IT ALMOST TOOK an eternity before a blunder is corrected in the historical data of the founding of Lopez town in Quezon Province, the roots of PH Insider columnist Ma. Gemma Arella Suguitan, better known as Gem Suguitan.
Those decades, years, days particularly on April 30s, were spent celebrating it as the Lopez Foundation Day, a “lie” passed on to local folks by leaders in various aspects of community life like parents, teachers, religious, elected politicians, businessmen etc. who didn’t bother to check on facts of the past.
Whatever was fed by its forebears were made as bible truth.
Alas, April 30 was designated as the pompous celebration of the creation and foundation of the town with colorful and over-the-top activities that apparently banked solely on the coffers of the municipio only to be debunked by Gem’s fact-checking.
It might have been a blessing in disguise that misinformation and disinformation are the current communication villains that produce fake or unchecked accounts so that the perennial info taught and oriented to the people of Lopez is under scrutiny.
Gem’s fascination for homegrown cultures and traditions, conservation of heritage, patronage of antiquities, interest in languages, both native and colloquial, among other interests, has indeed, paid off.
The other assets of Gem are her multi-disciplinary predilection and cross-regional roots.
Aside from journalism and science, she also has backgrounds in anthropology, graphic design, literature and history.
Gem’s multigenerational and geopolitical origins speak of her diverse interests as her kinships and descents’ pursuits are varied like teaching, engineering, medicine, arts etc. from Luzon.
Her paternal side comes from Ilocos Norte and her maternal bloodline flows in Lopez and elsewhere.
After college, Suguitan stayed for years in Pila town in Laguna Province and immersed herself into the arts and culture of the community.
These are concrete bases of Gem’s credibility as a polymath.
It was years before the COVID-19 pandemic that Suguitan was already doing research on the history of Lopez when she came across a very interesting and intriguing account at the archives of the National Archives of the Philippines, the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) and the National Library.
As early as 2002, Gem has the real story, the authentic history of Lopez.
She was a cultural worker at Pila, Laguna assigned to trace the history of the town so she went to the various archives in the country. Her first book at hand was written by Fr. Felix de Huertes where she got ample information about Pila.
But since she is a Lopenze or a Lopezena, she also browsed over the founding of Lopez as well and found a different world.
“The book was written by Fr. Felix de Huertas and it was a very credible read,” recalled Gem.
According to her, the book written in Spanish but has a translation in English provided rich and useful information about the subjects she was doing research on.
Other sources from Spanish to English languages at the NHCP, NAP and TNL yielded more wealth of information about the beginning of the town of Lopez.
As a loyal Lopenze, Gem, as early as 2002, had talked and provided all her research materials to Mayor Sonny Ubana but nothing had come out of their talks.
Then in 2014, according to Suguitan, she submitted them to the Sangguniang Bayan ng Lopez office which consequently filed a resolution about the subject but, again, nothing had come out of it.
Until recently, talks reached her that the resolution had been passed by the council and is now a municipal ordinance.
Then and now, she has not personally received any information about the significance and pivotal role of her research in the passage of the resolution.
Here’s Gem’s accounts: “Talolong was a sitio (sub-village) of Gumaca town in the province of Quezon, formerly Tayabas.
“Talolong was the first name of Lopez.
“Talolong the name of the river in the sitio.
“It is also the name of a plant which grew abundantly in the place.
“In a letter enclosed in the 1794 Correspondence or Expediente in 1788, the people of Talolong had requested Domingo Collantes, the Bishop of Nueva Caceres who often visited the sitio, if they could build a frontier with four walls, a stockade and a chapel made of wood.
“Gumaca didn’t want it but the bishop assigned a priest from Gumaca to serve the sitio on September 18, 1793.
“Talolong residents also asked Gumaca if their sitio could be considered as a visita (village) but it was also rejected so they sought other means with the help of the bishop.
“Finally, on June 30, 1794, Bishop Collantes gave a directive to Miguel de San Agustin, Governor of the Province of Tayabas to let the Talolong residents build frontiers or watchtowers, houses and a chapel for the safety of the citizens against the invasion of the pirates and adapt Talolong into a visita (village) for governance and justice while under the jurisdiction of Gumaca.
