Bataan
Bataan, officially the Province of Bataan, is a province in the Central Luzon region of the Philippines. Its capital is the city of Balanga while Mariveles is the largest town in the province. Occupying the entire Bataan Peninsula on Luzon, Bataan is bordered by the provinces of Zambales and Pampanga to the north. The peninsula faces the South China Sea to the west and Subic Bay to the north-west, and encloses Manila Bay to the east.
The Battle of Bataan is known in history as one of the last stands of American and Filipino soldiers before they were overwhelmed by the Japanese forces in World War II. The Bataan Death March was named after the province, where the infamous march started.
History
Aeta people
The first inhabitants of the Bataan peninsula are the Ayta Magbeken people. The next group of inhabitants were Kapampangans, who settled on eastern Bataan.Tagalog migration
Later on, Tagalogs from southern Luzon, most specifically Cavite, migrated to parts of Bataan. The Ayta Magbeken migrated towards the mountain areas of Bataan by the end of the 16th century.Spanish rule
Several villages in the coastal plains of Bataan were already thriving communities when Spanish missionaries found them in 1570s. Bataan, then knownas Vatan, was part of the vast Capampangan Empire that included provinces known as Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Tarlac and some portions of Bulacan, Zambales and
Pangasinan. These coastal villages were inhabited by natives who were predominantly fishermen, farmers and craftsmen. Meanwhile, the hillsides were
peopled by Aeta tribes.
In 1647, Dutch naval forces landed in the country in an attempt to seize the islands from Spain. The Dutch massacred the people of Abucay in Bataan.
Historian Cornelio Bascara documents that the province of Bataan was established on 11 January 1757, by Governor-General Pedro Manuel Arandia out of towns belonging to Pampanga and the corregimiento of Mariveles which, at that time, included Morong, Bagac, and Maragondon across Manila Bay. Limay, initially a barrio of Orion/Udyong, is the twelfth town of Bataan created only in 1917. Tagalogs migrated to east Bataan, where Kapampangans assimilated to the Tagalogs. Kapampangans were displaced to the towns near Pampanga by that time, along with the Aetas. By the end of the 1700s, Bataan had 3,082 native families and 619 Spanish Filipino families.
Japanese invasion
Bataan featured prominently during World War II. Prior to the 1941 Japanese invasion, Bataan was a military reservation for the purpose of defending the fortress island of Corregidor. The US Army stored nearly of gasoline there, along with various munitions. At the southern tip of the peninsula the U.S. Navy had established a small base at the port of Mariveles.Shortly after the Japanese Army invaded the country in December 1941, the combined US and Filipino forces were being gradually overrun and General Douglas MacArthur moved his troops to the Bataan Peninsula in an attempt to hold out until a relief force could be sent from the US. Japanese forces started a siege of the peninsula on 7 January 1942, and launched an all-out assault on 3 April, a few months after the Battle of the Points, Battle of the Pockets, the attack down Trail Number Two, and a half-dozen other brutal battles. The Bataan campaign was the last time a regular cavalry unit of the U.S. Army, the Philippine Scouts 26th Cavalry, was used as a horse mounted fighting unit. On the morning of 16 January 1942, Lt. Edwin Ramsey led the last cavalry charge into the town of Morong, routing the advancing Japanese infantry. As the troops on Bataan were continually reduced in rations, the horses were eventually slaughtered to feed the starving soldiers.
The majority of the American and Filipino forces surrendered on 9 April and were forced to march more than from Bataan to Capas, Tarlac, which became known as the Bataan Death March.
Postwar era
Postwar reconstruction in the province of Bataan was generally slow, although there were efforts to pursue industrialization projects in the area, most notably the establishment of the NASSCO in Mariveles which was inaugurated in 1953 during the Quirino administration. It would later be bought by the Bataan Shipping and Engineering Company in 1964.Marcos dictatorship
The beginning months of the 1970s marked a period of turmoil and change in the Philippines, as well as in Bataan. 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 in turn led to a period of economic difficulty and a significant rise of social unrest.Just as this was happening, it was revealed that the site of two communities where the workers of NASSCO lived - Barrio NASSCO and Barrio Camaya - would be torn down for conversion into the new Bataan Export Processing Zone in 1969, compelling the relocation of the residents who in turn launched protests until the BEPZ was finally built in 1972.
