Samar
Samar is the third largest island in the Philippines. It has a population of 1,924,651 as of the 2024 census. It is located in the Eastern Visayas region of the Visayas islands. Since 1965, the island is divided into three provinces: Western Samar, Northern Samar, and Eastern Samar. The capitals of these provinces are, respectively, Catarman, Catbalogan, and Borongan. In commemoration of the establishment of these provinces, June 19 is celebrated as an annual holiday. Its main language and ethnicity is Waray and its main religion is Roman Catholic.
The island was first sighted by Ferdinand Magellan on March 16, 1521. Although he did not land, other expeditions were made. Many names, such as Samal, Ibabao, and Tandaya, were given to the island prior to the arrival of the Spaniards in 1596. During the early days of Spanish occupation, Samar was under the jurisdiction of Cebu. In the Philippine–American War, Eugenio Daza led a successful attack against the United States Army, later called the Balangiga massacre. This attack led to the Pacification of Samar and deaths of 2,000 people. During the American colonization of the Philippines, two uprisings occurred, including the Pulajan movement which caused massacres in the country. The Battle off Samar was held off the island during World War II. During martial law under Ferdinand Marcos, the Sag-od massacre happened in 1981. The New People's Army rebellion is ongoing.
Samar is the easternmost island in the Visayas archipelago, lying to the northeast of Leyte and southeast of the Bicol Peninsula on Luzon. To the west is the Samar Sea, and to the north and east of Samar lies the Philippine Sea. The island has the Samar Island Natural Park and numerous biological discoveries and forests.
The island has major copra and fishery industries and also produces rice, corn, vegetables, and abaca. The island also has a major tourism industry. The island has numerous major highways and has a portion of the Pan-Philippine Highway. The island has four major ports and three airports servicing flights to Cebu City and Metro Manila. The island has six Department of Education divisions and numerous universities with satellite campuses.
History
Spanish colonialization (1521–1898)
Samar was the first island of the Philippines as a Spanish expedition led by Ferdinand Magellan revealed the island, originally transcribed Zamal in the journal of Antonio Pigafetta. He sighted it on March 16, 1521, traveling from the Mariana Islands. Having found an archipelago, Pigafetta named the islands San Lazaro due to their sightings on Lazarus Saturday. Eventually, Filipinas was the perceived name for the archipelago. Although Samar was the first island of the Philippines seen by Magellan, he did not land there. He traversed south and laid anchor at Suluan Island, then landed on Homonhon Island on March 17, 1521. Later in the 1700s, Samar was recorded to have about 103 Spanish Filipino families and 3,042 native families.Other Spaniards eventually landed in the island. William Henry Scott, a historian, recognized that a "Samar datu by the name of Iberein was rowed out to a Spanish vessel anchored in his harbor in 1543 by oarsmen collared in gold; while wearing on his own person earrings and chains." He recounted a Samarnon saga, which was called siday, about Bingi of Lawan, a settlement in Samar. Samar had names which are recorded in early Spanish sources, including Ibabao, Achan, Camlaya, and Taridola. The Spanish captain Miguel Lopez de Legaspi also called the island Tandaya, after mistaking the name of a lord with the name of the island. This was spelled by Miguel de Loarca as Candaya.
During the early years of the Spanish colonialization, the province was placed in the jurisdiction of Cebu but was eventually separated into its own province. A rebellion was sparked in 1649 which was centered in Palapag, causing an uprising in Visayas and parts of Mindanao. The uprising was not suppressed until the next year. This caused rebels to migrate to the mountains and create a new settlement. In 1735, the province and Leyte merged into a singular province; Carigara was declared as the capital. In 1768, Samar was separated from Leyte. In 1860, the government structure was reorganized and was maintained until the end of the regime.
