The Province of Ilocos Norte

The Province of Ilocos Norte

Ilocos Norte is located on the northernmost edge of western Luzon. Its boundaries are formed by the Babuyan Channel on the north and its sister province, Ilocos Norte, on the south. To the west are the tribulent waters of the South China Sea, while the eastern borders are formed by part of the Cagayan Valley, Abra and the Mountain Province. A well-paved coastal highway connects the province with the rest of the country.
Ilocos Norte has a total land area of 3,400 square kilometers. It is composed of 22 municipalities with 477 barangays. The province's population was 514,000 by the census of 2000, and since 1999 its governor is Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. It was made a separate province in 1818. The province is noted for being the birthplace of former Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos, who led an authoritarian rule over the country during the later half of his incumbency. Ilocos Norte has always been Marcos territory and the family enjoy a moderate amount of popularity in the province. Even before one reaches the capital, traces of the "great Ilocano" are unmistakable.
Long before the Spanish galleons came to the Philippines, the coastal plane of Ilocos Norte was already flourishing with business carried out by the Chinese and Japanese traders. The first Spaniards to reach the region were Juan de Salcedo and his men, who were tasked to explore the coast of Luzon north of Manila in 1572. The largest concentration of people that Salcedo found was in Laoag along the Padian River, and Salcedo gained their friendship after initial skirmishes. Although the presence of the Spanish soldiers may have seemed fleeting to the Ilocanos, Salcedo's exploration marked the beginning of Spanish colonization of the region.
Agriculture is the main source of livelihood in the province, all lands for cultivation can be planted with rice, corn, garlic, onion, sugarcane, tobacco, and cotton. Ilocos Norte is also noted for its various cottage industries, among which are cloth weaving, pottery-making, blacksmithing, woodcarving and furniture making. Its ethnic population is overwhelmingly Ilocano. Unlike the rest of the region, however, the Roman Catholic Church does not predominate. The Aglipayan Church, Iglesia ni Cristo, and other Protestant groups have strong followings, as well as, animism and non-religiosity. The climate is characterized by two extremes: very dry from December to April and very wet for the rest of the year. The average temperature in Ilocos Norte is 81 deg F. May is the warmest month, with an average temperature of 83 deg F, and December is the coldest.
Laoag City
Laoag City, the capital city of Ilocos Norte, is 463 kilometers north of Manila. The municipalities of San Nicolas, Paoay, Sarrat, Vintar, and Bacarra form its boundaries. The foothills of the Cordillera Central mountain range to the east, and the South China Sea to the west are its physical boundaries. Flourishing along the bank of the Laoag River, it is the nerve center of the province and the seat of politics, business, commerce, education and religion. It became a 2nd class city in 1965. According to the 2000 census, it has a population of 94,466 people in 19,751 households.
"Laoag" (Ilocano for "the place of light or clarity"), is an old, flourishing settlement known to Chinese and Japanese traders when the Spanish conquistador Juan de Salcedo arrived at the northern banks of Padsan River in 1572. Augustinian missionaries established the Roman Catholic Church in the area in 1580 and designated Saint William, the Hermit as its patron saint. Pedro Almazan crowned himself king of Laoag in 1661 in a bid of insurrection and protest against Spanish tax mandates. Other rebellions flared throughout colonial times, including against Spanish tobacco monopoly in 1782.
Laoag is an 9 to 10 hour drive from Manila depending on the traffic or how fast you are going. Provincial buses also provide transportation from Baguio City, Manila, and a number of other cities. There are air-conditioned buses that leave their Manila stations for Laoag. The buses, which leave on scheduled runs, do stopovers at designated points along the route for refreshments and other necessities. Laoag International Airport services flights to and from Taiwan and some charter flights by Philippine carriers. It is a 1 hour flight from Manila. The town experiences the prevailing monsoon climate of Northern Luzon, characterized by a dry season from November to April and a wet season from May to October, occasionally visited by powerful typhoons.
JUAN LUNA SHRINE
The Juan Luna Shrine in Badoc, Ilocos Norte, is a reconstruction of the two-storey house in which the patriot and foremost Filipino painter was born on October 24, 1857 (The original house burned down in 1861). Luna was the son of Joaquin Luna and Laureana Vovicio. He was instrumental in placing Philippine art and culture on the world map. Luna began his formal art training at the Ateneo Municipal Escuela de Bellas Artes and Escuela Nautica in Manila. In 1877 he left for Madrid, Spain, to continue his studies at the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. It was during this period that he painted "Dafne y Chloe," which won the Silver Palette Award from the Centro Artistico-Literario de Manila.
