POLITICAL HISTORY OF LGU BALBALAN The Spaniards made at least 10 incursions2 into the land of the Kalingas from

the early 1600s to the late 1800s, four of which were made from the west (Abra) mainly targeting the regions of Banao and Guinaang (Scott 1974, 2; Bacdayan 1967, 17; Lawless 1975, 43-45). Although they succeeded in the mid-1800s in establishing a telegraph station in Balbalasang -- where, incidentally, Juan Puyao was made gobernadorcillo (Sugguiyao 1990, 15) -- and subsequently hacking out an Ilocos-Abra-Kalinga-Cagayan trail, they failed to establish a total politico-military foothold in Kalingaland (Bacdayan, 17-18; Dozier 1966, 29-32). It is safe to say, then, that prior to the establishment of American rule over Kalinga, the ethnic sub-groups covered by the present geopolitical configuration of Balbalan were, like other Kalinga communities at that time, organized according to an indigenous a bilateral kinship group based on blood relations and circumscribed by territorial boundaries.1 (Barton 1949, 32; cf. Dozier 1967,12 f). This period saw the rise of several community leaders often mentioned in Balbalan orature: Sagaoc, Balutoc, Masadao, Gaddawan, Dawegoy, Lang-ayan, Bayudang, Gammong, et al. FIRST ATTEMPT. 1663-1664. The first Spanish attempt to establish some sort of a colonial outpost in the lower part of the Chico River Valley took place between 1663 and 1664. This first attempt to penetrate into the hinterland and make the inhabitants bow in subjection to Spain was immediately repulsed by a fierce and rapacious warriors of the Gamunang ethnic group. (Sugguiyao, 13) SECOND ATTEMPT. ...in the early part of 1783, two sincere Spanish missionaries after friendly contacts with the Gamunangs, were able to establish a missionary outpost above the present St. Williams College in Bulanao. They wer Father Zubieta and Father Loyola... (Sugguiyao, 14)... [After] military and civilian authorities were sent from Cagayan... It did not take long when the Gamunangs and other ethnic groups all around, saw in the foreign authorities clear evidence of greed, exploitation and even physical abuses. Finally in 1785, the Gamunangs, broke forth into an open revolt against the Spanish authorities... In November 1785, Captain Guillermo Galves with 250 strong and well trained men, was sent from Guilllermo Galves in March 1786, saw the utter futility of purshing his military attempts at subduing Page Cagayan to quell the revolting Kalinga warriors... Reeling amidst the reality of heavy casualties, Captain
Why Balbalan? It is said that war parties coming from certain areas in northern Kalinga used to meet by a creek when mapping out their plan of attack against or when regrouping after attacking a certain village. Since they would always wash (balbal, in the local language) their blood-stained bodies and weapons in the creek, the place came to be known as Balbalan. (DILG-CAR 1999, 307)

