URDANETA CITY–A 7-million Urdaneta Park will be built soon in honor of Father Andres de Urdaneta, the Spanish Augustinian priest after whom this city was named.

The project, a joint undertaking of the National Commission on Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and the city government, will cover a 2,000-square meter lot in front of the new city hall.

Mayor Amadeo Perez Jr. said he is scheduled to sign a memorandum of agreement with NCCA officials led by its executive director, Cecille Guidote Alvarez, on June 25 in Manila.

NCCA will provide P4 million of the project cost while the city will put up a counterpart fund of P3 million, which has already been given the go signal by the city council through  a supplemental budget approved last week.

Perez said the park design and construction, including the statue of Father Urdaneta, will be overseen and implemented by four national artists including Antonio Abueva.

“There is no other  town or city that was named after Father Andres de Urdaneta except our city which explains why in Spain, especially in his birthplace Ordizia, they find Urdaneta City a valuable sister city because it was named after a local son,” Perez said.

Ordizia Mayor Jose Miguel Santa Maria Ezia visited here last year upon learning of the town named after one of their honored sons.

Ordizia has initiated and will be funding several developmental projects for Urdaneta.

Father Urdaneta, born in 1498, was a sailor, scholar, and navigator.

He was tasked by the King of Spain to stand as navigator to log in the route for the second expedition sent out to the Philippines following Ferdinand Magellan’s unplanned arrival in the archipelago.

Magellan’s journey had no record of the actual route from Spain to the Philippines as his fleet was supposed to be enroute to the Spice Islands.

The mayor said the King of Spain decided to organize another expedition headed by Miguel Lopez de Legazpi to trace the route Magellan took in coming to the Philippines and the expedition. Fr. Andres de Urdaneta was the navigator for the expedition.

 Perez said because of Urdaneta’s achievement in discovering and tracing the route of Magellan, he is considered a hero in Spain.

He pointed out that when the town was first established in 1858, it was another Spanish priest, Father Manzano, who initiated moves to name the town after Fr. Urdaneta.

On June 25 and 26, the Urdaneta 500 Commission in cooperation with San Agustin Museum, NCAA, Embassy of Spain, Instituto Cervantes will hold a conference about the life and legacy of Andres de Urdaneta in Manila. #

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