Other major awards established Luna's reputation as a master painter both in the Philippines and Europe. These included the gold medal at Madrid's National Exposition of Fine Arts in 1884 for "Spoliarium" and a special gold medal award at the Barcelona Exposition in 1888 for "La Batalla de Lepanto," a work commissioned by the Spanish Senate. Among his notable paintings were: "The Blood Compact" and "People and Kings". Juan Luna was a co-worker of Rizal, Lopez-Jaena, Del Pilar and other Filipino reformers in Europe. He was in the Diplomatic Service of the First Philippine Republic. In 1896 Juan Luna and his brother General Antonio Luna were arrested by the Spanish authorities for subversion. During his eight months in prison he painted many canvasses, among them, "Ecce Homo," a sensitive portrayal of Christ. Luna died in Hong Kong on December 7, 1899 and his remains were interred in 1953 in niche no. 73 at the Sala de Profundis in San Agustin Church, Intramuros, Manila.
The main entrance of the Juan Luna Shrine opens into the alcove just before the family gallery. Photographs on the walls show the damaged original house and how teams of construction workers rebuilt it. In the family gallery are vintage photographs of the Luna clan, including Juan Luna's son, Andres. The museum also uses the family gallery to display household artifacts from Luna's time. Another section of the lower floor holds reproductions of Luna's two large works - "Spolarium" and "El Pacto de Sangre." There are also portraits of his wife, Paz Pardo de Tavera, and national hero Jose Rizal.
The staircase leads up to the living room, bedrooms, azotea and a mini chapel. The living room is furnished in period furniture and accessories. The master bedroom contains the four-posted bed used by Luna. Outside, facing the azotea, is the bedroom which Luna once shared with his brothers. At the grounds of the shrine is a monument of the painter.
FORT ILOCANDIA RESORT HOTEL
The resort is located in Barangay 37, Calayab, and about 9 kilometers from Laoag City. It is the only first class property of its kind in the province of Ilocos Norte. The hotel is sprawled over 77 hectares of land at the middle of sand dunes, prime forests, and two kilometers of fine sandy beach facing the South China Sea. It is situated on the northwestern tip of the island of Luzon. Laoag City and Laoag International Airport are accessible by a 10-minute ride from the hotel.
The Fort Ilocandia Resort complex is composed of 5 buildings all inspired by Spanish colonial architecture and finished in coal red bricks. It has guest rooms with private balconies offering a panoramic view of the sea. These rooms have features and qualities of Ilocano century-old living quarters and constructed to accentuate the antiquity of a colonial house.
The main building houses the lobby, a number of restaurants, shopping arcade, casino, discotheque, and a glass-topped atrium where you can relax as you sip your favorite drinks, tea or coffee. For those who love Asian cuisines, Lucky House and Golden Pavilion are the best places to dine. It offers the finest Cantonese dishes and one can find delicious dishes from Korea, Japan and Taiwan. At the Sunset Bar which is located at the beachside you can have a drink and after which you can dine in a Spanish Restaurant, or CoCo Lobster where you can enjoy authentic Filipino cuisine. After your dinner, you can visit the Casino Filipino at the second floor. It is open 24 hours a day with multi-lingual attendants. The gaming area includes more VIP game rooms to satisfy your appetite for thrill. At the Passion Night Club and Karaoke glamorous shows are held every night. There are VIP rooms where guests can show their singing prowess or none of it, and have a fun and relaxing time.
Hotel facilities of Fort Ilocandia include an Olympic-sized swimming pool, seven function rooms, video arcade, tennis court, badminton court, gym and sauna, driving range, golf course, paintball, beach volleyball, jet ski, sea donut, wind glides, sailing boat, bodyboard and pool toys. The guests may also indulge in various recreational activities such as wind sailing, archery, shooting, horseback riding, wind gliding/wind surfing, canoeing, open sea fishing, snorkel diving, scuba diving, and rafting, among others. The resort also has a world-class 18-hole golf course with international standards and a perfect design to challenge one's playing skills. The golf course, with numerous trees built along Lake Paoay was designed by PGA champion, Gary Player for the late President Marcos. It measures 6,518 yards from the blue tee with a par of 72. Added hazards are the century-old fruit bearing trees and man-made ponds and lake.
The hotel's red brick facade and roofs beautifully contrast with white round windows. Clearly, it's inspired by the architecture of the colonial Spanish or Spanish Moroccan style. There is an impressive and immense fountain and well-maintained gardens and flowering plants-lined walkways. The rooms that spread out in four other two-storey buildings include 233 standard rooms; 25 deluxe rooms; eight junior suites; and two presidential suites. All of them have aircon units, cable tv, telephones, and a bathroom with hot water. Fort Ilocandia Resort is without doubt one of the most interesting places in northern Luzon and is perfect for pleasure seekers because of its distinctive and naturalistic appeal.
