The Name Ibalon Speaks for us Bikolanos

Ibalon or ibalong refers to the ancient name of the Bikol region where one of the major ethnic groups in the Philippines called Bikolano resides (O’Brien, 1993). In the written history during the early Spanish colonial period the whole region was called Ibalong until 1636 when it was split into Partido de Ibalon and Partido de Camarines (Espinas, 1996). Nowadays, it is still a debate among scholars if the name came from the place named Gibalon of the town of Magallanes of the old port of Sorsogon (tip of Luzon that is opposite of Visayas) where it was believed that the first mass in Bikol took place during the Spanish colonization in southern Luzon in 1569.

Ibalon may also refer to the famous epic of Bikol, the 60-stanza poem narrative about the old Bikol (though the original text of the epic has no title) that was believed to be written by the Spanish friar Fray Bernardino de Melendreras, OFM and was published in Spain by another Spanish friar named Jose Castano, OFM in 1895. Noteworthy to mention here that both of them were assigned in Libmanan, the town that claimed that the seat of the old Kingdom of Ibalon was in Ligmanan based on the epic narrative (Umali, 2016). In Legaspi City, Albay, the festival is named after Ibalon to celebrate the narrative told in the Ibalon epic about the life of the legendary heroes Baltog, Handiong, and Bantong.

Ibalon, according to the Bikolano historian Zeus Salazar may also refer to the people of Bikol especially to the people living along the Bikol river where Libmanan is located (Salazar, 2004). Moreover, study of the word will suggest that when a prefix i in the word Ibalon is used in Bikol it connotes to action. Espinas presumed that the word may mean ibalyo, “exchange” or “to barter”, the place where barter trade or exchange of goods happen. It may be noted that Ibalon may also refer to the place balyong pampang, the other or opposite side of the bank of the river. Many believed that the original name for the people living in Bikol were called Ibalnong, the people living to the other side.

This will speak a lot when the two famous images of Ina in Bicol, Our Lady of Salvacion and Our Lady of Peñafrancia are being carried through the waters of Bicol during the months of August and September both in the sea and the river during the fluvial procession. It reminds that Bicolanos are truly the people living along the banks of the river or in the coastlines of Bicol.  

Diverse and full of ideas or concepts the name Ibalon may sound this will stand to the multi or diverse cultural background and expressions Bikolanos have. Moreover, this may be good when the absolute prevails as an ideology in a society that is searching for its own identity.

In the ancient times when a tribe wants to find their commonality or an identity that will unify them as a group, it is a sacred or paramount duty of story tellers or shamans to forge a narrative or even a name of their group that will distinctly or uniquely identify them from the rest of their world. Today, meaning giving is not just reserve to the church and school but also in the different social media platforms. How pervasive and powerful it has to our society and to us we cannot measure. But we can only ascertain its effect to us if we will also use it as a tool to at least capture our aspirations, hopes and expectations to one name. And for us in this platform that is the name Ibalon. 

Signature of Fray Melendreras Found in Libmanan

At long last, the handwriting and signature of the famous Franciscan friar who wrote the famous original Ibalon epic of Bicol who was assigned in Libmanan for almost 20 years from 1845 to 1865 as parish curate of Santiago Apostol was found in the archives of the diocese of the now Libmanan Diocese. This archaeological or archival discovery was momentous as we celebrate our 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines and as we also recognize here in Bicol especially in Libmanan the contributions of the missionaries who planted the seeds of Christianity and who contributed in the cultural preservation and development of Bikol. 

Without Fray Bernardino Melendreras dela Trinidad, OFM effort to document and write the ancient epic of the Bicolanos we will never have the opportunity to have more knowledge about our past and to have knowledge about the precolonial Bicolanos and as from Libmanan, we will never have a strong proof or claim that Libmanan was indeed the seat of civilization and kingdom of Ibalon or Bicolandia by the precolonial Bicolanos. 

As the book Travels in the Philippines of Fedor Jagor in 1875 described Fray Melendreras as a priest when he visited him in 1861 in the convent of Libmanan, he said about the friar as “who, possessing poetical talent, and having the reputation of a natural philosopher, collected and named pretty beetles and shells, and dedicated the most elegant little sonnets.” He even added that the friar also, “He favored me with the following narrative: [Prehistoric remains] In 1851, during the construction of a road a little beyond Libmanan, at a place called Poro, a bed of shells was dug up under four feet of mould, one hundred feet distant from the river. It consisted of Cyrenae (C. suborbicularis, Busch.), a species of bivalve belonging to the family of Cyclades which occurs only in warm waters and is extraordinarily abundant in the brackish waters of the Philippines. On the same occasion, at the depth of from one and a half to three and a half feet, were found numerous remains of the early inhabitants–skulls, ribs, bones of men and animals, a child’s thighbone inserted in a spiral of brass wire, several stags’ horns, beautifully-formed dishes and vessels, some of them painted, probably of Chinese origin; striped bracelets, of a soft, gypseous, copper-red rock, gleaming as if they were varnished; [122] small copper knives, but no iron utensils; and several broad flat stones bored through the middle; [123] besides a wedge of petrified wood, embedded in a cleft branch of a tree. The place, which to this day may be easily recognized in a hollow, might, by excavation systematically carried on, yield many more interesting results. What was not immediately useful was then and there destroyed, and the remainder dispersed. In spite of every endeavor, I could obtain, through the kindness of Señor Fociños in Naga, only one small vessel. Similar remains of more primitive inhabitants have been found at the mouth of the Bigajo, not far from Libmánan, in a shell-bed of the same kind; and an urn, with a human skeleton, was found at the mouth of the Perlos, west of Sitio de Poro, in 1840. At the time when I wrote down these statements of the priest, neither of us was familiar with the discoveries made within the last few years relating to the lake dwellings (pile villages); or these notes might have been more exact, although probably they would not have been so easy and natural.”

Without much to say and interpretation of the said narrative coming from the German ethnologist and naturalist about Fray Melendreras in his book, it only tells us that the man is worthy of our recognition as Bicolanos. As relayed to me by Fr. Marchito ‘Chito’ Oriño, the archivist who discovered the document, the frangible document where he found Melendreras was just inside the box being eaten by termites and other elements. I hope the church of Libmanan will decisively act on it or will forever regret not to save it.

(Sources: Jagor, Fedor. Travels in the Philippines. London: Chapman and Hall. 1875. Gomez Platero, Fray Eusebio OFM. Catalogo biografico de los Religiosos Franciscanos de la provincia de San Gregorio Magno de Filipinas desde 1577 en que llegaron los primeros Manila hasta los nuestros dias. Manila: Impre. Del Real Colegio de Sto. Tomas. 1880. History of Catholicism in the Bicol Region, WordPress.com, 2019. Gerona Madrid, Danilo, Libmanan, the Cradle of Bikol’s Epic, Home to Bikol Patriots, LGU Libmanan, 2009. And photo credits: Rev Fr Marchito Orino and photos that are not the property of the author.)