The balacat heritage

THE LOVE month of February can very well be also dubbed as Mabalacat City Month, as much for its long-serving hizzoner’s storied love life, as for the month long activities commencing with its fiesta on February 2, the feast of the Nuestra Senora de Candelaria and culminating with its Caragan Festival, with the Miss Mabalacat City pageant and food and trade fairs in between.

In keeping with the spirit behind the city’s celebrations, here’s a take from this paper’s pages on January 7, 2008.

IN THE Kapampangan language, the prefix ma- means “full of” or “teeming with.” Thus a number of towns were presumably named for what was common to the place: Masantol, for the many santol trees; Macabebe, as well for the cabibi or shellfish and bebe or riverbank; Magalang, for its very respectful citizens.

While I long assumed that Mexico was named after that other Spanish colony on the other side of the Pacificwith which Islas Filipinas had the galleon trade because the timber for those ships came from here, I was told that the name actually evolved from the old Masiko. That name conjures two visions though: the town once teemed with chico trees – siko to the elderly Kapampangans, or the flagrant use of the elbow – siko too in the local language – as representative symbol for the way disputes were settled among the barakos and pusakals in the town.

Then there is Mabalacat. What the heck is balacat after which the town was named? With the longevity of the mayor there and the number of his kin in public office, someone who looked like the witty Perry Pangan once said the municipality would have been more appropriately named Mamorales. And he was only half joking.

So balakat is a tree. It is to Engineer Rox Pena of Recyclers Foundation Inc. (RFI) and the 2004 Most Outstanding Kapampangan Awardee in the field of environmental protection that we owe our knowledge of this fact. And more. With the scientific name Zizyphus talanai (Blanco) Merr., the tree that once made a lush forest in the place – thus, Mabalacat – was most valued commercially for its large, long and straight trunk which, Rox said, reached up to a diameter of one meter and a height of 30 meters.

Balakat timber was used for general construction, as in house posts as well as for the masts of ships; furniture and sash, tool handles, turnery, household utensils, baseball bats, among a host of other goods. The branches were also used as sticks in the Filipino martial arts arnis.

With such expansive, and presumably lucrative, commercial use, coupled with the need for land for cultivation and habitation by the early settlers, the depletion of the forest of balakat trees came not long after, said Rox.

Thus it came to pass that succeeding generations of the townspeople forgot all about their heritage tree. Why, even the name they affixed unto themselves – Mabalaqueños – altogether dropped the slightest reference
to their town’s origin. The town’s name is not Mabalac, so why must its people be called Mabalaqueños? Should it not be Mabalacateños? Got to consult my seminary brother Robby Tantingco of the Center of Kapampangan Studies on this.

So, where can we find a balacat tree in Mabalacat, I asked Rox.

There is one in front of the Our Lady of Grace Parish Church, he said. But it would not be long before the town will be lush with the balakat trees again, Rox promised.

Already a memorandum of agreement has been signed among the municipality of Mabalacat, represented by Mayor Boking Morales; the DENR, with Director Regidor de Leon; and RFI, with Rox to save and propagate the vanishing species through the Balakat Greening Project.

An inventory of the remaining trees have been undertaken along with seed sourcing and propagation. For his part Mayor Boking is set to establish a municipal balakat forest park and will urge the sangguniang bayan to pass a municipal ordinance declaring the balakat the municipal tree.

Yes, it would not be long for Mabalacat to regain its core essence.

IT HAS been seven years since the piece saw print. Rox is now into his second term as elected councillor. Boking into his umpteenth term as mayor but only in his first as city mayor and looking at re-election.

May we then know:

Where is that inventory of remaining balacat trees?

Where is the municipal – mayhaps, now city – balakat forest park?

Where is the ordinance declaring the balakat tree as the municipal tree?