Pangasinan is 430 years old
HISTORICAL FACTS UNEARTHED
LINGAYEN—If nothing else stands in the way, the province will likely observe and celebrate Pangasinan’s founding day for the first time on April 5, on the occasion of its 430th anniversary.
A special committee created by Governor Amado Espino Jr. last year has determined after painstaking research that Pangasinan, as a territory, was founded by the Spaniards on April 5, 1580.
Dr. Gonzalo Duque, former vice governor of Pangasinan and president of Lyceum-Northwestern University who chaired the committee, said their finding was based on available documents in various libraries in the Philippines and the National Historical Institute (NHI).
However, Duque and Provincial Board Member Alfonso Bince Jr. clarified that the date is not yet set in stone.
While the committee is still open to documented results of additional research that may be conducted by scholars in the future, Duque and Bince believe that the date established by the committee should already be adopted as the province’s founding day.
The year 2010 would be Pangasinan’s 430th founding anniversary.
HISTORICAL NOTES
Based on the committee’s research, Pangasinan became an encomienda on April 5, 1572 then later became a political unit in 1580 when an alcalde mayor, identified as Don Pedro Manrique, was assigned for the first time in Lingayen.
Duque explained that they relied on secondary sources like “Relacion de last Islas Filipinas” (1582), which contained the writings of Miguel de Loarca’s, chronicle during the expedition of Miguel Lopez de Legaspi.
He added that no member of the committee went to Spain to look into possible primary documents but they communicated with some institutions there to gather information.
The committee obtained information from the Archiovo de Indias document “Patronato, 24 r.19 (imagen 41) indicating the establishment of Pangasinan as an encomienda on April 5, 1572.
The NHI also sent a notice of information, which says that there is a document in microfilm stating that Pangasinan was commissioned on April 5, 1572.
RECOGNITION AS ENCOMIENDO
The April 5 date implies that it was then that Pangasinan was organized under one leadership and had an identity before the Spanish royal court finally put it under the jurisdiction of an alcalde mayor in 1580.
Once a place is declared an encomienda, the Spanish royal crown grants a person a specified number of natives for whom they were to take responsibility. The receiver of the grant, called an encomendero, was to teach the natives the Spanish language and indoctrinate them with the Catholic faith. In return, they could exact tribute from the natives.
The committee has recommended that should a provincial ordinance be legislated establishing the province’s foundation day, a colatilla (rider) be included that would state that the April 5 date shall hold true until such time that more conclusive evidence to establish the exact date of Pangasinan charter are discovered.
The provincial board has commended the committee for a job well-done.
Duque said it bodes well for Pangasinenses to know when the province was founded, quoting a popular Filipino saying: “Ang taong hindi marunong lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makakarating sa paroroonan.”
The members of the committee include, among others, Dr. Perla Legaspi, retired professor of University of the Philippines in Diliman; Mrs. Arabela Arcinue, president of the Pangasinan Historical Society, Inc.; Brian S. Fernandez of the Pangasinan Historical Society’ and Emma Mula, retired staff of the National Historical Institute, and now with the Office of the Mayor of Bayambang.—LM
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