Meeting Rolando Borrinaga

(This column appears in today's edition of the Leyte-Samar Daily Express)

Hi there! It’s a weekend ngan patrun buwas sa Oquendo. It’s the history buff in me which made me decide on the topic for today’s column. It’s actually the speech delivered by Dr. Rolando Borrinaga during the reopening of the CKC Museum.

Dr. Borrinaga is a professor at the University of the Philippines - Manila School of Health Sciences. He was invited by the CKC President, Fr. Marcelo Tubac, ofm to deliver a message during the reopening of the Samar Archeological Museum which many of us simply refer to as the CKC Museum. The museum has been transferred to its new home and has been renamed The Fr. Cantius Kobak, ofm – Samar Archeological and Cultural Museum. The simple program was held last December 29, 2010 during the TARAGPO 2010. Among those present were some Franciscan friars, Mr. Pio Santos, Dr. Francie Santos, Councilor Rey James Uy, artist Raul Isidro, the new officer of the CSVP-CKC Alumni Association.

I thought it was going to be just one of those speeches. Needless to say, it introduced me to the man who had the most extensive contact with the late historian of Samar – Fr. Cantius Kobak. I have decided to feature Dr. Borrinaga’s speech in this column.

Here’s the first part of that speech:

“It is my great pleasure to have been invited to attend the reopening of the Fr. Cantius Kobak, OFM – Samar Archeological and Cultural Museum at the Christ the King College (CKC) in Calbayog City. With this development, a very symbolic one, you have reclaimed Calbayog City’s prominence as the center of historical and cultural research and preservation in the entire island of Samar. I would like to congratulate your president, Fr. Marcelo Tubac, OFM, the Franciscan community of CKC, and civic-oriented citizens of Calbayog for making this possible.”

“The reopened museum is appropriately named after the late Fr. Cantius J. Kobak, OFM, who will forever remain a giant insofar as research on the history and culture of Samar is concerned. His generosity in sharing his source materials also helped other scholars such as William Henry Scott and Bruce Cruikshank to write and publish scholarly studies that have expanded and deepened the understanding of Bisayan history and culture during the past 30 years.”

“Father Kobak’s greatest scholarly achievement, however, was the tracking, transcribing, translating to English, and publishing or preparing for publication all extant copies of the manuscripts of Fr. Francisco Ignacio Alcina, SJ, which is known in the academic community as Historia de las Islas e Indios de Bisayas … 1668. This is the only comprehensive ethnographic and historical account of the Bisayas region in the seventeenth century. Parts of the Alcina manuscripts now appear as books in English translation under the title History of the Bisayan People in the Philippine Islands (Vols. 1, 2 and 3). These were co-edited by Fr. Lucio Gutierrez, OP, and published by the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House. Only Volume 4 remains to be published, but the manuscript is already there.”

“By sheer chance or fate, I happened to be the Filipino with the most extensive contact with Father Kobak during the last two years of his life. He posted a note in the guestbook of my Internet website sometime in late 2002, and that led to our exchange of e-mails and snail-mails which provided each of us with needed new data and information about the local history and culture of Leyte and Samar.”

“Then somehow we agreed to collaborate on the English translation for possible publication of a book on the history of Leyte. The book was titled Reseña de la Provincia de Leyte by Manuel Artigas y Cuerva, which was originally published in Spanish in 1914. Father Kobak had done partial translation of the book, and I supplied the other half after its bound photocopy, which had been mailed to CKC, was retrieved and delivered to my house in Tacloban by your former president, Fr. Rodrigo San Jose, OFM. I completed the manuscript on August 14, 2004. The next day, Father Kobak passed away in the U.S. at the age of 74.” (to be continued on Monday)

* * *

Obit. Former City Councilor Patrio “Nonong” Barandino returned to his creator last January 10, 2011.

* * *

This is it for now. Have a nice weekend everyone. Ciao!