Philippine–American War (1898–1902)
On September 28, 1901, Eugenio Daza–Area Commander of Southeastern Samar–and Valeriano Abanador, the town's police chief, attacked the U.S. Army Company 9th Infantry Regiment who were occupying Balangiga. This action, commonly known as the Balangiga massacre, was a rare Filipino win and a bad loss for American soldiers. In 1989, "Balangiga Encounter Day" was made a provincial holiday in Eastern Samar in lieu of the victory. In retaliation for the massacre, General Jacob H. Smith ordered his men to "kill and burn", further stating that "the more you kill and burn, the better it will please me". This command led to the deaths of 2,000 Filipino insurgents and civilians while sparking outrage in the United States. In his historical account of the war, Brian McAllister Linn asserts "Samar cast a pall on the army's achievement and, for generations, has been associated in the public mind as typifying the Philippine War."American and Japanese colonization; World War II (1902–1946)
After the war, the archipelago was peaceful except the island of Samar, which was a "dark and bloody" isle according to James Henderson Blount. In 1904, the Pulajans in Samar caused powerful massacres to the extent of Governor-General Luke Edward Wright's concern. Numerous civilians joined the uprising due to the feeling of "unprotection". The rebellion was discussed by many American politicians and military officers and caused court cases just before the 1904 United States presidential election. Four days after the election, Wright visited Samar, where troops increased to 2,000 from 700. After battles and negotiations, the uprising eventually ended in 1906. When the rebellion ended, the island, according to Blount, started becoming "peaceful". More revolts were made by religious associations in the 1920s to 1930s.In World War II, the ocean east of the island hosted the Battle off Samar in October 1944 wherein an unarmored force of United States Navy escorts defended attacks from the main force of the Imperial Japanese Navy, including the. When Japan colonized the Philippines, the Pulajan uprising became active again. Japan left the Philippines in 1945.
Marcos's dictatorship era (1965-1986)
The beginning months of the 1970s marked a period of turmoil and change in the Philippines as well as in Samar, as unprecedented number of foreign debt-funded public works projects during Ferdinand Marcos' 1969 reelection campaign led to the 1969 Philippine balance of payments crisis and resulting inflation triggered the First Quarter Storm protests. Three years later and 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 Presidency 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.Deforestation during Martial Law and the Sag-od Massacre
The Marcos era was a time of significant deforestation in Samar and throughout the Philippines, with the forest cover of the Philippines shrinking until only 8% remained. On the island of Samar, whose forest cover had been at 86% of the island in 1972, forest cover went down to 45% in 1978, and then a mere 10% by 1987. Twelve companies were given Timber License Agreements on the island, including Dolores Timber in the Province of Samar and San Jose Timber in the province of Northern Samar, which were both owned by Juan Ponce Enrile, the government official Ferdinand Marcos had put in place to approve Timber License Agreements during Martial Law.One of the infamous incidents of the Marcos dictatorship era was the Sag-od massacre in Las Navas, Northern Samar, which took place on September 15, 1981. Numerous security personnel of Juan Ponce Enrile's San Jose Timber Corporation allied with a paramilitary group called "the Lost Command" and ordered residents of Barrio Sag-od out of their homes, then opened fire on them. Forty-five people were killed, leaving only 13 inhabitants of Barrio Sag-od alive.
Construction of the San Juanico Bridge
This era also saw the construction of the San Juanico Bridge between Samar and Leyte, which began as one of the high-visibility foreign-loan funded projects of Ferdinand Marcos' 1969 reelection campaign, and finished four years later in time to be inaugurated on then-First Lady Imelda Marcos' birthday on July 2, 1973. The project was initially criticised as a white elephant by officials at the National Economic and Development Authority, noting that it was "useless and expensive to maintain", because its average daily traffic was too low to justify the cost of its construction. As a result, its construction has been associated with what has been called the Marcoses' "edifice complex" although economic activity in Samar and Leyte has since finally caught up with the bridge's intended function. At the time, its name was used as a slang term for one of the torture methods used by the Marcos dictatorship, in which a person is being beaten while the victim's head and feet lay on separate beds and the body is suspended as though to form a bridge.The New People's Army conflict
Although the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People's Army, was newly-formed and relatively still very small throughout Marcos' second term, the Marcos administration hyped up its formation, supposedly because this would help build up political and monetary support from the US, which was caught up in red scare paranoia at the time. When Marcos declared Martial Law, however, the CPP grew rapidly.On the island of Samar, Marcos' military forces were assigned to protect the logging concessions, and there were frequent encounters between the military and the New People's Army. As a result the towns of Taft, Dolores, Can-avid, and Oras in Eastern Samar were declared by the Military as "no-man's-land" areas from 1978 to 1982.
Since then, the island had numerous human rights cases due to the New People's Army rebellion.
In May 2024, the Department of the Interior and Local Government announced that the three provinces on the island of Samar were "free of NPA influence" with no single village in three Samar provinces is under the influence of NPA year.