Cavite, Philippines

Cavite, officially the Province of Cavite ( tl, Lalawigan ng Kabite; Chavacano: ''Provincia de Cavite''), is a province in the Philippines located in the Calabarzon region in Luzon. Located on the southern shores of Manila Bay and southwest of Manila, it is one of the most industrialized and fastest-growing provinces in the Philippines. As of 2020, it has a population of
4,344,829, making it the most populated province in the country if the independent cities of Cebu are excluded from Cebu's population figure.

The ''de facto'' capital and seat of the government of the province is Trece Martires, although Imus is the official (''de jure'') capital while the City of Dasmariñas is the largest city in the province.

For over 300 years, the province played an important role in both the country's colonial past and eventual fight for independence, earning it the title "Historical Capital of the Philippines". It became the cradle of the Philippine Revolution, which led to the renouncement of Spanish colonial control, finally culminating in the Philippine Declaration of Independence on June12, 1898 in Kawit. The old provincial capital, Cavite City also hosted docks for the Manila galleon, becoming an essential part of commerce between Asia and Latin America.

Originally an agricultural province, its northern cities of Bacoor, Imus, and Dasmariñas (with a combined population of 1,864,560 at the 2020 Census) are now suburbs of Manila due to increasing urbanization in the late 1900s. This province forms part of the Greater Manila Area.

Etymology

The name "Cavite" comes from the Hispanicized form of ''kawit'' or it may be a corruption of ''kalawit'', Tagalog words for "hook", in reference to the small hook-shaped peninsula jutting out to Manila Bay.Official Website of the Provincial Government of Cavite – Cavite City
The name originally applied to the peninsula, ''Cavite La Punta'' (now Cavite City) and the adjacent lowland coastal area of ''Cavite Viejo'' (now Kawit).

Another theory proposes that the name is a Hispanicized form of ''kabit'', Tagalog for "joined", "connected", or "attached", referring to the peninsula's topographical relation to the mainland. Edmund Roberts, in his 1821 memoir, stated that the "natives" called it Caveit due to the "crooked point of land extending into the sea".

History

Pre-Hispanic period

The present Cavite City was once a mooring place for Chinese junks that came to trade with the settlements around Manila Bay. The land was formerly known as "Tangway". Archeological evidence in coastal areas shows prehistorical settlements. According to local folklore, the earliest settlers of Cavite came from Sulu or Borneo.

Spanish colonial period

The Spanish colonizers who arrived in the late 16th century saw the unusual tongue of land jutting out on Manila Bay and saw its deep waters as the main staging ground where they could launch their bulky galleons. It would later become the most important port linking the colony to the outside world through the Manila-Acapulco Galleon trade. In 1571, Spanish colonizers established the port and City of Cavite and fortified the settlement as a first line of defense for the city of Manila. Galleons were built and fitted at the port and many Chinese merchants settled in the communities of Bacoor and Kawit, opposite the Spanish city to trade silks, porcelain and other oriental goods.

"A defensive curtained wall was constructed the length of Cavite's western side," beginning from the entrance, "La Estanzuela", and continuing to the end of the peninsula, "Punta de Rivera", with the eastern shore unprotected by a wall. Cavite contained government offices, churches, mission buildings, Spanish homes, Fort San Felipe and the Rivera de Cavite shipyard. Docks were in place to construct galleons and galleys, but without a dry dock, ships were repaired by careening along the beach.

Fort San Felipe, La Fuerza de San Felipe, was built between 1609 and 1616. This quadrilateral structure of curtained walls, with bastions at the corners, contained 20 cannons facing the seashore. Three infantry companies, 180 men each, plus 220 Pampangan infantry, garrisoned the fort.

The galleons ''Espiritu Santo'' and ''San Miguel'', plus six galleys were constructed between 1606 and 1616. From 1729 to 1739, "the main purpose of the Cavite shipyard was the construction and outfitting of the galleons for the Manila to Acapulco trade run."

The vibrant mix of traders, Spanish seamen from Spain and its Latin-American colonies, as well as local residents, gave rise to the use of pidgin Spanish called Chabacano. A great number of Mexican men had settled at Cavite, spread throughout Luzon, and had integrated with the local Philippine population. Some of these Mexicans became Tulisanes (Bandits) that led peasant revolts against Spain. Mexicans weren't the only Latin Americans in Cavite, as there were also a fair number of other Latin Americans, one such was the Puerto Rican, Alonso Ramirez, who became a sailor in Cavite, and published the first Latin American novel called "Infortunios de Alonso Ramirez"

In 1614, the politico-military jurisdiction of Cavite was established. As with many other provinces organized during the Spanish colonial era, Cavite City, the name of the capital, was applied to the whole province, Cavite. The province covered all the present territory except for the town of Maragondon, which used to belong to the Corregimiento of Mariveles. Maragondon was ceded to Cavite in 1754 when Bataan province was created from Pampanga province. Within Maragondon is a settlement established in 1660 by Christian Papuan exiles brought in by the Jesuits from Ternate in the Maluku Islands, and named this land ''Ternate'' after their former homeland."Brief History of Cavite"
. Official Website of the Provincial Government of Cavite. Retrieved on June 25, 2013.

