Past Forward
San Remigio, Cebu––Why am I not surprised? As we began the 2011 Annual Archaeological Field School at the municipal beach of San Remigio late last week, I was once again regaled by stories of pre-colonial treasures looted and carted away in the 1970s and then again in the 1980s. All this within earshot of the old municipal hall (and presumably its police station) which at that time was abutting the beach a few paces from where we were about to attempt the near-impossible: locate remnants of San Remigio’s glorious, or better still, golden past.
If we go by the stories here, the white-sand beaches of San Remigio served as burial grounds in precolonial times, with tradeware ceramics, incised and beautifully crafted earthenware pottery and gold aplenty. These were simply washed away to the sea as the tides began claiming the beach, following the disastrous and unmitigated quarrying of the town’s beach sand in the 1980s and ’90s for use as paving material for the national highway. Now, all that is left is this narrow strip of white sand.
To think that these archaeological treasures were supposed to be what remained of the looting that ravaged San Remigio’s shores in the early to late ’70s! And yet, as the tides started claiming the beaches after the scouring by backhoes and dumptrucks then, more of these artifacts were still floating away a decade after the looting ceased. At least one municipal laborer, a high school student in the 1980s, recalls simply waiting for the tides to come and wash the sand of its hidden treasures, right at where we are now, where an old high school building used to stand. Another one told me of how he observed looters from another town simply dig behind the same high school building in the 1970s. Even the gold-decorated teeth or bansil of those buried here did not escape the unscrupulous. No one seemed to care to stop them. It is quite sad really, considering that to date, there is only one specimen of a skull bearing gold-studded teeth excavated from a site in Central Philippines––that of a skull from Bantayan Island on display at the University of San Carlos Museum.
Fortunately, hope springs eternal. It seems that this old high school building was a Department of Agriculture extension office in the 1960s and that its building may have predated the looting. The other day, my students began unearthing a section of a floor with its red moralo still sticking out, barely 20 centimeters from the beach sand. Everyone is crossing his or her fingers that this floor, said to form a “T,” is the one housing the DA office later converted into four high school classrooms. This would mean that the site may yet yield its secrets to my 15 archaeology students, who are here with me and the National Museum to recover what is left of the pre-colonial dignity and prestige of the old settlement of Kanghagas, now San Remigio.
Already we are finding evidence of that glorious past: decorated earthenware shards, a piece of worked shell waster, a few fragments of blue and white ceramics. On our fifth day of this four-week excavation, morale is still high that we will find something worthy of this town’s past. And we have plenty of people telling us depressing stories of the massive looting of the past as they, too, stood by or even participated in it.
We have plenty of people to thank but as we go about our next few weeks here in San Remigio, let me thank Archbishop Jose Palma and Fr. Frtiz Malinao for allowing us to excavate a portion of the church grounds. I also wish to thank both Gov. Gwendolyn F. Garcia and Mayor Jay L. Olivar for providing us with the necessary logistics in terms of accommodations and transportation for our equipment and personnel as well as the tents that help keep us less darker than we ought to be by now. My personal thanks also to Darwin Hagnaya and Ruth Hermoso, both of the San Remigio municipal government for helping us settle and adjust so easily in this beautiful and scenic town.
Tales of looting in San Remigio
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| The Municipal Beach, once the site of a high school building and unfortunately one of the beachfront properties looted in the 1970s and then again in the 1980s. |
If we go by the stories here, the white-sand beaches of San Remigio served as burial grounds in precolonial times, with tradeware ceramics, incised and beautifully crafted earthenware pottery and gold aplenty. These were simply washed away to the sea as the tides began claiming the beach, following the disastrous and unmitigated quarrying of the town’s beach sand in the 1980s and ’90s for use as paving material for the national highway. Now, all that is left is this narrow strip of white sand.
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| Saved from looters, these two earthenware pots were accidentally dug up by a resident building a house about a block from where we are excavating now. |
To think that these archaeological treasures were supposed to be what remained of the looting that ravaged San Remigio’s shores in the early to late ’70s! And yet, as the tides started claiming the beaches after the scouring by backhoes and dumptrucks then, more of these artifacts were still floating away a decade after the looting ceased. At least one municipal laborer, a high school student in the 1980s, recalls simply waiting for the tides to come and wash the sand of its hidden treasures, right at where we are now, where an old high school building used to stand. Another one told me of how he observed looters from another town simply dig behind the same high school building in the 1970s. Even the gold-decorated teeth or bansil of those buried here did not escape the unscrupulous. No one seemed to care to stop them. It is quite sad really, considering that to date, there is only one specimen of a skull bearing gold-studded teeth excavated from a site in Central Philippines––that of a skull from Bantayan Island on display at the University of San Carlos Museum.
Fortunately, hope springs eternal. It seems that this old high school building was a Department of Agriculture extension office in the 1960s and that its building may have predated the looting. The other day, my students began unearthing a section of a floor with its red moralo still sticking out, barely 20 centimeters from the beach sand. Everyone is crossing his or her fingers that this floor, said to form a “T,” is the one housing the DA office later converted into four high school classrooms. This would mean that the site may yet yield its secrets to my 15 archaeology students, who are here with me and the National Museum to recover what is left of the pre-colonial dignity and prestige of the old settlement of Kanghagas, now San Remigio.
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| Candice Canete and Yoyong Suarez learning the use of line level string and meter tape, two of the most important work of archaeologists to provide an artifact's provenience, something that looters and treasure hunters do not care to do. |
Already we are finding evidence of that glorious past: decorated earthenware shards, a piece of worked shell waster, a few fragments of blue and white ceramics. On our fifth day of this four-week excavation, morale is still high that we will find something worthy of this town’s past. And we have plenty of people telling us depressing stories of the massive looting of the past as they, too, stood by or even participated in it.
We have plenty of people to thank but as we go about our next few weeks here in San Remigio, let me thank Archbishop Jose Palma and Fr. Frtiz Malinao for allowing us to excavate a portion of the church grounds. I also wish to thank both Gov. Gwendolyn F. Garcia and Mayor Jay L. Olivar for providing us with the necessary logistics in terms of accommodations and transportation for our equipment and personnel as well as the tents that help keep us less darker than we ought to be by now. My personal thanks also to Darwin Hagnaya and Ruth Hermoso, both of the San Remigio municipal government for helping us settle and adjust so easily in this beautiful and scenic town.
back old high school building we found 1 pot...during my high school days...
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