08/12/2024
ADLAW IT BALETE
(Balete Day)
December 8
December 8 is a special day for the people of Balete not only because of the feast of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception (and a public holiday at that), but also due to the fact that it marks the anniversary of the town as a reorganized municipality during the American period.
Balete is a Spanish pueblo established as part of the Political Military administration of the District of Capiz (Gobierno Militar y Politico del Distrito de Capiz). In a general census of 1840, Balete (misspelled as Valete) has a total population of 1,846 the children of which number to 1,011. Around 1845, despite being a visita (not a full-fledge parish but is regularly visited by a priest) of the Doctrina of Batan, it is already one of the 18 pueblos comprising the Province of Capiz administered by its gobernadorcillo (equivalent to Municipal Mayor today) in the person of Don Mauricio Cortes. It has a school for boys and maintains a street market held every Thursday. Its titular is St. Rafael the Archangel. In 1885, it has 14 barrios with a total tributors 6,310. With the passage of Maura Law in 1893, the voting Baleten-on principalia elected Don Eulalio Cortes Feliciano as it Capitan Municipal (Municipal Mayor). Balete by then was one of the 34 pueblos of Capiz and whose territories expand to almost 16 thousand hectares comprising 14 barrios (barangays).
Baleten-ons either were Christian lowlanders (taga-ilawod), or mountain people (taga-ilaya, mundos, monteses , remontados) who refused to be subjugated under the Spanish rule. Cavada described the “mundos” as smaller in stature compared to ilawodnon. They were warlike and had the tendency to rob and kill, half-naked and armed with talibon (machete), la lanza (spear/javelin), flechas (bows and arrows), puñales y crisis (curved knives). From time to time these mountain people would go down to trade for their produce from their swiddens and traps in exchanged for salt, fish, cloth and other merchandized. He noted the abundance of coalmine among its streams and claimed that both Julo (Jal-o) and Cailojan were the major rivers in Balete where big boats called embarcadores hauled as much as 500 cavans of palay.
With Calivo, Dumalag, Pontevedra and Panay, Cavada noted that Balete boasted of some 896 looms and 1,356 piña weavers. He was silent about the matter with respect to other pueblos in Panay Island. This report is complemented by Jose Dandoy who was in his ripe age at the time and whom the author interviewed way back in 1998 where he claimed that every household in Balete during his grandmother’s time was equipped with a loom set on the sala of the house. These weavers referred to as “hilanderos y tejedores” in most manuscripts were generally composed of women and young girls. Theirs were listed as one of the primary occupations of the time vis-à-vis the male dominated “hacenderos y labradores.” It goes to show that the Baleten-on women were then not only bound to work on household chores as the custom of the time but were in partnership with their other halves in earning a living. It is for this fact that Commodore Charles Wilkes of the US Navy praised the people of Panay when he explored the area around 1838-42:
“The natives of the Philippines are industrious. They manufacture an amount of goods sufficient to supply their own wants, particularly from Panay and Ilocos. These for the most part consists (sic) of cotton and silk, and a peculiar article called piña. The latter is manufactured from a species of Bromelia (pineapple), and comes principally from the island of Panay. The finest kinds of piña are exceedingly beautiful and surpass any other material in its evenness and beauty of texture. Its color is yellowish, and the embroidery is fully equal to the material. It is much sought after by all strangers, and considered as one of the curiosities of this group. Various reports have been stated of the mode of its manufacture, and among others that it was woven under water, which I found erroneous. The web of the piña is so fine, that they are obliged to prevent all currents of air from passing through the rooms where it is manufactured, for which purpose there are gauze screens in the windows. After the article is brought to Manila, it is then embroidered by girls; this last operation adds greatly to its value.”
A German scientist-traveller in 1859 quoted Nicolas Loney, the British consul based in Iloilo to have estimated that the export of piña fiber and textiles from Iloilo and the neighboring provinces reached as much as $ 1 million annually. Yet, at the turn of the century, in time for the Census of 1903, the weavers of Balete were reduced drastically to just seven individuals , thanks to the introduction of the cheaper imported cotton cloth from India and Britania.
Around 1890, another visitor and an avid photographer in the person of Dean C. Worcester who later served as member of the First and Second Philippine Commissions as Secretary of the Interior of the American colonial government in the Philippine Islands, observed that a number of those “monteses” residing in Barrio Calantas were already converted to the Christian faith. He noted however that there were those who for their “peculiar” animistic belief would not hesitate to commit murder for the sheer reason of providing companions for their dead relatives.
On April 4, 1903, the Second Philippine Commission of the United States of America enacted Act No. 720 reducing the 34 municipalities of Capiz into 22. Balete was among those reduced into mere arabales (barangay) despite the promising statistics it generated during the conduct of census of the same year. With Batan, Jimeno (Altavas) and Barrio Lagatic of Calivo, it was fused to afford the Americans of creating a new town named after its capital city of Washington. We can only surmised the motive behind the abolitions of these Spanish pueblos but the irony of it is that during its initial years, the town of New Washington was governed by Baleten-ons elected to office during the early years of American democracy in the Philippines.
Balete regained its status as a local government unit when Governor General Francis Burton Harrison issued Executive Order No. 87 in December 8, 1919 effectively granting authority to reorganize the former municipality of Balete effective January 1, 1920. With it, Gov. Harrison ordered the return of its former territory in favor of the Baleten-on people. Mr. Juan C. Oquendo who was elected twice as Presidente Municipal (Municipal Mayor) of New Washington in 1904 and in 1909 earned the title as the first municipal president elected at large of the newly reorganized town of Balete in 1920.
The economy of words, approximately one hundred-sixty, structured in four paragraphs for which EO No. 87 was written is typical of its kind. Simple in its subject matter, easily understood, precise in its rendition allowing no room for misinterpretation, it effused authority for the concerned officials to enforce with haste the mandates it contained. It disclosed as its sole premise the fact that many of the inhabitants of Balete were petitioning for its separation from the municipality of New Washington and for which the Governor General was obliged to heed the call. It referred to Balete four times as a former municipality leaving us no doubt that Balete has been a Spanish pueblo wherefrom its reorganization by January 1, 1920 entails the reacquisition of its former territory so to legitimize its organization as the thirty-third municipality of the Province of Capiz.
Considering these milestones, the local officials, on March 2, 2017, after having gotten of the report by this writer, adopted Resolution No. 113-Sb2019, entitled, Declaring December 8, 1919 as the Day of the Reestablisment of the Municipality of Balete during the American Period and Commemorating Every December 8 hereafter as a Red Letter Day in the History of the Municipality of Balete, Aklan.
AL F. DELA CRUZ
Secretary to the Sanggunian /Municipal Administrator – Designate
