The Province of Zambales
Geographical Features
This little-known and comparatively unimportant province stretches along the western coast of Luzon for more than 120 miles. Its average width does not exceed 25 miles and is so out of proportion to its length that it merits the title which it bears of the “shoestring province.”[1]
The Zambales range of mountains, of which the southern half is known as the Cordillera de Cabusilan and which is second in importance to the Caraballos system of northern Luzon, forms the entire eastern boundary of Zambales and separates it from the Provinces of Pangasinan, Tarlac, and Pampanga. A number of peaks rise along this chain, of which Mount Pinatubo, 6,040 feet in height, is the highest. All of the rivers of Zambales rise on the western slope of these mountains and carry turbulent floods through the narrow plains. Still unbridged, they are an important factor in preventing communication and traffic between towns, and hence in retarding the development of the province. Another important factor in this connection is the lack of safe anchorages. The Zambales coast is a stormy one, and vessels frequently come to grief on its reefs. At only one point, Subig Bay, can larger vessels find anchorage safe from the typhoons which sweep the coast. The soil of the well-watered plain is fertile and seems adapted to the cultivation of nearly all the products of the Archipelago. The forests are especially valuable, and besides fine timbers for constructional purposes they supply large quantities of pitch, resin, bejuco, and beeswax. There are no industries worth mentioning, there being only primitive agriculture and stock raising.
The following opinions of Zambales set forth by a Spanish writer in 1880 still hold good:[2]
There are more populous and more civilized provinces whose commercial and agricultural progress has been more pronounced, but nowhere is the air more pure and transparent, the vegetation more luxuriant, the climate more agreeable, the coasts more sunny, and the inhabitants more simple and pacific.
Historical Sketch
According to Buzeta, another Spanish historian, it was Juan de Salcedo who discovered Zambales.[3]
This intrepid soldier [he says], after having conquered Manila and the surrounding provinces, resolved to explore the northern part of Luzon. He organized at his own expense an expedition, and General Legaspi gave him forty-five soldiers, with whom he left Manila May 20, 1572. After a journey of three days he arrived at Bolinao, where he found a Chinese vessel whose crew had made captives of a chief and several other natives. Salcedo, retook these captives from the Chinese and gave them their liberty. The Indians, who were not accustomed to such generosity, were so touched by this act that they became voluntary vassals of the Spaniards.
It seems that nothing further was done toward settling or evangelizing the region for twelve years, although the chronicler goes on to say that three years after the discovery of Bolinao a sergeant of Salcedo’s traversed the Bolinao region, receiving everywhere the homage of the natives, and a Franciscan missionary, Sebastian Baeza, preached the gospel there. But in 1584 the Augustinians established themselves at the extreme ends of the mountain range, Bolinao and Mariveles. One of them, the friar Esteban Martin, was the first to learn the Zambal dialect. The Augustinians were succeeded by the Recollets, who, during the period from 1607 to 1680, founded missions at Agno, Balincaguin, Bolinao, Cabangan, Iba, Masinloc, and Santa Cruz. Then in 1680, more than a hundred years after Salcedo landed at Bolinao, the Dominicans undertook the active evangelization of the district.