured in the header photo). Finished in 1918, it would have been 18 years old 1936. It is glistening in white in the photo, on account of its galvanized iron roof and the light-colored limestone and corral adobe walls. But it did not have yet its belfry towering from its central gable. This structure built of poured concrete was to be added later. According to accounts, this ermita served as an important landmark visible from far and wide, especially to people traveling from the rural barangays. Reaching it meant they were “out of the woods” and had entered the poblacion area, a kind of demarcation between the pwera (rural) and the banwa (urbanized). In the photo we see a procession in the vicinity of the Gogon chapel, probably a funeral on its way to the campo santo. But then it did not look like the neat double lines of a dapit. The participants too appeared to be in white. What could it be?  

Speaking of the campo santo which appears on the lower center of the photo, one wonders why there were only a handful of mga pantiyon: was death a scarcity among the Viracnons back then? Do we have here a proof of the popular belief that in olden days people were healthier and lived long lives on account of their vetsin-less diet consisting mostly of veggies? A closer look by zoom however reveals that the cemetery was crowded by mounds of graves; it meant that the dead were mostly buried deep into ground without the benefit of the cemented housing. No, people back then died regularly, and arguably in greater frequency, especially among children who would die of affliction that today are highly curable such as diarrhea and alperisiya. In our neighborhood in Ilawod, accounts from old-timers indicate it was commonplace for families in those times to have had seen deaths among their young children. My own mother was one of two who survived beyond childhood in a brood of five. The thing was that not much modern medical services were available.

And because death was (and still is) not the great equalizer, so was the campo santo a faithful index of the socio-economic hierarchy of Virac in 1936: a handful of the rich (can afford the pantiyon), in comparison with the multitude of the poor who had to be dropped into the kutkot. Such a landscape was therefore repeated in the sprawl of the quarters of the living. Like the few pantiyons in robust concrete and gleaming in whitewash, the houses of the few rich were unmistakable in their size and built as seen from above, especially because most of them were roofed with shiny galvanized iron (GI) sheets which surely during that time was the status symbol of the affluent. Up until the 70s a local joke that extolled the virtues of the GI was in circulation: “Use sympathy in a sentence – Ay kaginagyon kang harong, simpati!” Such a joke may have originated in the 1930s where even the very house of God (the parish church) was simpati. In the aerial photo, it was quite clear that the area between the two plazas, Colawan that is, was the enclave of the rich and powerful as indicated by the concentration of big houses. One can easily make out the residences of Tiyo Titong Sarmiento, the Abellas, the dela Rivas, the Alcalas and the home of erstwhile Lieutenant Governor Alfonso Usero located where the Tuburo building is now. The others I have so far failed to attribute. But there were big buildings beyond the Colawan, especially in the upper reaches along the Taytay which was fast becoming the commercial center. There was the “big three” along the seashores, plus the other Chinese and Spanish-owned buildings.

For their part, the Ilawod and Gogon areas, with exceptions here and there, were the reserves of the masa. These areas were teeming with houses of wood and nipa, their earthen colors contrasting to the lightness of the dwellings of the well-off. But these houses come in their own hierarchy of size and build, indicative of finer differentiations in economic circumstances. But big or small, noticeable was the steep-angled roofing (matungas), making these roofs really huge, almost equal in height with the body itself. This design feature was made for easy draining from rainwater and good ventilation inside. It must be pointed out that most of these houses were not nipa huts or kubos romanticized in depictions of rural idyll. They were built according to traditional technology aimed at resisting typhoons. For example, they stood on sturdy and massive wooden posts. Judging by their varying sizes, some of the houses of this type did not come cheap and must have been owned by the well-to-do who had a preference for the more traditional kind of dwelling. One such house that had survived up to the 1960s was that of the last Lieutenant Governor Remigio Socito located in San Pablo. On the other hand, some of the older buildings such as the church’s convento and the old elementary school were still roofed with nipa shingles.    

