Aurora, officially the Province of Aurora (; ; ), is a province in the Philippines located in the eastern part of Central Luzon region, facing the Philippine Sea. Its capital is Baler and borders, clockwise from the south, the provinces of Quezon, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Nueva Vizcaya, Quirino, and Isabela. Maria Aurora is the only landlocked town in the province and yet, the most populous. It is the only province in Central Luzon that has no chartered cities.
Before 1979, Aurora was part of the province of Quezon. The province was named after Aurora Quezon, the wife of Manuel L. Quezon, the president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, after whom the mother province was named.
History Spanish colonial era In 1572, the Spanish explorer Juan de Salcedo became the first European to visit the region that would be known as Aurora while he was exploring the northern coast of Luzon. Salcedo reportedly visited the towns of Casiguran, Baler and Infanta. Baler and Casiguran were part of La Provincia de La Pampanga, which also included Pampanga, Bulacan, Nueva Écija, and Tarlac, and in 1591, the towns became part of Kalilayan, which included Nueva Écija, until Kalilayan changed its name to Tayabas in 1749, taken from the town of the same name.Pampanga used to be a coast-to-coast mega-province: What happened? on FacebookBaler During Spanish Occupation in Aurora.ph
In the early days of the Spanish colonial period, Aurora was ecclesiastically linked to Infanta, which today rests further south, in northern Quezon. The earliest missionaries in the province were the Franciscans, who had established missions in Baler and Casiguran in 1609. Due to lack of available personnel, the region was given to the jurisdiction of the Augustinians and Recollects in 1658, but was returned to the Friars Minor in 1703. Other early missions included Dipaculao, established in 1719, and Casiguran, in 1753.
In 1705, the Military Comandancia of Nueva Écija was created and was governed by Governor-General Fausto Cruzat y Góngora. It included huge swathes of Central Luzon, the Contracosta towns, as well as the Kalilayan area and Polillo Islands, however Nueva Écija was then still under La Pampanga province. Contracosta was the term for the east coast and included towns from Mauban, Binangonan de Lampon, to El Príncipe. Since the Contracosta and Kalilayan were part of La Laguna province at that time before these were annexed to Nueva Écija, they became jointly ruled by La Pampanga and La Laguna provinces. The Contracosta and Tayabas areas were jointly ruled by Tayabas and Pampanga, when Tayabas became independent from La Laguna in 1754.
On December 27, 1735, a powerful storm struck Baler and a tsunami (tromba marina) destroyed the old town located in present Barrio Sabang. Among the surviving clans were the Angaras, Bihasas, Bitongs, Lumasacs, Carrascos, and Pobletes who had swum to nearby Ermita Hill. A new community formed in what is now the Población of Baler, leaving "Kinagunasan," the place of devastation. A mural depicting the tsunami can be found in the Museo de Baler.
When Rafael María de Aguilar y Ponce de León took over as Governor-General of the Philippines, he decreed the separation of the military district of Nueva Écija from the province of Pampanga and became a regular province on April 25, 1801, including the town of Baler, acquired from Tayabas.
In 1818, Nueva Écija annexed the towns of Palanan from Isabela, as well as Baler, Casiguran, Infanta (formerly called Binangonan de Lampon) and Polillo Islands from Tayabas, and Cagayan, Nueva Vizcaya, Quirino, and part of Rizal.Who We Are: Nueva Ecija In 1853, the new military district of Tayabas was separated from Nueva Écija and included present-day Southern Quezon as well as present-day Aurora. In 1858, Binangonan de Lampon and the Polillo Islands were separated from Nueva Écija to form part of Infanta. Between 1855 and 1885, El Príncipe was established as its own military Comandancia with its capital in Baler.
American colonial era
District of El Príncipe The early history of Aurora is linked to Quezon province, of which it formed a part, and Nueva Ecija, under which the area was governed as the District of El Príncipe. In 1902, the district was separated from Nueva Écija and transferred to the province of Tayabas (now Quezon). The provincial capital of Tayabas was already transferred from Tayabas to Lucena on March 12, 1901, a year before the transfer of El Príncipe. The northern area which is part of the modern Dilasag and area of modern Casiguran was part of Nueva Vizcaya and also transferred to Tayabas in 1905.The picture of territorial evolution of Quezon: In 1918, the area of modern Aurora north of Baler was transferred to the authority of Nueva Vizcaya, but returned to Tayabas in 1921 and in 1942, the entire present-day territory of Aurora was annexed from Tayabas to Nueva Écija,"Pursuant to the authority conferred upon me as Head of the Central Administrative Organization by Order No. 1 in connection with Order No. 3 of the Commander in Chief of the Imperial Japanese Forces in the Philippines and upon the recommendation of the Executive Commission it is hereby ordered that— The Province of Batanes is abolished and the comprising the same as well as the territory thereof shall be annexed to the Province Cagayan. The municipalities of Baler and Casiguran, Province of Tayabas, and the territories thereof are segregated from said province and shall be annexed to the Province of Nueva Ecija. The municipality of Infanta, Province of Tayabas, and the territory thereof are segregated from province and shall be annexed to the Province of Laguna. The Province of Marinduque is abolished and municipalities comprising the same as well as territory thereof shall be annexed to the Province of Tayabas. The Province of Romblon is abolished and the municipalities comprising the same as well the territory thereof shall be annexed to the of Capiz." and returned to Tayabas in 1945Provisions of this order only apply for the duration of the Japanese occupation; revoked after the restoration of the Commonwealth in 1945. until the time when Tayabas was renamed to Quezon in 1946. This was named in honor of Manuel L. Quezon, Baler native who was the second President of the Philippines, had been elected governor of Tayabas in 1906 and assemblyman of the 1st district of Tayabas in 1907.
