When Eustaquio Joson became the first Lieutenant Governor of the subprovince of Catanduanes in 1905, he made it his explicit priority “to unite Catanduanes into a compact community.” Surely he was referring to political unity, but an even more basic and practical consideration was physical, geographic integration. So Joson had in mind the building of roads connecting the towns. Back then, it was yet a far cry from the present easy accessibility of the various municipalities through the 360° tour on well paved circumferential road network that can be done in twelve hours. At the turn of the 20th century, Catanduanes was a mere collection of eight towns separated by rugged and formidable terrains that can be covered only through tedious travel. During that time, the only road from the capital Virac worthy of wheeled conveyance was the one to Bato and possibly to Calolbon. For the rest, it was either on foot or horseback along narrow mountain trails. Otherwise one took a boat, which would have been convenient considering that the towns were mostly coastal.
To illustrate the difficulty of town-to-town travel during the pre-war days, we give two examples. Firstly, pilgrims from Virac to Viga took about two days of hiking, with a night stop-over in Oco. On the other hand, I heard from my father how his own father (my Iyoy Gorio) worked for the business outfit of the Chinese So Yu as bagman. His task was to fetch revenues from Viga, consisting of a good quantity of coins which he carried in a canvas bag (bagman ngani baga). But Iyoy Gorio would leave for Viga early in the morning and would be back in the wee hours of the next day. He took only about ten hours what others did for triple that time. People would attribute that special ability to an anting-anting, and for which my grandfather earned the moniker “Kalasukas” which refers to the planet Venus which people mistook for a star that travels fast along the firmament.
During the Spanish period, there was not much reason to travel through the towns. Catanduanes was not yet a singular political unit; the municipal presidents directly reported to the governor of Albay. If ever, it would have been for island-wide administrative purpose. But it must not have been such a compelling incentive. Even during the American regime, the provincial government of Albay chronically neglected Catanduanes in its administrative oversight due to reason of geographic isolation.
But there were at least two documented round-the-island travelling during the Spanish period. First in the late 18th century by the bishop of Naga, and the other in the late 19th century by a Spanish explorer. Theirs would be the first known 360◦◦ tour of Catanduanes. Looking into the chronicles of these journeys affords us an intimate view of how life was in this island of our affections two or three centuries ago.
The first was occasioned by the pastoral visit of Bishop Domingo Collantes, a Dominican who served as the 18th Bishop of Nueva Caceres. The accounts here are wholly based on a facebook post that appeared June 19, 2025 on the account of Fr. Dennis Surban. The write-up, titled “An Estado Kan Simbahan Sa Catanduanes Kan Taon 1792” contained Fr. Surban’s Bicol translation from the original Spanish chronicle of Bishop Collantes’ visit. But Collantes was not the first prelate to reach Catanduanes. The honor belongs to his immediate predecessor, Msgr. Juan Antoni de Orbigo who did the trip about a decade before but had to cut it short because he fell sick from a chocolate drink laced with poison.
But that setback did not deter Collantes. On July 8, 1792, he started his trip to Catanduanes from Gubat, Sorsogon. Due to unfavorable weather condition, he made a round-about, sailing first to Rapurapu, then to Tabaco from where he took the push to Virac where he arrived on July 17. But the pastoral visit proper will have to commence in Viga, which then was the religious center of the island. To get there, he and his team first walked along the sea shore to Bato river where they took a boat northward to a place called Tagbac where they had made a stop-over for the night, building for themselves provisional sleeping shelter. Then they hiked though mountain passes until reaching another river, one that meandered through Viga territory and emptied into the Pacific Ocean. They crisscrossed this water way twenty times in order to reach Viga town proper. All that took some three days’ worth of tedious journeying.
In Viga, Collantes fulfilled the mandates of a pastoral visit. Mainly he said mass, administered the sacrament of confirmation and looked into various aspects of institutional church functions. He took note of the church building, the convento, the necessary appurtenances (icons, vestments, furnishings, decors, etc.) and minded particularly whether the tabernacle of the Holy Sacrament was maintained properly. He inspected church records (the libros canonicos that kept tab of baptisms, weddings, deaths) to see if they were in order.
From Viga they proceeded to the visitas of the district, namely Tambongon, Payo, Bagamanoc, Pandan and Caramoran. Similarly, travel to these parts were variations on the same theme as the one that obtained from Virac to Viga. From Caramoran, they took the long haul going down south, to the district of Virac which covered several visitas namely that of Codon, Calolbong, Cabugao, Bato and Baras. In all, there were four priests serving in Catanduanes, two each for the two districts. One can only imagine the heroic efforts of these men of the habit covering such terrain of operations.
There were three houses of worship made of stone: that of Virac, Payo and Calolbong. The one of Viga was destroyed by an earthquake beyond repair and the one in Bato was yet unfinished. All the rest were of light materials of wood, bamboo and nipa or cogon thatching. Uniformly, the priest’s quarters were of light materials. Collantes’ chronicle made special mention describing the state of affairs in the Virac district, of how the facilities and appurtenances were commendable, including gold and silver items.
