A great part of our provincial course of study is devoted to teaching our young people the history and cultural heritage of Aurora Province and of the Filipino nation. Through the Museo de Baler, which opened in 2003,the provincial government also promotes pride in Aurora's cultural and historical heritage.

2009 is the Year of Baler Download Presidential Proclamation 1696

One notable exhibition was devoted to thelife and career of Manuel L. Quezon, Baler's foremost son, the nationalist leader of the American period who became the first president of the Philippines. Another highlighted one of Aurora's indigenous peoples, the Ilongot. The Museo preserves Ilongot as well as Dumagat artifacts, mementoes, and historical records dating back to the Spanish period.

Baler was the last bastion of the Spanish Empire in the Philippines. On 27 June 1898, 15 days after Filipino revolutionists had proclaimed their country's independence, 54 Spanish soldiers of the Baler garrison barricaded themselves in the town church and endured a siege by the revolutionary forces for almost a full year, before the survivors gave themselves up on 2 June 1899.

By then, Spain had ceded the archipelago to the United States. The Revolutionary Government, although by then fighting for its very survival against the Americans, took the time and the effort to pay tribute to loyalty, courage, and gallantry of the Spanish defenders of Baler. President Emilio Aguinaldo ordered them treated not as prisoners
of war but as worthy adversaries, and ensured their safe passage home.

Every 30th of June since 2003,I have invited the descendants of the Spanish survivors of that siege to visit Baler to commemorate with us what has become an exemplary narrative manifesting the best of human traits in a time of conflict: courage, resolve, gallantry, and nobility.

From right is President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Sen. Edgardo J. Angara, and Aurora Gov. Bellaflor Angara-Castillo as Philippine-Spanish Friendship Day is celebrated in 2006 in Baler, Aurora.

These are the same qualities that up to now inform our special ties with Spain, under whose tutelage we first learned to appreciate the benefits of history, to look back to our past for moral strength and heroic inspiration. During this last decade, I have sought to rekindle the warmth of the relations our two peoples enjoyed for the most part of over three centuries.

I have traveled to many towns in Spain to seek out the descendants of Los Ultimos de Filipinos, "the last detail" in the Spanish Army's effort to put down the Philippine revolution against Spain. In holding out against all odds, Los Ultimos showed the world, including our own young nation, the indomitable character of the Spanish soldiery. Perhaps even more important, they evoked from their Filipino adversaries the gallantry that warfare at its most noble sometimes called into being. I have also visited with their descendants in Spain, who until now look back proudly to the heroism of their forebears, and who remain grateful for the opportunity that their stationing in the Philippines gave them to show the steel in their mettle as Spanish soldiers.

Members of their families welcomed me into their homes. They were as pleased as we were over the proclamation by an Act of Congress of Philippine-Spanish Friendship Day, which was first celebrated in 2003. Since then, they have come to take part in the festivities in Baler on the last day of June.

In the last days of June 2005, a distinguished group of visitors from many parts of Spain came to Baler to share our celebration of Philippine-Spanish Friendship Day. This year, officials from both Madrid and the local governments were on hand to reaffirm the ties between our two countries and to see for themselves the town that, for their forebears, represented a home and a hearth to be defended at all costs in the name of Spain. The Spanish delegation, led by Senator Francisco Balla Galan of Almonte, included mayors and councilors of the Spanish towns, among them Huelva, Mula, Puebla del Don Fabrique, and Miajadas-from which the men of the Baler garrison had come. It also included FernandoMartin Cerezo, a colonel in the Spanish Air Force who was the grandson and namesake of Lieutenant Martin Cerezo, the commanding officer of the Baler garrison.

It was Lieutenant Cerezo who had kept a journal of his wartime experiences and of his troop's fortitude during the yearlong siege-an account published as a book called El Sitio de Baler. Translated into English by an American military officer, the account has become a training manual on endurance and survival by the United States
Army. It also became the first of many publications and celebratory chronicles-including songs and films-with which most every Spaniard becomes familiar while growing up.

From left is Aurora Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara, Spain Ambassador to the Philippines H.E. Luis Arias, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Sen. Edgardo J. Angara, Gov. Bellaflor Angara-Castillo, and Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri.

When our Spanish guests walked the streets of Baler last June, it felt like a homecoming for many of them. We brought our guests to the Sitio Castillo, the old stone watchtower that, during the Spanish times, had guarded our town against Ilongot marauders from the mountainous north, as well as Moro raiders from the Pacific seacoast. Our Spanish friends also took part in. unveiling the Dikaloyungan marker that recalls the vow of Baler's Katipuneros-through a blood compact in 1897-to fight for the Revolution; they also sat enthralled as students presented a theater-piece that dramatized events of the long siege.

At the Museo de Baler, Spaniards and Filipinos together cut the ceremonial ribbon to open an extensive exhibit of splendid photographs by professional photographers from Manila, covering the images of Baler and the rest of our province of Aurora that are specimens of timelessness. These images found a fitting venue, since the museum, which houses mementoes of Baler's cultural heritage and serves as a testimony of our unbreakable ties with Spain, was inaugurated on the occasion of the first celebration of Philippine-Spanish Friendship Day on June 30, 2003.

There are plans to upgrade and enhance the museum, and it is a project that will be undertaken by the offices of Aurora Governor Bellaflor Angara-Castillo and Baler Mayor Arthur Angara, in partnership with the heirs of the survivors of the historic siege, the National Historical Institute, the National Museum, and my own office. Among the exhibits being installed to attract more visitors is an interactive display. The ethnological and anthropological exhibits in place are constantly being enlarged and improved. All these projects should ensure that the museum represents adequately the culture and history of Baler and the local diversity of Aurora province and should continue to promote relations between the Philippines and Spain. In 2006 the Philippine-Spanish Friendship Day as celebrated in Palencia, Spain, to honor its son Fray Miguel de Benavides, founder of the University of Santo Tomas, the oldest university in Asia. The festivities culminated with the signing of a sisterhood agreement between the president of Palencia, Spain, and Governor Bellafor Angara-Castillo of Aurora, Philippines. At the same time, Palencia honored both Governor Angara-Castillo and myself by making us
its Adopted Daughter and Adopted Son.