What about the educational fare of the Viracnons in 1936? At this time, there was already a complete elementary school running since the 1920s, apparently at the initiative of the American regime which pioneered popular public education in the country. It was housed in a building on the right side of the municipal hall. By 1936, however, the space was not enough some classes were held in private houses rented for the purpose. One such house belonged to the Candelarias located at the foot of the Gogon bridge. The school site in the oma in San Roque that had a Gabaldon main building was still a decade into future. In 1926, the Catanduanes Sub-Provincial High School was established but in 1936, at the time of the taking of the aerial photo, it would have closed down due to financial difficulties. It must have already held classes at a building in the Colawan area that would later become the Catanduanes College. A year after closure, in 1937, a new high school started operation this time called the Catanduanes Standard High School founded by Alfonso Usero, erstwhile secretary of Senator Jose Vera and who would later become the first elected Governor of Catanduanes in 1947.   

What about health care in the 1930s in Virac? It could be well assumed that at this time, indigenous knowledge and methods was the mainstream modality in dealing with health issues. Health care was mainly provided by traditional para-bulong specialists: herbolarios, santigwaristas, para-hilot, para-bawi, para-tullpok, parteras. But western medicine was introduced way back during the Spanish occupation. The colonial government would send vacunadores (vaccinators) to Catanduanes in times of epidemics. During the American regime, a series of epidemics were recorded and surely vaccination campaigns were launched. There was cholera in 1915, Spanish influenza in 1918 followed shortly by smallpox in 1919. By 1936, we know that there was already a practicing physician called Doctor Paco (Francisco Escueta) who was from Tiaong, Quezon. He was said to be the first ever medical doctor to have practiced in the province. We do not know where his clinic was in 1936; the Escueta residence in San Roque was not yet there. But there might have been others. At this time (pending further research on this aspect) Dr. Ballesteros may have already been operating the Catanduanes Emergency Hospital located in the vicinity of Plaza Lizaso (was it the one-floor building in white roof opposite the casa del gobierno?).  But we know that there was already a Sanidad (Sanitary Inspector) in the employ of the local government. He was Mr. Florentino Abundo, a registered nurse who was father to Engr. Rafael Abundo and Mrs. Carmen A. Arcilla. The Sanidad was the equivalent of the Municipal Health Officer at present. And considering the dearth of medical professionals in those days, the Sanidad assumed a variety of functions that a nurse today would not be allowed to do.

In any case, it can be said that among the greatest fears of the Viracnons of 1936 were those related to health, especially when “Igwang ga llakaw na helang” (epidemic). Quite terrible was the puko or smallpox which disfigured the victim, but even more horrifying was the Eltor (cholera) which according to the Historical Data Papers (HDP) was so virulent in 1915 that cemeteries had to be expanded to accommodate the piles of dead people. Up until my childhood in the 1960s, news of epidemic would mobilize penitential processions that sang the plaintive Perdon (Forgiveness), done along the seashores as if to ward off the malady imagined to be coming in from the seas.

But such fears were not evident in the 1936 aerial photo. From a distance, Virac was a picture of idyllic bliss. The seashore was pristine, the footprints of penitents and the droppings of their votive candles were readily smoothened by the gentle waves. The strands of intent and anxious singing “Perdon o Dios mio, Dios mio perdon…!” (Forgiveness my God, my God forgive. . .!) would have been easily drowned by the slightest sea breeze and surely never captured by the ancient camera of 1936. From afar up in the skies, Virac of that era was indeed Belle Epoque, luxuriating by the premiums of the “Peace Time” and the abaca and copra boom. Even if I imagine touching down on the landscape, get up-close and walk the unpaved streets, take in the unhurried preoccupations and labors of the folk dressed in Amorsolo-esque costumes, the cursing of a man who absent-mindedly stepped on carabao dung along his way will sound quaint and melt my heart. I will feel a little sore thinking that such a pleasant tableau would be ravished by war in five years’ time. But then I take pride knowing that the remarkable people of Catanduanes would heroically liberate themselves from the enemy. And still high with their valor and victory, they would claim independent province-hood on October 26, 1945, a rising from the ashes just a few months after the war.

And then the rest is history.

Featured header image: San Rafael Chapel in Gogon, Virac, Catanduanes (photo: Wikipedia Commons)

The Ermitas of Virac

The ermitas (chapels) of the Spanish era are historical treasures of Virac which the author has researched and written about for the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).