Last Wednesday, we published the piece written by Rudan Alberto Matig-a about the Tagbilaran's evolution. He is again sending us this week a recapitulation of his article which deserves a two-part series which we shall conclude next Sunday as the city celebrates the feast of St. Joseph the Worker on Thursday.

Without necessarily competing with our historical good neighbor, Sundry Chronicle, we do hope that our visitors and fiesta goers who may stumble upon this corner will find Matig-a's amplifications useful and informative as we did. Here it goes:

"At the turn of the century, the American occupation government hastily built schools that in one year after the U.S. Forces landing in Mansasa beach, teachers from the U.S. arrived in the Philippines and were dispatched in every province including Bohol.

These teachers were aptly called "Thomasites" because they sailed in a boat named USS Thomas. Bohol High School and Tagbilaran Central Elementary School were built by the Americans in place of the old Spanish schools near the Capitol.

This triggered a new development in Tagbilaran instead of going East to Sug-ang, the wind of change was going North. The Americans brought in new technologies to Tagbilaran. Modern communications was introduced and they dug wells and built water reservoir. My Lola Iya Awing admired the Americans' ingenuity of locating water table below the ground. The water reservoir that was built more than a hundred years ago by the Americans was made redundant and became an office of the Bohol Red Cross. The Americans brought in also instruments that read and evaluate the weather. They put up rain water gauge and weather vane at the place where the Mute and Deaf restaurant (Garden Café - DAB) now stands.

[My suggestion is to restore the old reservoir and let it stand as a heritage piece not an office. Let the Bohol Red Cross look for a new office. The Espuelas/Mendoza residence is completely demolished and not a single cobblestone is left. I think the provincial government will start re-thinking in the identification and preservation of Bohol heritage.]

Baseball was brought in by the Americans and aside from baseball they also introduced basketball. The first basketball court was built where the FCB now stands. There was also a makeshift public market at the old Tagbilaran Town Hall and the Rajah Theater at the back of the Agora Market was the first talking movie house in Tagbilaran.

After the cadastral survey of Tagbilaran, people who have real estate claims in the northern part of town donated some of their land claims to the government. Like the Buma-at family who donated their lot where the Agora Public market is now standing and the Gallares family donated the lot what is right now the Gallares memorial hospital.

The development of the north of Tagbilaran made the town having two "sawangs". The new town center in the north was called by my Lola Iya Awing as; "Lujong Sawang".

The church intervened by naming the two sawangs as Del-Ro for Virgin of our Lady of the Rosary in the east and Del-Pi for Virgin of our lady of the Pillars in the north. There was some kind of non-violent rivalry between the two sides. (Next: George Percival Scriven's Diary)

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