Know Eastern Visayas, An Unchanged Past In The Changing Times (R8 SERIES)

BIMBO CABIDOG

In photo right is the regional government center located at Candahug, Palo, Leyte

Arrivals from the west would change Philippine history twice in a span of 400 years. These happened on the island-chain astride the Philippine Sea, now known as the Eastern Visayas.

In September, 1519 the Spanish fleet Armada de Molucca, under the command of the Portuguese man-of-war Ferdinand Magellan, set sail on a westerly direction across the Atlantic Ocean and around the American landmass to the south. Magellan planned to blaze an alternative route to the East by navigating the forbidding Pacific Ocean.

What remained of the five ships that embarked on the storm-tossed voyage anchored off the island of Homonhon one and a half years later on March 16, 1521. Probably the first contact between the west and east on the Pacific side of Asia, the discovery by western travelers of the islands of Samar and Leyte ushered 350 years of Spanish rule in the archipelago.

An artist's rendition of the Spanish fleet commanded by Portuquese man-of-war    Ferdinand Magellan sailing westward across the Pacific Ocean to the east.

The other heralded arrival was on October 20, 1944 when divisions of the United States Armed Forces under General Douglas MacArthur hit Red Beach at Palo, Leyte to get back the Philippines from the Japanese. The event paved the way to the return of the Americans to their old colony.

The US comeback tied the country’s fate over the second half of the 20^th century to the overarching influence and, many a times, dictates of Washington.

Both first and second coming by western expeditions across the Pacific Ocean established the role of the Samar-Leyte island chain as gateway to the whole of the Philippine Archipelago.

This was the reality for four centuries until air travel shifted the point of international entry to Manila and Cebu. The shift removed Eastern Visayas from global trade and left it for years in the doldrums of underdevelopment.

Local folks who are currently in their sixties would reminisce the time when they occasionally hear of a “estranghero” (foreign ship) weighing anchor along the Leyte Gulf or docking at the port of Tacloban. But now, instead of the old maritime visitors, the region would be in the path of an average of 20 tropical cyclones visiting the Philippine Archipelago every year.

The state of affairs for decades relegated Eastern Visayas to the status of one of three poorest regions in the country. And for decades, it would be treated more as a patient in the ICU than a player in the country’s bat for sustained economic growth.

Development Potentials

Current observations however note that the region’s misfortunes are past. They view Eastern Visayas as a region in the cusp of change, rising like a phoenix above the Pacific Ocean’s rim. With a population growing by an average annual rate of 1.52 percent, quickened built-up development matched by inroads into modernization is surely taking over its hubs and urban centers.

The observation of progress jibes with the sprouting of information-technology-driven outfits. Regular access to the worldwide web through an upgraded telecommunications infrastructure, along with the proliferation of third-fourth generation smart phones, would enable pioneering in hitherto uncharted waters of business, besides much more effective and quicker ways at doing things, like marketing.

In photo is the Leyte Academic Center, an IT hub pioneered by the provincial government to create job opportunities in the region through the lucrative business process outsourcing. 

Advanced technologies in communication would close the yawning gap between city and countryside, the busy concentrations of commerce and the idling rural areas.

The Spanish arrival in the 16^th century and the comeback of the American colonial forces 400 years later highlighted the strategic geographical importance of Eastern Visayas to trade and military missions in the orient by western expeditions plying the Pacific Ocean.

Located along the mid portion of the Philippine archipelago, the region harbors direct access to the great body of water that hugs the eastern continental stretch of Asia and hems the North American West Coast, Mexico and Africa.

The close adjacent islands of Leyte and Samar offer the advantage of a gulf girding the north-eastern promontory of the former and the south-eastern peninsula of the latter. This marine haven contains coves for vessels to shelter from the gales of the open sea.

The Eastern Visayas is approximately 700 kilometers southeast of the national capital. It covers an area of 2,156,285 hectares that is administratively subdivided into six provinces and 12 districts. These are in turn broken down into seven cities, 136 municipalities and 4,390 barangays. The provinces are Southern Leyte, Leyte, Biliran, Western Samar, Northern Samar and Eastern Samar.

According to the 2015 actual census, the Eastern Visayas had a total population of 4,440,150. This has steadily grown over the years, despite continuing out-migration to Metro Manila and overseas. (Below is a data graphic detailing significant information about the region.)

Natives of the region speak the main tongues of Waray, Cebuano, Boholano and Abaknon. They are not culturally diverse, but observe predominantly Catholic religious practices and traditions. They make up though an auspicious human resource to power accelerated socio-economic development.

A peculiar ethno-linguistic distinction may be held in common by them. What that is has been a question scholars have pondered but got no definite answers. One thing stands out though: the people of Eastern Visayas are God-fearing yet fierce warriors in battles. They have fought wars for land and fellow countrymen with exemplary valour and heroism. 

Eastern Visayas's urban folks of noticeable rural origins have adapted to the modern past time called malling which offers the enjoyment of leisure in air conditioned surroundings and the posh amenities of giant retail outlets.

Two revolutionary struggles against Spanish colonial rule and American imperialist annexation when Filipinos greeted the dawn of their nation’s birth, and an obstinate guerrilla warfare halfway through the past century when Asia fell into the grip of Japanese imperial conquest, have molded in the people of Region VIII a character up to the daunting challenges of development in the new millennium.