the Kalingas... The victorious Kalinga warriors burned all the Spanish establishments in Bulanao. For reasons we do not know until now the chapel and the convent were spared... (Sugguiyao, 14-15) THIRD ATTEMPT. In 1896, the Spanish local government in Bontoc established a military outpost at Basao, Tinglayan. At that time, however, Basao was not considered part of the Kalinga area....Simultaneously during the same period, the Spaniards in Abra also established a military outpost in Balbalasang, Balbalan. Imposing forced labor on the Tinguians in Abra, they were able to make a good horse trail to Balbalasang, Balbalan from where the leaders were taken to Bangued for oath or allegiance to Spain. According to the late Ex-Municipal Mayor Juan Puyao who was made governadorcillo of Balbalasang, the leaders were taken to Bangued who were also made to promise assistance to the Spaniards found in the interior of Kalinga. But the period was then the height of the Philippine Revolution against Soain. So the Spanish soldiers in Balbalasang and Basao were pulled to the Lowlands perhaps to join the rest against the Katipunan. (Sugguiyao, 15) - Apparently the first contact between Spaniards and Southern Kalingas came in 1835 when Guillermo Galvey made an expedition deep into ABra Province to Baay where some Guinanes came to meet him. Three years later Galvey [next page] established a military post in Bucay, Abra... In 1842 Jose Maria Penaranda attacked villages in the Banao region around Balbalasang, Balbalan, and in 1844 he made an expedition against Guinaang. Many of the Spanish expeditions in the 1800s were to destroy the Mounterneers tobacco crops, on which the Spaniards wanted monopoly. In 1849 the Spanish government ordered a horse trail from Abra Province through Guinaang to Cagayan Province. Parts of this wide, well-made horse trail are still used from Guinaang to Ableg... The Spaniards in 1859 created the Commandancia Politico-Militar de Saltan in Tabuk Municipality where the Saltan River joins the Chico River, but it does not seem to have been a particularly active enterprise. [Lawless 1975, 44-45] ++++++++++++++ Kalinga territory was at first administered from Bontoc Town with the establishment of the American civil government in 1902, but that unit proved too cumbersome, and in 1907 Kalinga Subprovince was separated...it was to include all Kalinga country west of the Cagayan River, including the Saltan River drainage basin; however, the Abra Province boundary (then actually Ilocos Sur Province) was drawn Page along the peaks dividing the eastern and western flow of rivers, thus politically cutting off most of the

Western Kalingas from the other Kalingas... [Hale] ... moved to higher ground at Lubuagan Poblacion in July 1908. [Lawless 1975, 49] ======= 1878 and 1880 when the Spaniards set up a telegraph station in Balbalasang (Scott The Discovery, 249). - About this time Schadenberg and Meyer visited the area (Scott, Discovery 313) - Q: to which geopolitical unit did Balbalan/Kalingaland belong? (see Spanish Map) - In 1877 Governor General Domingo Moriones dispatched an Army engineer, Captain Emilio Hernazes with 40 soldiers, to explore the Gran Cordillera to the east of Bucay, Abra with a view to opening a road from Abra to Cagayan for the purpose of providing direct communications between military forces in the Cagayan Valley and the ILocos coast, an easy route to encourage Ilocano migration to the tobacco, coffee and cacao plantations of Cagayan and Isabela, and to control the independent Tinguian and Kalinga tribes... along the way... [Captain Evaristo de Liebana y Trincada]... from November 1879 to May 1880... pushed the trail and telegraph line to Talalang (Salegseg, KalingaApayao) with an even larger force... [Scott Notes on the History of the Mountain Provinces - IV 1974, 12] American Occupation Governor Walter Hale ... perceived the genius of several Kalinga institutions, fortified them, and game them a field wherever they could be useful. (Barton, 147) Long before the beginning of the American regime in the Philippines, the Bodong system has already established boundaries of the individual Kalinga Ili the equivalent of the present day barrio or barangay. The original Kalinga Ili comprised of either a single group of dwellings or sitios scattered in a certain area where the inhabitants owe a deep sense of belonging to the entire group occupying a certain territory they call their own. The boundaries of these ancestral abodes are definityely delineated not only to avoid dispute among the settlers but also to pinpoint the land areas of responsibility of the peace pact holders. Seen from this vantage point the Bodong is some sort of a miniature pact of treaty of inter-village relationship sustained by long years of traditional practice and conventions. (Sugguiyao, Page 48)

- On March 4, 1907, the whole of Kalinga was made a sub-province of Lepanto-Bontoc which included Tagudin and Cervantes. On the same date Walter F. Hale, the incumbent Lieutenant Governor of the sub-province of Amburayan was ordered by Manila to transfer to Kalinga. [He] started with his whole family to Kalinga known at that time as sub-province of Itawes. Arriving at Bulanao on May 9, 1907, he established his headquarters at Bulanao...Arriving in Lubuagan on August 18, 1907, Lieutenant Governor Hale and his staff started organizing a local government whic included Tinglayan and Tanudan; Balbalan including Pasil and Pinukpuk which included Togog now named Tabuk and Liwan now Rizal...On August 18, 1908, by operation of Act 1870 of the Philippine Commission, the Mountain Province was created inclusive of the [end of page 16 here] subprovinces of Benguet, Ifugao, Bontoc, Kalinga and Apayao...the law also provided that each of the sub-provinces be divided into municipal districts to be headed by municipal district presidents...the subprovince of Kalinga was then subdivided into five municipal districts to be headed by municipal district presidents... Lubuagan which included Tanudan and Pasil except the village of Balinciagao; Balbalan which included Balinciagao; Tabuk which included Liwan now Rizal; Tinglayan and Pinukpuk...(Sugguiyao, 17) ...Hale usually appointed the most effective leaders as barrio captains and lieutenants... [The barrio captains/barrio councillors]: Dantugon (Mabongtot, Lubuagan), Canao (Dupag-Naneng, Tabuk), Cayabo (Balatoc, Lubuagan), Cayo (Ga-ang, Lubuagaon), Pinading (Lubo, Lubuagan), Gallamoy (Linas, Lubuagan), Dallapas (Mabileng, Lubuagan), Mayam (Pantikian, Balbalan) (Sugguiyao, 19) 1934 Elections (1st). Puyao did not run; Awigan became municipal district president, title soon changed to Municipal District Mayor in December 1937 (Sugguiyao, 23) - Puyao served under five subprovincial chief executives: Walter F. Hale (1907-1915), Alex F. Gilfilan (1915), Samuel E. Kane (1915-1919), Tomas Blanco (1918-1923), and Nicasio Balinag (1923-1936) (Sugguiyao, 22complete list) - Balbalan became a regular municipality in 1959 as the old Mt. Province was elevated from special to a regular first class province with revenues comparable to many provinces in the lowlands under the same category... municipal districts in the subprovince became regular municipalities...November 1959 the first regular elections were held throughout the Mountain Province. For the subprovince of Kalinga the first regularly elected municipal mayors were... Pedro Sagalon (Balbalan) (Sugguiyao, 23) Page

On June 18, 1966 the Division Bill otherwise known as Republi Act No. 4695...divide[d] the Mtountain Province into four autonomous provinces...Kalinga-Apayao was born. (Sugguiyao, 24) December 17, 1907 Hale announces to 201 Kalinga pangats and their ladies that the subprovince be called not Itawes but Kalinga. (Sugguiyao, 25) - Aguinaldos flight: This policy climaxed with Act No. 1876 on August 18, 1908 to when the Mountain Province was created with the following as sub-provinces: Amburayan, Apayao, Benguet, Bontoc, Ifugao, Kalinga, and Lepanto. The province was headed by an American governor with Lieutenant governors, also Americans, for each of the sub-provinces. (De Los Reyes 28) - 1908 saw the establishment of Balbalan as a regular municipal unit, along with Lubuagan, etc. with Juan Puyao as its first municipal president; Former Congressman of the Old Mt. Province Alfredo Lamen once introduced a bill seeking to rename Balbalan Juan Puyao and Lubuagan Antonio Canao (Finin 194) - Lt. Gov. Walter Hale : Walter F. Hale, Lieutenant governor of Kalinga form 1908 to 1915 and Gallmans closest counterpart as a white apo used many of the same methods in dealing with the Kalingas. (Jenista, 70) . He stayed on in nearby Balbalan, Kalinga, refused to assist the new governor (Samuel Kane) and after persuasion failed was forcibly disarmed by the constabulary officer in Lubuagan and escorted out of the province in 1916. Soon after Hales departure American government in Kalinga began to resemble that in other provinces on the Cordillera, for Hale... (Jenista 259) Japanese Occupation - via Abraon May 10, 1942 Japs enter Kalinga via Abra and establish HQ in Lubuagan on 12 May. Garrison established in Salegseg, Balbalan (one of the thre Lubuagan and Calanan, Tabuk) Contemporary Apparently, at the grassroots, the people still considered their indigenous political organizations as basic to their community life and the ones they reposed their trust and loyalty. Thus even while the Page local government was establishing its network, the traditional system remained the primary means