Owing to its military importance, Cavite had been attacked by foreigners in their quest to conquer Manila and the Philippines. The Dutch made a surprise attack on the city in 1647, pounding the port incessantly, but were repulsed. In 1672, the British occupied the port during their two-year control in the Philippines.

In the 17th century, ''encomiendas'' (Spanish Royal land grants) were given in Cavite and Maragondon to Spanish conquistadores and their families. The religious orders began acquiring these lands, with some donated, enlarging vast haciendas (estates) in Cavite during the 18th and 19th centuries, enriching themselves. These haciendas became the source of bitter conflicts between the friar orders and Filipino farmers and pushed a number of Caviteños to live as outlaws. This opposition to the friar orders was an important factor that drove many Cavite residents to support reform, and later, independence.

In 1872, Filipinos launched their revolt against Spain. Three Filipino priests— Jose Burgos, Mariano Gomez and Jacinto Zamora—were implicated in the Cavite mutiny when 200 Filipinos staged a rebellion within Spanish garrisons. On August 28, 1896, when the revolution against Spain broke out, Cavite became a bloody theater of war. Led by Emilio Aguinaldo, Caviteños made lightning raids on Spanish headquarters, and soon liberated the entire province through the Battle of Alapan. Aguinaldo commanded the Revolution to its successful end – the proclamation of the First Republic of the Philippines on June 12, 1898, in Kawit.

During the Spanish–American War, American forces attacked the Spanish squadron in Cavite. The Spanish defeat marked the end of Spanish rule in the country. A captured Spanish cannon from the Cavite arsenal now sits in Village Green Park in Winnetka, Illinois, United States of America.

World War II: Japanese occupation and liberation

In May 1942, after the fall of Bataan and Corregidor Island, the Japanese Imperial forces occupied Cavite and made garrisons in each town of the province.

After surviving the Bataan Death March and released from Capas, Tarlac concentration camp United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) Col. Mariano Castañeda, returned to Cavite and secretly organized the guerilla forces in the province.

The Japanese authorities pressured him to accept the position as Provincial Governor of Cavite, he refused many times over until his excuses did not work, much against his will he was forced to accept the position by the Japanese, and by thinking that it would be beneficial to further organize the resistance movement as Governor by day and a guerilla commander by night. Eventually, the Japanese discovered his guerilla connection and raided his house in the attempt to capture him, but he escaped along with Col. Lamberto Javalera by swimming the Imus river up to Salinas, Bacoor and finally joined his comrades in the field in Neneng, the General Headquarters of the Fil American Cavite Guerilla Forces (FACGF) located in Dasmariñas.

At this time due to his organizational skills the FACGF raised a regiment in each of the administrative units and also created attached special battalions Overall, 3 special battalions, 1 medical battalion, 1 signal company, 1 hospital unit, Division GHQ and Staff were raised to provide administrative and combat support. Later on, the FACGF, with a peak of 14,371 Enlisted Men and 1,245 officers, grew into a formidable force to take on the omnipresent rule of the Japanese in the province. At its peak the force contained 14 infantry regiments:

*1st Infantry Regiment, Imus (Col. Lorenzo Saulog)
*2nd Infantry Regiment, Bacoor (Col. Francisco Guererro)
*3rd Infantry Regiment, Silang (Col. Dominador Kiamson)
*4th Infantry Regiment, Dasmariñas (Col. Estanislao Mangubat Carungcong)
*5th Infantry Regiment, Barangay Anabu, Imus (Col. Raymundo Paredes)
*6th Infantry Regiment, Cavite City (Col. Amado Soriano)
*7th Infantry Regiment, Alfonso (Col. Angeles Hernais)
*8th Infantry Regiment, Naic (Col. Emilio Arenas)
*9th Infantry Regiment, Mendez (Col. Maximo Rodrigo)
*10th Infantry Regiment Kawit (Col. Hugo Vidal)
*11th Infantry Regiment Imus (Col. Maximo Reyes)
*12th Infantry Regiment, Amadeo (Col. Daniel Mediran)
*13th Infantry Regiment, Rosario (Col. Ambrosio Salud)
*14th Infantry Regiment, Brgy. Paliparan, Dasmariñas (Col. Emiliano De La Cruz)

