THE PATTERN of abandonment of our provinces has not really changed in centuries.

Consider the following realities: lack of resources to address the basic needs of life; the manifest negligence of government officials; and the towns remaining in their sorry state, without being offered anything that would lead to development.

And the religious communities would only fulfill their parochial duties, being in charge of the development of the ministry.

If you think I am referring to the present, you are wrong. I refer to the 1770s, just after the Augustinian missionaries had taken over the Leyte missions from the expelled Jesuits.

At that time, an unnamed Augustinian friar complained that the local commandant, Don Pablo Verdote, was giving much suffering to the religious, for he did not want to adjust the orders of the governor [for Leyte and Samar], whose every act was a matter of pleasure and whim.

The Augustinian lamented: "I say that, in general, the earth is fertile and productive, of rice, of cows and pigs, or oil and coconut wine, have much and good wax in the mountains, excellent wood for construction, enough cocoa, tobacco, cabalonga [sic] seed, a lot of abaca or hemp and other species. In the center there is a range of high mountains the divide the Island and cause the diversity of temperaments. In the middle of these mountains there is a volcano that gives a lot of sulfur, vermilion, alum and other drug-making elements. In the ports of [H]ilongos and Carigara and others, I saw that they made galleys and sampans. The Indians are not well reduced into towns, they prefer to live in the wilderness and thick forests.

"But much of our troubles is in seeing the seas of this Island continually full of Joloan and Mindanao Moros who do not stop their piracy over there. They capture many boats of the Indians and of the Spaniards, and what I noticed was that they took more than sixty of these in one year. Though the towns have their baluartes [forts] and stone walls, with stonecutters and lantacas [cannons] corresponding to the capacity of their residents, they often do not have enough of these [structures] in the face of the superior force and armada of the Moros.

And though you fence the church and the convent, where you can gather the residents, [the Moros] light a fire by throwing lit arrows, which could roast those inside if they did not surrender or gave in to the general assault, as I have seen many times. Many thousands of Indians have been taken captive, and for which reason the best lands in the Bisayas are almost uninhabited. There is not a town that had not been taken and defeated by these damned pirates in Leyte.

"The whole Island of Leyte is much distempered by the heat, the winds, the very extensive cloudbursts that make the exit from the house almost impossible, and the dark and melancholic situation, with hurricanes and furious typhoons; with thunders, and formidable rays [of the sun] that kill some Indians every year, and with a thousand other intemperances.

"There are also many and frequent earthquakes and temblors that demolish the churches and convents, and for this reason there is continuous work and this alone is an eternal source of headache. And if the Father-Minister does not initiate the work, do not ever think that he could have a decent house, or a good church fenced with stakes, or a fort for the defense against the enemies.

"In the years of forty-three and forty-four [1743-44], there were strong earthquakes that ruined many towns and a mountain collapsed about a hundred fathoms. In the year forty-nine [1749], the volcano exploded with fire from six mouths. For two weeks the sun could not be seen by day, and the temblors lasted a whole year and continued later, resulting in pestilence, lightning and annoying rains of ash.

"In Leyte, and in all other provinces of the Bisayas and their adjacent areas, there are many snakes of all colors and shapes; the rivers, seas and lagoons are full of very carnivorous caimans or crocodiles. There are scorpions, centipedes, mites and other poisonous vermin with killer bites. The diseases are plentiful, incognito, rebellious and incurable ...

"In the Bisayas, we are like in limbo, with very little news of the world. There are no Gacetas or Mercurios [periodicals made available to priests], and neither do they want nor take these there ... Through all these you have the Indians who ordinarily live in the forests, mountains and wilderness, about three or four leagues away from the church. They come [to town] only on Sundays to hear mass and to play the roosters [cockfighting]. The two [existing] roads are bad, the sun is burning, the cloudbursts are many, the sandbars of the rivers are dangerous, the horses are few and bad, for which it is better to walk on the water, and the canoes and bancas very flimsy and weak."

Indeed, the pattern of government neglect has remained the same. Only the identities of the practitioners and the perennial victims have changed through time.

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