| GOING ... GOING. Yahoo! Geocities has served notice that their free web site building service and community is closing on October 26, 2009. We are presently looking for another free site for our new Internet domain. Meantime, you may read again the items posted here, as if for the last time. - Webmaster. |
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FINALLY, IT'S LIMASAWA. The Limasawa vs. Butuan controversy over the site of the First Mass on Philippine Soil on March 31, 1521 has been festering for decades. An attempt by the National Historical Institute (NHI) to settle the issue in the 1990s, by appointing the Gancayco Panel which report favored the Limasawa position, resulted in more, and noisier, protests from the supporters of the Butuan position. Last year, the NHI constituted another committee to re-examine the First Mass issue and conducted a panel hearing through the Forum on the Magellan Expedition held at the National Museum on August 29, 2008. Invited to speak at the forum were Gabriel B. Atega (left), who defended the Magallanes, Agusan del Norte position; Prof. Rolando O. Borrinaga (second from left), who defended the Limasawa position; and Greg Hontiveros (right), who defended the Butuan position. They pose in the above photo with Prof. Ambeth R. Ocampo, chairman of the NHI.
On June 15, 2009, the NHI Board of Directors issued Resolution No. 5, s. 2009, "Declaring as the NHI Position the Recommendation of the Committee on the Site of the First Mass on Philippine Soil." The committee concluded that "the first mass on Philippine soil was celebrated in an island now known as 'Limasawa' on Easter Sunday, 31 March 1521."
The text of the resolution is posted in the guestbook of this website.
AFTER 50 years of enigma, the text inscribed around the shoulder of the Calatagan Pot, the country�s oldest cultural artifact with pre-Hispanic writing, may have been deciphered as written in the old Bisayan language....
On April 27, 2006, Fuji TV, Japan's largest TV station, presented a documentary feature story about Leyte, its jeepney-making industry, and the work of Prof. Rolando O. Borrinaga, webmaster of this website, in its "World Caravan" program. The seven-minute feature was woven around a �thank you� letter to Professor Borrinaga, written by a Japanese student of Tokyo International University, who expressed her gratitude for the positive impact on her life of the study tour she had joined, which he had coordinated. The feature has now been posted in two parts in youtube.com, which you can access using the links above. Sorry, but the language of the entire program is Japanese.
Lecture at the Symposium on Biliran History and Culture, which preceded the book launching of Leyte-Samar Shadows: Essays on the History of Eastern Visayas at the New Audio Visual Room, Andaya Building at the Naval Institute of Technology, October 3, 2008.
Paper presented at the Historical Lecture on Naval Pueblo Day, Sangguniang Bayan Session Hall, Naval, Biliran Province, September 26, 2007.
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Welcome to the homepage of Naval, the capital town of Biliran Province in the Leyte-Samar (Eastern Visayas) region of the Philippines. We tread the less beaten path by presenting the unique history and culture of a remote provincial town rather than the usual beaches and nature sights. Through this corner of cyberspace, we hope Navalians in diaspora could bond with their cultural roots and find links with fellow Navalians and their kin in other parts of the country and around the world. Stay around, and have a wonderful time! |
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| John Donne's Meditation 17: "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main ... Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee...." |
(An NGO Perspective)
of Fisheries
Heritage of Naval
Election in 1928
(The "bolo punch" inventor)
Formation Team
INQUIRER articles since 1999)
of The Biliran Clarion issues)