On January 31, 1945, the liberation of the province of Cavite started with the combined forces of the American 11th Airborne Division under General Swing and Col. Hildebrand and the valiant Caviteño guerilleros of the Fil-American Cavite Guerilla Forces, which liberated the province of Cavite from the Japanese occupiers, and protected at all costs the National Highway 17 from Tagaytay to Las Piñas that serve as the vital supply route of the 11th Airborne Division, paving the way towards the road to the bitter but victorious Battle of Manila.

Postwar era

The economic growth of the country began to creep its way to the province following the end of the Second World War and the restoration of independence. Given its proximity to Manila, the province soon began to feel a transformation into an economic provider of food and industrial goods not just for Metro Manila but for the whole of the country. In 1954, Trece Martires City was created out as a planned capital city from portions of Tanza, Indang, Naic, and General Trias. Despite the transfer of capital status to Imus in 1979, it retains many offices of the provincial government, acting thus as the de facto capital of the province. Also, Tagaytay's high location and cool temperatures would enable it to become a secondary summer capital and a vacation spot especially during the Christmas season, given its proximity to the Manila area.

The economy of Cavite remained largely agricultural during the decades after the war, from the 1940s to the 1980s, with attempts to create industrial estates in the early 1970s largely falling flat in light of the Crony Capitalism and economic crises of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

During the Marcos dictatorship

The Philippines' gradual postwar recovery took a turn for the worse in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with the 1969 Philippine balance of payments crisis being one of the early landmark events. Economic analysts generally attribute this to the ramp-up on loan-funded government spending to promote Ferdinand Marcos’ 1969 reelection campaign, although Marcos blamed the 1968 formation of the Communist Party of the Philippines as the reason for the social unrest of the period. There were clashes between government and communist protesters in the rural areas and the western highlands of Cavite.

Another conflict faced by the Philippines throughout the last part of the 20th century had some of its roots in Cavite - the moro conflict, which was largely sparked by outrage in the wake of exposes about the Jabidah Massacre. The exposes told the story of how a group of moro men were recruited by the military for Operation Merdeka, Marcos' secret plan to invade Sabah and reclaim it from Malaysia, and trained them on the island of Corregidor, which is administered by Cavite province. When for various reasons the recruits decided that they no longer wanted to follow their officers' orders, their officers allegedly shot all the recruits to death, with only one survivor managing to live by feigning death. The exposes angered the Philippines' Muslim Minority enough to trigger the Moro Conflict, eventually leading to the creation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

In 1972 - one year before the expected end of his last constitutionally allowed term as president in 1973 - Ferdinand Marcos placed the Philippines Martial Law. This allowed Marcos to remain in power for fourteen more years, during which Cavite went through many social and economic ups and downs.

The human rights abuses, crony capitalism, propagandistic construction projects, and personal expensive lifestyles of the Marcos Family prompted opposition from various Filipino citizens despite the risks of arrest and torture. Among the prominent Caviteño oppositionists were Armed Forces Colonel Bonifacio Gillego, who spoke out against human rights abuses by the military and later exposed the fact that Ferdinand Marcos had faked most of his military medals. Another was Roman Catholic Priest Fr. Joe Dizon, who led led protest actions against government corruption and human rights abuses during martial law in the Philippines, political dynasties, and the pork barrel system and brought social issues to the attention of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines. Both Gillego and Dizon are honored at the Philippines' Bantayog ng mga Bayani, which honors the martyrs and heroes who fought authoritarian rule under Marcos. Other Caviteños honored there include Philippine Navy Captain Danilo Vizmanos, musician Benjie Torralba, activists Modesto "Bong" Sison, Florencio Pesquesa, and Artemio Celestial Jr., and Nemesio Prudente who would later become president of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.

Presidential Decree No. 1 of 1972 grouped the Provinces of the Philippines into administrative regions, and Cavite was organized into Region IV. The Luzon mainland provinces of this region - Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, and Quezon - were prioritized for industrialization, and large amounts of agricultural land in Cavite were acquired for conversion into industrial estates throughout the 1970s and early 1980s.McAndrew, J. (1990). The Incorporation of the Province of Cavite into the World Economy. Aghamtao: Journal of the Ugnayang Pang-Aghamtao, Inc. (UGAT), 7. However, these government-owned or corporate-owned estates were unsuccessful at first, and many of them became unused lands well into the Philippine economic collapse of the early 1980s. Old Cavite residents who were primarily engaged in agriculture were displaced and left the province, replaced by a rising number of residents from the capital region.

