The Catbalogan City

 

Catbalogan City was founded or settled by priests of the Jesuit Order (Society of Jesus) sometime in October 1596 and became the cabecera (capital) of the entire island of Samar. Friar Francisco de Otazo, S.J., the first missionary to teach the Catholic faith to the people of Catbalogan, arrived in the Philippines in 1596 and created the Catbalogan Mission. Catbalogan was elevated to the status of residencia (principal house) in 1627, and among its dependencies were Paranas, where Father Pedro Estrada aggressively evangelized the area in 1629, and Calbiga, where he took whiterocks or grey limestone to use as construction blocks for the church. Catbalogan was handed up to the Franciscans by the Jesuits on October 17, 1768.  The first Franciscan parish priest was Fray Jose Fayo, OFM.

Samar was under the jurisdiction of Cebu during the early days of Spanish colonization of the Philippines in the 16th century, but was eventually constituted a separate province. The union, on the other hand, did not work out. When Samar split from Leyte and became an independent province in 1768, Catbalogan City became the provincial capital.

On May 24, 1942, during World War II, Japanese forces landed in Barrio Pangdan and occupied the capital. On December 18, 1945, American and Filipino forces liberated Catbalogan City from the Japanese.

On June 19, 1965, the Philippine Congress, along with the province’s three congressmen, Eladio T. Balite (1st District), Fernando R. Veloso (2nd District) and Felipe J. Abrigo (3rd District), approved Republic Act No. 4221 dividing Samar into three provinces, namely Western Samar, Eastern Samar and Northern Samar, respectively. Catbalogan City thus ceased to be the capital of the whole island-province after enjoying the prestige of being the premier town of Samar for 197 years since 1768. On June 21, 1969, under Republic Act No. 5650, Western Samar was renamed Samar with Catbalogan City remaining as the capital.

The greatest calamities to occur in Catbalogan City were big fires. The April 1, 1957 conflagration, considered as the most destructive one, caused damage to properties in the amount of thirty million pesos. The next was on May 19, 1969, where damage was estimated at twenty million pesos and the more than century-old Saint Bartholomew Roman Catholic Church was razed to the ground. Paradoxically, like the proverbial Phoenix, each time Catbalogan City suffered under the throes of these calamities, better buildings and infrastructures emerged from the ashes.

As early as 1960, Catbalogan already agitated to become a city. In 1969, Rep. Fernando P. Veloso sponsored House Bill No. 1867 creating Catbalogan into a city. The bill was being deliberated in the Philippine Senate, but the blaze of 1969 unfortunately caused it to be shelved. Subsequent efforts were made by Catbalogan’s political leaders, such as Mayor Jesus B. Redaja, Vice Mayor Gerardo C. Teves, Councilor Art Sherwin Gabon, Mayor Coefredo “Tekwa” Uy and Vice-Mayor Manuel Van A. Torrevillas and Representatives Antonio Eduardo B. Nachura and Catalino V. Figueroa, respectively, to make Catbalogan’s cityhood dream a reality despite strong and rabid opposition by the League of Cities of the Philippines, particularly Catbalogan City’s neighboring Calbayog under the administration of Mayor Mel Senen Sarmiento.