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.
By this time, the social unrest of the pre-martial law period and the Marcos' violent responses to the protests of the time led many of the Philippines' youth, who previously held moderate positions calling for political reform, to be radicalized. Some were convinced to joined the newly-formed New People's Army as a last desperate way to resist Marcos' authoritarianism, including Catalino Blas, Amado Bugay, and Delia Cortez, who were all idealistic activists killed in encounters with Marcos' forces in various locations in Bataan. But many noncombatants were killed as well, such as Social Worker and Catholic lay worker Puri Pedro, who had been wounded as part of the collateral damage during one encounter in 1977, but was assassinated in cold blood by a soldier who identified himself as Col. Rolando Abadilla while she was recovering at the Bataan Provincial Hospital.
It was also during Martial Law that construction on the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant began in Morong, in 1976. Marcos had announced an intention to build a nuclear power plant in July 1973, not long after the declaration of Martial Law, and a presidential committee was set up to review proposals, of which there were two - one each from General Electric and Westinghouse Electric. The committee preferred the proposal of General Electric's bid although it cost more, because it contained detailed specifications for the plant. But Marcos, in a deal brokered by crony Herminio Disini, overrode then and signed a letter of intent awarding the project to Westinghouse, despite the absence of any specifications on their proposal. The project was plagued with problems throughout construction, including location, welding, cabling, pipes and valves, permits, and kickbacks, as well as setbacks such as the decline of Marcos's influence due to bad health and PR fallout from the incident at the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor. A subsequent safety inquiry into the plant revealed over 4,000 defects. Another issues raisead regarding it was the proximity of a major geological fault line and of the then-dormant Mount Pinatubo. By March 1975, Westinghouse's cost estimate ballooned to US$1.2 billion without much explanation. The final cost was $2.2 Billion for a single reactor producing half the power of the original proposal. Many problems identified in earlier stages remained throughout construction, as reported by inspectors though denied by Westinghouse. The power plant was responsible for generating 10% of the country's external debt, despite never actually operating.
Contemporary era
During the tenure of Governor Albert Garcia, 1Bataan started to be used as the province's identity and logo on November 8, 2013 where its Facebook page was launched now serving as an account of the provincial government.On 14 March 2020, Bataan recorded one of the earliest cases of COVID-19 infection outside of Metro Manila, with a male patient from Orani being the 64th recorded case in the Philippines. Bataan later became one of the provinces under the Enhanced community quarantine in Luzon.
Geography
Bataan lies in the southwestern part of the Central Luzon region. It is a peninsular province with an area of. The province is bounded in the west by the South China Sea, in the south by the Corregidor Island, and in the east by Manila Bay - the gateway to the Philippines' political, social and economic center. It is bounded inland by the city of Olongapo in the north and by the provinces of Pampanga and Bulacan in the northeast. Its capital, the City of Balanga, is about 31.3 nautical miles from Manila across Manila Bay.Topography
Bataan, a peninsula, is composed of 11 municipalities and one city. All except the northernmost municipality of Dinalupihan, are coastal areas. The province's coastline is approximately 177 kilometers from Hermosa in the northeastern portion of the province, looping up to Morong in the northwest.Bataan is divided by two mountain groups of volcanic origins. The northern side is composed of the Mount Natib, Mount Sta. Rosa and Mount Silangan. The southern group is composed of Mount Mariveles, Mount Samat, and Mount Cuyapo. A narrow pass separates these two mountain groups. The topography of the province is classified generally as hilly and mountainous with a narrow plain on the eastern side. The highest elevation is in the Mariveles mountains at 1,388 meters above sea level.
Bataan has abundant water resources in the form of rivers, streams, creeks, waterfalls and springs. There are more than 100 rivers in the province radiating from the two aforementioned mountain groups. These are important not only for irrigation but also for navigation and fishing as well. The Talisay and Almacen Rivers are the two major rivers in the province. Talisay has its headwater in the Mariveles mountain group extending down to Pilar and Balanga into Manila Bay. Almacen River has its headwater in the Natib mountains extending down to Hermosa and exits through the Orani Channel to Manila Bay. Some of the smaller rivers are Abo-abo River, Bantalan River, Lamao River, Saysayin River, Agloloma River, Mamala River.