Rosario was the first Cavite town to have several large industrial projects, including a refinery set up by FilOil Refinery Corporation. An influx of new residents into the north and west parts of Carmona led to the separation of these portions into a new town, General Mariano Alvarez, in 1981. The migration had begun in 1968, when the Carmona Resettlement Project was established under the People's Homesite and Housing Corporation (PHHC) - an effort to resettle illegal settlers from around the Quezon Memorial Park area in Quezon City. A site in Carmona was selected, and by the mid-1970s, the resettlement area soon attracted poor and middle class migrants alike from Quezon City, Manila, Makati and Parañaque. Their clamor to have a municipality of their own resulted in the creation of General Mariano Alvarez. Bacoor, given its proximity to Metro Manila, saw the building of the first residential villages during this time, providing accommodation the rising number of workers from the nearby capital.

One geographical feature of Cavite, Mount Sungay Imelda Marcos ordered the construction of the Palace in the Sky, a mansion originally intended as a guesthouse for former California Governor Ronald Reagan (who never arrived). This drastically reduced the height of the mountain, which had once been a landmark that helped guide sailors into Manila bay. The mansion remained unfinished after the People Power Revolution in 1986 that toppled the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos. The new government renamed it the People's Park in the Sky, to show the excesses of the ousted regime.Cruz, Sarah (2011-06-03)
"Palace in the Sky in Tagaytay"
. Tagaytay Hotels. Retrieved on 2013-10-22.

Contemporary history

In 2002 Region IV was split into two parts: Region IV-A, known as Calabarzon; and Region IV-B, known as Mimaropa. Cavite was made part of Region IV-A, which is also known as the known as the Southern Tagalog Mainland.

Geography

Cavite is surrounded by Laguna province to the east, Metro Manila to the northeast, and Batangas province to the south. To the west lies the South China Sea. It is located within the Greater Manila Area, not to be confused with adjacent Metro Manila, the defined capital region.

Cavite is the second-smallest province (the Province of Rizal being the smallest) in the Calabarzon region. Cavite occupies a land area of , which is approximately 8.72 percent of Calabarzon's total land area, 2.74 percent of the regional area and 0.48 per cent of the total land area of the Philippines. The municipalities of Maragondon and Silang have the biggest land areas, comprising and respectively, while the municipality of Noveleta has the smallest land area as indicated by or 0.38 percent of the provincial total and area.

Topography and slope

Situated at the entrance of Manila Bay, Cavite is characterized by rolling hinterlands punctuated by hills; shoreline fronting Manila Bay at sea level; and rugged portion at the boundary with Batangas where the Dos Picos mountains are located. The province has two mountain ranges.

Cavite is divided into four physiographical areas, namely: the lowest lowland area, lowland area, the central hilly area and the upland mountainous area.

* The lowest lowland area is the coastal plain in particular. These areas have extremely low ground level of elevation compared to the high tide level of about from the mean sea level (msl). These are the cities of Cavite, Bacoor and the municipalities of Kawit, Noveleta, Rosario, northern part of Carmona and eastern part of Ternate.
* The lowland area consists of the coastal and alluvial plains. These areas have flat ground slope of less than 0.5% and low ground elevation of . The alluvial plain can be found in the city of Imus and southern part of General Trias. Into these municipalities forms the transition area between the coastal plain and the central hilly area. It also covers some areas of Bacoor, Carmona, Kawit, Noveleta, Rosario, and Tanza.
* The third topography type is the central hilly area, generally found on the mountain foot slope. It forms the rolling tuffaceous plateau. This topography includes steep hills, ridges and elevated inland valley. The plateau is characterized with ground elevation ranging from to nearly . Its ground slope ranges from 0.5 to 2%. The cities of Trece Martires and Dasmariñas and the municipalities of General Emilio Aguinaldo, General Mariano Alvarez, western part of Ternate, northern parts of Amadeo, Indang, Silang, Magallanes and Maragondon have this kind of topography.
* The last topography type is upland mountainous area, found in the city of Tagaytay and the municipalities of Alfonso, Mendez, southern parts of Amadeo, Indang, Silang, Magallanes and Maragondon. They are situated at a very high elevation above with slopes of more than 2%."Physical and Natural Resources"
. Province of Cavite Official Website. The Tagaytay ridge has an average elevation of with Mount Sungay

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases