Saturday, July 26, 2008 Carvajal: This town can be great again By Orlando P. Carvajal Break Point
BECAUSE the feast of Sta. Ana (the Blessed Virgin’s mother, hence, Jesus’ grandmother) falls squarely on my column day, I thought I would take this opportunity to greet my fellow Barilinians “Happy Fiesta” and share these thoughts on my beloved hometown.
I am currently helping edit one version of a written history of Barili and this has allowed me to pleasantly gain fresh insights into my hometown’s greatness. I have always loved my hometown since I got very sound fundamentals on how to live a meaningful life in Barili. But editing her written history has only succeeded in making me appreciate her even more.
It turns out my hometown has a very illustrious past. Diocesan records put the founding of the Parish of Sta. Ana in 1614. That was almost 400 years ago and for the longest of time Barili was the only parish in the southwest side of Cebu. With the union of Church and State during the Spanish era, the parish was the town and the town was the parish. Hence, Barili also served for a long time as a sub-capital of the province of Cebu.
Barili has produced a philanthropist in Don Pedro Cui who founded the Hospicio de San Jose, a home for the aged, the only one of its kind (privately run and funded by a foundation) in Cebu. In Journalism, I am particularly proud of Antonio Abad, editor of El Debate and La Opinion, two popular Spanish dailies in Manila in the 1920s. He was also dean of the Spanish department of the University of the Philippines. Both personalities from Barili have streets named after them in Cebu City.
During the Spanish Revolution, we had Katipuneros (Jorge Cardenas is the name that comes to mind). In the war against Japan, we had an active guerilla movement and the Barba Press operated in hiding in Barili to keep people informed and boost their morale. Not surprisingly then, Barili also had her share of freedom fighters during Martial Law.
Indeed Barili had an illustrious past. But even though she is no longer the sleepy town I grew up in, she has lost the luster of the pre-eminence she enjoyed in the past. The religious life of the town is as vibrant as ever, I believe. But politically, there are some lingering issues that prevent the town from moving forward. The parties concerned know this bar of disunity to progress but it’s nothing that our present day leaders, with all that inherited talent from their illustrious forbears, cannot solve.
Indeed, Barili can be great again not so much in the sense of bringing back her old glory as in improving the quality of life of its citizens with a new-found unity among its religious, economic, political and civic leaders. May our patron saint, Sta. Ana, keep us one in achieving this for our beloved Barili.
