(Excerpts from an unfinished book on the History of barangay Buyo)
Introduction:
To write about history of barangay Buyo is a challenge made harder by the fact that it covers a cumulative spanned of ten decades or more. Especially since you were not yet alive during those years to have experienced the story being narrated by good storytellers who had heard it from other sources or read from someone’s manuscript.
Three living persons, who are 70 years old and above but still sensible, help me with facts of the story. As a writer, my duty is to verify things which cast doubts on actual events- the correct name of persons, their involvement, the time, place, and how it happened.
The writer’s responsibilities, among others, are to the coming generations of Buyoans, for them to learn how their ancestors lived their lives, the contributions they made for the evolution of Buyo and how their genetic lineage impacted the lives of their present descendants. We, seniors of Buyo, have a responsibility to our Almighty God for being blessed with a long life to do this task of writing the history of Buyo. We, the contributors to this story, express our appreciation to our community of seniors by inviting them to look unto the history of their own beloved barangay.
Personally, I came to know that the aptitude and flair of musically-talented early settlers as well as those of early leaders had been carried forward to their descendants. Looking at many Buyoans or what became of them, then verifying their backgrounds up to their early ancestors, proved the genetic lineage still live in them.
I graciously thank Domingo ‘Butch’ Ibayan Cardano for sharing his vast recollections of the history of Buyo. From the beginning of sitio Buyo’s development, as it pertains to series of arrival of settlers, political, educational, economics, religion and other events contributory to march of time to the making of a functional community and finally its proclamation as barangay Buyo.
- The beginning
The Buyo where I was born, lived and made as my permanent address has a beautiful story to tell, for its a wonderful barangay blessed with cold mountain breeze (which I call Mandy’s breeze; writing this early morning, I am sweetly embraced by its caresses up to 7am) from its two major mountains and a few minor hills. The two bigger mountains are Palasanan mountain in the north and the Ki- Ambing mountain to the east. Few smaller hills, like Toledo hill to the west and to the east the Bailon V. Zafe Sr. hill, where an evacuation center once stood during his time but was destroyed by super typhoon Sening. Appointed Bgy. Captain Floro Panti during the Martial law years was the last to construct an evacuation center at the BVZ Sr. hill. The hills on the southern part are unnamed except for one, the Gavino Hill. It is on the left side of an elevated road few meters away from Sally’s Park. Barangay Buyo has a total land area of 8.6 hectares but only 4.2 hectares are utilized as dwelling places of Buyoans
As we unfold our story, the recorded earliest settlers were Bernardino Taller and his wife Beatriz, the sister of my grandmother Valentina Lumbao Vargas. Bernardino and Beatriz were more popularly known as Hade (king) and Beatriz (reyna).They settled their family exactly at the front half of the lot of the present Buyo Church. Hade and Reyna had three children namely; Francisco, Luciana and Bruno. Then came the 2nd wave of settlers who were adventurers; they were 1. Nicomedes Zafe, my grandfather, 2. brother Carlos Zafe, 3. Isabelo Vargas, and 4. Juan Lumbao.
Dear Catanduanes Tribune fans, I won’t bore you in reading the names of the third, up to the fifth group of settlers and also burden your eyesight. Much more if I add the names of the children of every early settler.
To backtrack for years, the future barangay of Buyo was a sitio of bgy. Sto Domingo including the kabisera of Buyo, sitio Tubaon (a future barangay) and sitio Poniton (which later became barangay Jose M Alberto).
Afterthought:
Today is the feast of San Antonio de Padua, the patron saint of barangay Buyo. The prime reason why Butch Cardano and I decided to answer the challenge of writing the History of Buyo.