Aside from the patently religious aspects, Collantes made observations about more secular matters that hinted on the milieu of daily living in the communities. He made mention of the presence of a capitan and juez de justicia. Typically, the casa real or government quarters were of light materials (wood, bamboo, nipa/cogon). Good roads were limited to town centers. There were, too, the ubiquitous presence of castillos or observation towers along the coasts intended to detect in-coming Moro raiders. Note that the visit was made just about four decades after the notorious 1754 raids. A keen observer, Collantes (or the chronicler of his team) described, too, the geographic features, taking note of mountains, rivers, plains and valleys and the sea and naming them according to the local terms. Of Bato, mention were made of agricultural crops
In all, it took the team of Bishop Collantes some three weeks to complete the pastoral visit that followed the circumferential route, starting in Virac and went counter-clockwise to the east, then up north to the tip (Pandan) then turning south on the western flank all the way back to Virac. Nag three-sixty nga sina Bishop kan panahon ning suanoy, na dai pa ang Paraiso ni Honesto.
Almost a century after the bishop, another documented account of a complete tour of Catanduanes was undertaken by a Spanish explorer Juan Alvarez Guerra. In the course of his sojourn through Albay, he made a side trip to Catanduanes being a part of that province. His experience was recorded in a book “Viajes por Filipinas, De Manila a Albay” published in 1887. From Tabaco, he crossed the Lagonoy Gulf by boat for six hours to Calolbon. From there he did town-hopping taking the counter-clockwise direction to Virac and then eastward to Bato. Then he negotiated the push to Viga northward, proceeded to Payo, Bagmanoc, Pandan and Caramoran. Going south on the western side of the island, he travelled back to Calolbon and then to Tabaco.
He must have hired locals to serve as guides and conveyors. The short distances of two to four hours he traversed by being carried in a hammock (such as Calolbon to Virac, Pandan to Caramoran). Payo to Bagamanoc was the only occasion he rode a wheeled conveyance, a caromata. From Bagamanoc to Tabobo (Tabugoc?) he took a boat and transferred to a hammock to Pandan. The Bato to Viga hurdle was most forbidding. It took him up to 20 hours through virgin mountain wilderness and river crossings. As regards the distance between Caramoran to close in from where he started in Calolbon, he did not bother to describe it at length except to say that “it was long journey.” At this time he would have been too exhausted.
Making only short stops in the town centers, it appeared that Guerra was only out to do a physical survey of the island’s terrain. He took note of mostly geographic and demographic information, names of places and their etymologies, and rudimentary description of the livelihood of the people. He did not bother to do any intimate accounting of the natives: not their character, not their daily routines nor their customs and much less their thoughts. Aside from the lone full-blooded European resident he came across with, and surely the religious clerics (which he said were all natives), there were none to talk to, complaining that the Spanish language was practically alien among the people including the principales so much so that gobernadorcillos were elected by dispensing of the requirement of knowledge of the lingua franca of governance. As such, Guerra mused that the natives would live and die without knowing what Spain was all about apart from the colors of her flag, granting that there were any displayed in the few government establishments.
One specifically interesting information culled from Guerra’s account was that there were 355 children receiving some basic formal instruction in schools in the various towns which could have only been maintained by the religious. It gave a good picture of the state of basic education in the island.
Guerra noted that Catanduanes had fertile lands that yielded bountiful crops such as rice, corn, cotton, abaca, buri and coconut. The forests were abound with good lumber, games, honey and bees wax. Pandan had ranches devoted to cows and carabaos.
Even so, Guerra concluded his accounts with unflattering estimation of the island and its people. All he saw was tedious sameness of the uncomplicated lives the people led. Not having been able to take even a bit of inroad into the psyche of the Catandunganons, he simply assumed their utter lack of aspiration and sense of the world, given the island’s sheer isolation. Indeed, at the end of his sojourn Guerra felt “tired of body and dejected of spirit to see the backwardness of the island of Catanduanes.” He felt only relief to at last leave the island. But beyond the gloomy regard of Catandungan society by a cosmopolitan Spaniard, what can be gleaned from Guerra’s accounts is that the impact of Spanish presence remained minimal even late in the three centuries of colonial rule. Which may as well be an advantage: Catanduanes, by its sheer isolation, was shielded from the worst impact of colonization.
But Guerrá’s description of Catanduanes of the last two decades of Spanish occupation, for all its worth, must be taken against the fact that the abaca boom would pick up after that point in time. The utter isolation would have been breached by business interests coming in from the outside that must have changed considerably the economic circumstances of the people and surely the socio-political landscape.
Anyhow, the two three-sixty journeys of the 18th and 19th century were very rare occasions of experiencing Catanduanes on the broad scale, that would have been inaccessible to ordinary Catandunganons. During those times, locals didn’t have a good imagination of what Catanduanes as a whole looked like. Maps were not in wide circulation; they were instruments of colonial control. Most people knew of their milieu only within perhaps a couple of kilometres around. Folk from the northern towns live and die without having intimate knowledge of Virac and vice-versa; places at the other side of the mountain, or beyond the river, were mostly stories heard of fabled proportions. And more so of those yonder the seas.
Such a far cry from the present. Now we are able to sing of “An samuyang isla, an isla ning Catandungan/Na naglataw-lataw, sa parte kaining Silangan. . .” which we have made into an independent province, to which we profess abiding love, pride and loyalty, and which we are able to physically cover in just ten hours of circumferential ride in an aircon van moving smoothly along concrete roads.