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(Editor’s note: The Sixth
Dr. Jose P. Rizal Awards for Excellence awarding ceremony will be
held on June 14, 2008, 7 p.m., at the Kaisa-Angelo King Heritage
Center on Anda and Cabildo streets, Intramuros, Manila.)
By Go Bon Juan
I’ve always wondered why the
local Chinese media call “Batangas” Ba-tang-an. The Chinese
translate names of places by choosing Chinese characters that sound
like the local name. So if the local name has two syllables, two
Chinese characters are used.
Batangas consists of four
syllables if read the Chinese way, with “s” considered one
syllable (Ba-tan-ga-s). That is why it has always puzzled me that
only three Chinese characters are used for Batangas. Pronounced Ba-tang-an,
the Chinese translation sounds quite different from the original
word. This is the only case among the Chinese names of Philippine
places.
The puzzle was clarified when I
read a coffee-table book on Batangas City published by Tao
Management. I came to learn that the original name of Batangas is
Batangan. In fact, the book’s very title, Puntong Batangan,
provides the answer that had eluded me for years.
In Tagalog, batang means trunk
log or tree trunk, and batangan means place of tree trunks. The
book’s author, Marian Pastor Roces, said the place that eventually
became the municipality of Batangas was once said to be full of
floating tree trunks.
Based on Batangan, Batangas
Timeline until the town became a City in 1969, Batangas was called
Batangan from 1575 to 1635.
“When in 1575, Batangan was
originally established as a ‘visita’ or small place of worship
administered from Calapan, Mindoro, the priest place it under the
patronage of San Nicolas Tolentino. In due course, when a church was
finally established in 1614 and the town was recognized as separate
from Calapan, Batangas was placed under the patronage of the
Immaculate Conception,” Roces said.
She added, “Today’s Batangas
residents will refer to the Santo Niño when asked about the virgin
of their town. The conjecture: The Santo Niño was discovered atop a
floating tree trunk, ‘batang,’ at the mouth of the Kalumpang
River. The story has it that this child Christ of Cebu was lent to
Batangas—the place of floating tree trunks—and on its way back
to Cebu was found missing from the ship it was on. The only
historically accurate part of the story is likely the place name.
Trunks of trees washing out into Batangas Bay, such as this long
length of ipil, would have been a remarkable enough sight to be
carried in the collective memory of generations.”
Based on a map of Batangas of
1700 to 1800 with a list of “Batangan Villages Recovered—the
18th century in the Roman Catholic Church Records,” Books 2 (1710
to 1769), 3 (1759 to 1769), 4 (1762 to 1771) and 5 (1771 to 1777) of
Baptismal Records, Batangas was then referred to as Batangan. But in
the map of 1800 to the 1850s, with a list of “Batangas Villages
recorded in the early 19th century in the Roman Catholic Church
Records,” Batangas was already known as Batangas.
Unfortunately, Puntong Batangan
fails to explain when and why Batangan became Batangas. What is
interesting, though, is the local Chinese media have apparently
stuck to the original name Batangan. What is equally interesting is
it must have been a long tradition for the local Chinese to call
Batangas as Batangan. This is yet another proof of the close ancient
relations between China and the Philippines.
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