Jasaan, Misamis Oriental

Map of Misamis Oriental showing the location of Jasaan

Jasaan is a town in the Province of Misamis Oriental in Northern Mindanao, Philippines. It is approximately 28 kilometers eastward from the capital city of Cagayan de Oro. The municipality is composed of the coastal “barangays” of Aplaya, Solana, Luz Banzon (Kiog-ang), Kimaya, Lower Jasaan (Ubos), Bobuntugan, Jampason and San Antonio, and the inner “barangays” of Upper Jasaan (Ibabaw), Corrales, San Isidro, Natubo, Danao, San Nicolas (Kilumba) and I.S. Cruz. It bounds on the municipalities of Villanueva, Claveria and Balingasag and Macajalar Bay on the north.

The 2007 census conducted by the National Statistics Office states that the town is a second class municipality. Approximately twenty percent of its 45,310 population live in the urban center. Its land is mostly rocky. Even with rocky soil it is able to keep its lush and keep its main rivers – Cabulig and Mandangisiao - alive and healthy.

The town has retained much of its culture until the late sixties when electricity was introduced. People then were dependent of coconut, livestock and cattle. Other agricultural products like corn and vegetables were minimal. Employment was provided mainly by the government through the public school system, a few national government agencies and the local government unit. Trading and merchandising was mostly confined at Ubos (now Lower Jasaan) along the stretch that ends at the public market. Ubos had some remnant of Hispanic influence houses in its main street but this was razed by fire in the early eighties.

During the 1960's the Jasaanon had a calendar of activities in mind and he keeps a tab of every activity that comes. He rejoices with the coming of every New Year and caps the end of the year with a “lubong-lubong” – a ritual which marks the death of an old year and rejoices the birth of a new one. “Lubong-lubong” (“lubong” is the vernacular of the word to bury) is a mock burial. The ritual is done the town plaza. It starts with a masked old man in tattered clothes plodding around the hall where townsfolk gather in merriment to greet the coming year. As the countdown to the New Year continues, the old man in tattered clothes disappears in the dark. A little tot in diapers then appears in the midst of hall as the church tolls the knell of the dying year. Immediately, the ringing shifts to a merry peal of all the church bells in the twin belfries of the Immaculate Conception Church to mark the New Year.

The Jasaanon is then led to the main door of the church where a funeral bier lays. A mock person tagged with the year that passed is then laid on top of it. A man dressed in tattered black cloth then recites some Latin prayer and leads some curious people to a funeral march which ends at the gates of the Catholic cemetery. The bier is left at the gates to end the ritual.

It used to be that the Christmas season in Jasaan ended on February 2, to commemorate the feast of the Presentation of the Child Jesus at the Temple and the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The town calendar of activities was associated with the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. After the Lenten celebration, Jasaanons used to celebrate a second town fiesta on May 5, to honor St. Augustine. Then a lull is felt until the All Souls Day when Jasaanons from all over come to pay respects for their dead. Then they become preoccupied with activities for the parochial fiesta on December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and the fiesta mood extends to the Christmas season.

The outskirts of Jasaan retained much of its idyllic sights until the installation of the power lines for the electrification project and the road widening program in the early seventies. Since the introduction of these twin infrastructural improvements, the gradual transformation of Jasaan lifestyle began.

The games children played on the streets and open areas had slowly faded from sight as most of them have found a new way of entertainment in television. The allure of bright full moon nights had vanished as the street lights dimmed its sheen. Jasaanons loved their full moon but that love affair was diminished when their streets and homes were lighted. Gone were the gaieties of moonlit nights that Jasaanons of all ages enjoyed.

At the turn on the millennium, Jasaan has gradually metamorphosed into a resort town. The entrepreneurs of the place have capitalized on the abundance of its spring water sources. The town has now spring resorts more than its local residents can dip into. People from neighboring areas have been constant visitors of those spring resorts.

Barangays

Jasaan is politically subdivided into 15 barangays, namely:

• Aplaya
• Solana
• Luz Banzon (Kiog-ang)
• Kimaya
• Lower Jasaan (Ubos)
• Bobuntugan
• Jampason
• San Antonio
• Upper Jasaan (Ibabaw)
• Korales
• San Isidro
• Natubo
• Danao
• San Nicolas (Kilumba)
• I.S. Cruz

The Town Center

Poblacion (Upper and Lower Jasaan)

Most of the records of the municipality were allegedly destroyed during the World War II. Recorded history of the town has been mostly Post WWII Liberation accounts. The town center of Jasaan is a picture of the Spanish Catholic concept of settlement model – "bajo de las campanas" – where people live around the vicinity of the church up to the point where the peal of the bells could be heard. There used to be a bell at the belfry of the Nuestra Senora de la Inmaculada Concepcion Church where the peal could be heard as far as the hills of Natubo. This town center used to be one big Poblacion subdivided into nine “aldeas” which have been tagged as Purok Uno, Purok Dos, Purok Tres, Purok Cuatro, Purok Cinco, Purok Seis, Purok Siete, Purok Ocho and Purok Nueve. Purok is a Filipino word for a village. In the 1960s these villages have adopted names, like Siga-Siga, Mauswagon and Mabuligon, etc.