MARCOS MAUSOLEUM & MUSEUM
The Marcos Museum and Mausoleum in Batac, Ilocos Norte showcases memorabilia of the late Philippines President Ferdinand E. Marcos and a large stately and gloomy tomb housing his embalmed remains which are contained in a vacuum-sealed glass coffin. Within the property of the Marcos family is a cluster of three houses and the hallowed grounds of the mausoleum. The Museum is the first structure seen from the main street and is the one which follows the lines of a colonial wood-and-brick house, with solid ground floor walls and an upper storey of wood decorated with floral motifs. The Mausoleum is a cube of adobe blocks and is stepped towards the top of the structure. The dark interior is divided into an entry foyer in which are exhibited old English standards and a bust of the former president.
Two decades after Marcos was chased from power, he still draws the faithful and the curious from this farming town. Displayed in an adobe mausoleum, his lavishly waxed corpse lies in a family tribute, bedecked in military medals and surrounded by faux flowers while Gregorian chants echo softly. Scores of school children visit nearly everyday, filing past souvenir peddlers for a look of the deposed dictator whom residents of Ilocos Norte province fondly call "Apo," or the Old man.
Ferdinand Edralín Marcos (September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was the tenth president of the Philippines, serving from 1965 to 1986. In 1972, he instituted an authoritarian regime that allowed him to stay in power until lifting it in 1981. He was elected the same year to another full term which was marred by personal health issues, political mismanagement and human rights violations by the military. In 1986, he was re-elected for the fourth time in a disputed snap election. As a result, that same year he was removed from office peacefully by the "People Power" EDSA Revolution. He has the distinction of being the last Senate President to be elected to the presidency and being the first president to be elected to two consecutive full terms.
Ferdinand Marcos was born in Sarrat, Ilocos Norte to Don Mariano Marcos, a lawyer who was an assemblyman for Ilocos Norte, and Doña Josefa Quetulio Edralín, a teacher. He was the second of four children. His siblings were Pacífico, Elizabeth and Fortuna. He was of mixed Filipino (Ilocano), Chinese, and Japanese ancestry. He started his primary education in Sarrat Central School. He was transferred to Shamrock Elementary School (Laoag), and finally to the Ermita Elementary School (Manila) when his father was elected as an Assemblyman in the Philippine Congress. He completed his primary education in 1929.
He served as 3rd lieutenant in the Philippine Constabulary Reserve in 1937. The same year, when he was still a law student at the University of the Philippines, Marcos was indicted for the assassination of Assemblyman Julio Nalundasan, one of his father's political rivals. Marcos was convicted in November 1939. He was offered a pardon by President Manuel Quezon, but he turned it down and voluntarily returned to the Laoag Provincial Jail where he spent time preparing his defense. On appeal, he argued his case before the Philippine Supreme Court and was acquitted the following year by then-Associate Justice Jose P. Laurel. In the University of the Philippines, Marcos was a member of the Upsilon Sigma Phi. After graduating with cum laude honors in 1939, he became the topnotcher of the Philippine bar examinations the same year.
MALACANANG OF THE NORTH
This imposing two-storey structure was built as the official residence of the President Marcos in Ilocos Norte. It overlooks the legendary Paoay Lake and was designed to resemble a 19th Century "bahay na bato." It is complete with bedrooms, dining area, kitchen, an office, a spacious ballroom on the second floor, and even had an olympic size swimming pool. During the term of Fidel Ramos, he has also used this former official residence in Ilocos Norte and so did President Gloria M. Arroyo whenever she travels to the north.
The main and official residence of the president of the Philippines is actually the Malacanang Palace. It is located along the north bank of the Pasig River in Manila. The name "Malacanang" comes from a Tagalog phrase "May lakan diyan," which means there is a nobleman there. This palace was once the home of a wealthy Spanish merchant before it hosted the nation's chief executive.
When Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo became the president, she opened the Malacanang of the South in August 19, 2004. It is a refurbished old building of the Bureau of Customs in Cebu City and was established to bring the national government closer to the people in the Visayas and Mindanao. In Tacloban City, Leyte, former First Lady Imelda R. Marcos had her "Sto. Nino Shrine" which also doubled as the Malacanang of the South.
Malacanang Palace of the North has since been converted into a museum and it is open to visitors. It is sad to note that the structure has not been well maintained and is now badly dilapidated. Even the swimming pool beside it is no longer used and appears to have been converted into a small fish pond. There is a mininal fee collected for those who want to see the place.