Balete in the Historia Geografica, Geologica y Estadistica de Filipinas

One of the gems on local history of the Rare Books and Manuscripts section of the National Library of the Philippines is a published material, Historia Geografica, Geologica y Estadistica con Datos Geograficos, Geologicos y Estadisticas de las Islas de Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao y Jolo, y los que Corresponden a las Islas Batanes, Calamianes, Balabac, Mindoro, Masbate, Tigao y Burias, situadas al n.so. y s. de Luzon. It was written by Don Agustin de la Cavada y Mendez de Vigo and was published in Manila in the year 1876 by Imprinta de Ramirez y Giraudier.

Don dela Cavada was the founder of a news weekly paper called La Estrella which made debut on October 4, 1846. He also spearheaded the Philippine census of 1870 where of the 4,653,263 population of the Philippines then, only 114,463 spoke Spanish. He was by then the treasurer of the Hacienda which monopolized the Tobacco industry. These backgrounds prepared him to publish such material of extensive data in the few years that follow.

Helen Blair however observed that despite the "arsenal of data" found in the book, the author missed the mark for failing to make topical index and making a halo-halo out of such good materials. Moreover some figures and dates listed therein as to the years of establishment of certain pueblos contravened with those found in some foremost authority of Philippine History (e.g. Font [1892], Medina [1893], Perez [1901], Casiano [1919]).

Even then, we find that we have no other choice but accept (for the time being) his attestation that Balete(Capiz)was established in the year 1804 with a population of 3,089. We are hard put in verifying this claim for lack of other materials. We have fallen already in a trap when we assumed years before that Balete was created as the 33rd pueblo in the Province of Capiz in 1826 basing on the account of a certain Julian Peñalosa. We are to give credit to Don de la Cavada basing on his extensive experience vis-a-vis the census of 1870. After all he preceded Font, Medina et al. and it is easy for us to assume that his sources were themselves authoritative in their respective fields of endeavors given his connections with the proper authority.

Right now, we are proposing the organization of a research team to "scan" the National Archives and the National Library for possible extant manuscripts or documents that could substantiate the findings that we have had. Volunteer researchers would be very much welcome as well.