bywhich social control was maintained in their areas. They served as a venue for genuine democratic participation in decision-0making one familiar to htme having been continuously shaped by their own experiences, buffged by their own genius for their self-defined needs. (De Los Reyes, vol 2, 104) Works Cited: Bacdayan, Albert. The Peace Pact System of the Kalingas in the Modern World. Ann Arbor, MI: Barton, Roy F. The Kalingas: Their Institutions and Custom Law. Chicago: The University of Chicago De Los Reyes, Angelo J. & Aloma M. De Los Reyes, eds. Igorot: A People Who Daily Touch the Earth and Press, 1949. University Microfilms, Inc., 1967.

Sky. Vol. II. Baguio City: Cordillera Schools Group, 1986. DILG-CAR. Cordillera Almanac Vol. 1 : Local Government Units. Baguio City: DILG-CAR, 1999. Dozier, Edward P. Mountain Arbiters: The Changing Life of a Philippine Hill People. Tucson, AZ: The
________________. The Kalinga of Northern Luzon, Philippines. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Finin Gerard A. The Making of the Igorot: Contours of Cordillera Consciousness. Manila: Ateneo de Jenista, Frank Lawrence. The White Apos: American Governors on the Cordillera Central. Quezon City: Lawless, Robert. The Social Ecology of the Kalingas of Northern Luzon. Ann Arbor, MI: Xerox University Scott, William Henry. Notes on the History of the Mountain Provinces IV. University of Baguio Microfilms, 1975. New Day Publishers, 1987. Manila University Press, 2005. 1967. University of Arizona Press, 1966.

Journal, IX-1 (1974).

Guild, 1975.

_________________, ed. German Travelers on the Cordillera (1860-1890). Manila: Filipiniana Book _________________. The Discovery of the Igorots: Contacts with the Pagans of Northern Luzon. Sugguiyao, Miguel. The Kalinga Hilltribe of the Philippines. Manila: ONCC, 1990. UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1974

POLITICAL LEADERSHIP The late Juan Puyao was not only recognized as a prominent leader in his own Balbalan corner but also Page

in the whole Kalinga as well as the whole undivided Mountain Province. Since his demise in 1948 to

the present (1982), no one among the descendants of the late Ex-President Juan PUyao has gained the limelight in Kalinga leadership. (Sugguiyao, 39)
1

Barton referred to these territories as regions, which is perhaps roughly equivalent to what the ) Note,

German traveller __ Schadenberg called province, as in the Banao province (Scott 1975, from Inalangan down the Saltan River to Salegseg referred to themselves as Banao people.
2

however, that, according to Scott (1975, 313), there was no such village as Banao, although people

Kalinga elder and historian Miguel Sugguiyao (1990, 13-15) has three on his list, but this writer

believes that there had been more, based on the documents cited.

Kalinga society is based primarily on the bilateral kinship group, a development of the tribal principle of social organization (the blood tie), and secondarily on a territorial unit, hereafter called the rigion, which consisits of certain villages and their surrounding lands within defined boundaries... The household consists of husband and wife, their children, and servants and other dependents, if any... is the economic unit... (Barton, 32) Custom Law 84-135; The regional unit 137-208; 218-252 THE NAME 14 Barangays: Ababa-an, Balantoy, Balbalan Proper, Balbalasang, Buaya, Dao-angan, Gawa-an, Mabaca, Maling, Pantikian, Poblacion (Salegseg), Poswoy, Talalang and Tawang.

Page