World War II In 1942, invading Japanese forces landed in the town of Casiguran. On February 19, 1945, to May 11, 1945, Allied troops as well as Philippine Commonwealth forces and recognized guerrilla units fought on the Battle of Casiguran during the return of American forces on Luzon on World War II.
Postwar era During the postwar years, there were several attempts to make Aurora independent from the rest of Quezon Province. One obvious reason was the area's isolation from the rest of Quezon Province: there were no direct links to the rest of the province and much of the terrain was mountainous and heavily forested, which made the area relatively isolated, and its distance from Quezon's capital Lucena. Independence from Quezon also meant that Aurora would belong in the Central Luzon region, in keeping with its precolonial history, rather than part of Southern Luzon. What is the Kapampangan Region? The Language Shift from the Middle and Upper Middle-Class Families in the Kapampangan Speaking Region
Aurora became a sub-province of Quezon on June 14, 1951, through Republic Act No. 648 under the presidency of Elpidio Quirino, after whom its neighboring province was named.
1968 Casiguran earthquake On , the 1968 Casiguran earthquake, with a moment magnitude of 7.6 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), took place with an epicenter was in Casiguran. The quake generated a small non-destructive tsunami, but the majority of the 207 people killed during the quake were the result of the collapse of Ruby Tower, a six-storey building in the Santa Cruz district of Manila.
Establishment as a province In 1978, the Lieutenant Governor of the Sub-Province Atty. Luis S. Etcubañez filed a Parliamentary Bill for the establishment of Aurora at the Interim Batasang Pambansa, leveraging his political ties with the various Assemblymen of Region IV. This led to a plebiscite in May 1979 to confirm the citizens of the Province's willingness to separate from Quezon Province, and the eventual establishment of the province through Batas Pambansa Blg. 7 on November 21, 1978.
Martial law era
The beginning months of the 1970s had marked a period of turmoil and change in the Philippines, as well as in Aurora. During his bid to be the first Philippine president to be re-elected for a second term, Ferdinand Marcos launched an unprecedented number of foreign debt-funded public works projects. This caused the Philippine economy to take a sudden downwards turn known as the 1969 Philippine balance of payments crisis, which led to a period of economic difficulty and a significant rise of social unrest.
With only a year left in his last constitutionally allowed term as president, Ferdinand Marcos placed the Philippines under Martial Law in September 1972 and thus retained the position for fourteen more years. This period in Philippine history is remembered for the Marcos administration's record of human rights abuses, particularly targeting political opponents, student activists, journalists, religious workers, farmers, and others who fought against the Marcos dictatorship.
Conflict, Militarization, and Hamletting One significant impact on the residents of Aurora, especially its farmers, was the administration's practice of hamletting to achieve military control of the area. After the September 1972 declaration, Marcos forces were ordered into the province to achieve a military presence. But the New People's Army (NPA) which was fighting them responded by establishing a presence of their own in Aurora's mountainous areas. Despite the fact that the residents generally resisted invitations to join the NPA, the dictatorship troops told the residents that they were not allowed into the fields between four in the afternoon and seven in the morning. This made farming very difficult because people had to work in the fields during the hottest parts of the day.
Things took a more violent turn in the town of Dinalungan during the early 1980s, after farmers organized a rally against a landowner who attempted to claim their farms, seeking help and support from the nuns at the Carmelite mission that had been established there. However, the military accused the Carmelites of working with the NPA, and even hunted down the convent's caretaker and one of the church workers. Young men started disappearing from the farms, and rumors begun to spread that they had been victims of extrajudicial killings by Marcos' forces. Much of the male population of Dinalungan began to disappear altogether, with some believed to be victims of the extrajudicial killings, and the rest forced to join the NPA because of the circumstances. The unrest persisted until the town was finally declared "insurgency free" in October 2018.
Peasantization of the Agta