“On August 23, 1794, de San Agustin clarified that even if Talolong was far from Gumaca, it should be a visita which was agreed and signed by Don Rafael Maria de Aguilar, Governor-General of the Philippines. It was written in the decree that the money to be spent in the building of watchtowers, chapel and houses would come from the residents and they would coordinate with the Collantes for a speedy selection of the people who would serve justice.
“The letter was immediately sent to Collantes and to Don Luis Ynocentes, the mayor of Gumaca on October 3, 1794 for immediate action.
“Gumaca disagreed Talolong as its visita despite the decree of the Bishop and the President of the Philippines (name wasn’t mentioned) on October 2, 1794 which was ratified on March 6, 1795 so the President sent a directive on March 31, 1796 ordering a ‘perpetual silence on the case’ and no one should disobey. De Aguilar also ordered a boundary between Gumaca and Talolong and specified that both of them must have farming divisions.
“Meanwhile, in some parts of Expediente, it is written that the soil of Talolong was fertile to all kinds of vegetation especially in rice fields.
“For forty-five (45) years, from 1812 to 1857, the residents of Talolong on August 16, 1812, had petitioned that they be totally separated from Gumaca because the latter was too far from the former whether by sea or land travel. At the time, there’s already more than one thousand residents who needed common justice in disputes. They wanted to have a leader to implement the building of the chapel made of stone and assigned a priest apart from Gumaca. Sadly, the petition was disapproved because the taxpayers were not enough to consider Talolong a town.
“In 1820, though, Talolong asserted that its taxpayers had increased to 700 and reiterated its grievances of bad roads to Gumaca especially on rainy days for church services and other obligations that were only possible here.
“Still, the request wasn’t granted.
“On August 3, 1856, Don Carlos Matriano, the head of the visita, submitted a list of taxpayers, showed the photos of the chapel, convent, school and a court of justice made of wood and nipa with a disarray interior which was presented as a final update on December 24, 1856.
“On February 17, 1857, Don Candido Lopez y Diaz, then the Governor of Tayabas announced that Talolong must already be a town so he asked for a plan or a map to realize the people’s aspiration so on March 11, 1857, Matriano submitted a map. He described Talolong as a business center which could be accessed by people from other places because it was also coastal.
“Finally, on June 30, 1857, then President of the Philippines, Governor-General Fernando Norzagaray declared, to all and sundry, Talolong as a pueblo, a full-fledged town separate from Gumaca from its governance and spiritual administration.
“Norzagaray ordered that the head of the province of Tayabas saw to it that the citizens of the newly installed town be given top priority with public buildings, heightened the roads to mitigate floods, invited heads of other towns to attend the separation of Talolong, Tayabas from Gumaca by cornerstones.
“The last time Expediente mentioned the name Talolong was on October 24, 1857 while on November 17, 1857, it was noted that the name Lopez was first mentioned.
“The governor of Tayabas at the time was Candido Lopez y Diaz.
“According to the historical data of Lopez, the tinyente (lieutenant) of visita Talolong was Carlos Matriano in 1856 while Antonio Olivares was the Capitan (equivalent of Mayor) of the town in 1857.
“There was no mention as to who was the mayor of Talolong between them because they occupied the post consecutively when Talolong was declared a full-fledged town.
“It is written in the history of towns in the Philippines that the true founding date of Lopez was June 30, 1857.
“Contrary to tradition, April 30, 1856 wasn’t the founding date of the town which must be the result of former mayor (from 1910 to 1912) Uldarico Villamor who declared by virtue of the decision of the municipal council that the fiesta of the local government (Kapistahan ng Pamahalaang Bayan) be held April 30 annually.
“There are also no Spanish records that the name Don Mateo Lopez had signed petitions that Talolong be a full town. Mateo Lopez was only town mayor in 1860 when Lopez was already founded.”
Gem has played a major role in righting the wrong historical info that has been adhered to a fault by all Lopenzes.
Ma. Gemma Arella Suguitan is, indeed, as a citizen of Lopez, Quezon, one of the be-all and end-alls of Municipal Ordinance No. 2026-031.