In the early 70’s, when the infamous martial law was in force, then President Ferdinand Marcos, a series of presidential decrees has made the barangay the basic political unit of Philippines. The Centro, as it used to be referred to, was then split into Upper Jasaan and Lower Jasaan. Local residents would refer to these two as Ubos and Ibabaw, a vernacular indication of their geographical location in the slope. Ubos, being Lower and Ibabaw, Upper. Despite the partition of the Poblacion into two barangays, the old village identifications – the Purok – are still generally referred to in the present Jasaan.

Jasaan town plaza is a good example of the separation of Church and State property. A road that runs through the middle of the plaza makes the demarcation line. That portion fronting the centuries old church belongs to the Roman Catholic Church and on the other side of the road is owned by the local government of Jasaan.

Jasaan is believed to have been already a municipality during the establishment of the Immaculate Conception Parish in 1840. The old church bells (there were four of them, not to include the one now at the San Agustin Cathedral at Cagayan de Oro) of the Immaculate Conception Church of Jasaan bore these inscriptions around its outer rim - "Para El Pueblo de Jasaan 1860" [more or less], which suggests that the Spanish government has recognized Jasaan as a town. With the coming of the Americans at the turn of the twentieth century, the national government, in 1903, downgraded the political status of Jasaan from that of a municipality to a barrio (a Spanish subdivision of a municipio) and made it a part of the Municipality of Balingasag.["The Philippine Commission of 1903, Act No. 960, combined some municipalities in 1903 because the civil government had no control of these municipalities; they could not be defended by the Philippine Constabulary or the Scouts, nor could they be governed by the pro-American inhabitants!""]<Philippine Commission Act 960> The Jasaanons clamored for the restoration of their municipio into a municipality. Eventually, in August 18, 1948, by virtue of Executive Order No. 165, issued by President Elpidio Quirino, Jasaan regained its municipal status. On November 10, 1948, the inauguration of Jasaan as a municipality was made and a set of appointed municipal officials assumed office.(from the website of Jasaan Local Government).

Due to the absence of electricity, Jasaan lagged in development until the 70’s. Her population was mostly composed of later generations of those who settled there in mid-1800. Most of them are related by consanguinity and they speak a dialect uniquely Jasaanon.

The Outskirts of Jasaan

With the coming of electricity in the late 60’s, Jasaan slowly developed into an industrial town. Resins, Incorporated and Philippine Iron Construction and Marine Works (PICMW) established their plants at Nahalinan, a village which is a part of Lower Jasaan. The Pilipinas Kao, another industrial plant, established their plant at Luz Banzon, also in the 70’s. A substation of the National Power Corporation has been put up in Aplaya. Vertical infrastructure in the municipality of Jasaan improved when pavement and widening of the national highway that traverses the whole of Northern Mindanao was completed in the seventies.

A number of water resorts have been constructed in outskirts of Jasaan. These resorts cater to both local residents and visitors from outside the town. These establishments, including the institutions of learning, boasted employment opportunities to the local residents and from other areas, too.

The purchasing power of Jasaan has improved since then and the demographics of the town have also greatly changed. Institutions of Learning As the population grew, a rapid rise in the demand for additional educational institutions in Jasaan was observed.

The Jasaan Catholic School (later Mary Immaculate Academy, and recently Saint Mary’s Academy of Jasaan) which has been in operation in the town by itself since the start of the 20th century until t he mid-70’s, then found a competitor in Jasaan National High School. The former was established by the Jesuits and later turned over to the Religious of the Virgin Mary while the latter is a government-operated secondary school.

Schools of higher learning like the Colegio de Santo Nino and Jasaan School of Midwifery/ Jasaan Community College (later Don Mariano Marcos Polytechnic College of Jasaan and now Mindanao University of Science and Technology) also rose in Jasaan.

Jasaan Today

As the purchasing power of Jasaan improved due to the presence of industrial firms and institutions of learning and the earnings of a decent number of expatriate Jasaanons worldwide, the disposable income of the town is now able to accommodate expenses for entertainment and leisure. A number of water resorts have now become “places to go” in the once sleepy town. The majestic Sagpulon Falls in San Isidro is an idyllic site to visit. The local tourism office of Jasaan maintains the place to preserve is natural allure. The marine sanctuary at the pristine waters around the white sands of Agutayan Island, five kilometers off the coast of Bobuntugan is a place you must not miss. Gone were the days when Jasaanons would wait for the quarterly harvest of coconuts and incidental cattle sale for their wherewithal.

Highlights

In 1830, the mission of Jasaan, a town to the north of Misamis Oriental, was to establish separation from Cagayan de Oro where its authority and evangelization reached to as far as the towns of Sumilao, Linabo and Malitbog in the province of Bukidnon. The center of civilization of the new parish and its first Church was at “Daanglungsod” which is now the Aplaya, Jasaan, where an old kota (watch tower)still exists. This Kota, however, has been moved a few meters from where it originally stood to allow the construction of the national highway in the 1970s. Father Gregorio Parache, S.J., - (432 local historical sources of Northern Mindanao by Father Francisco Demetrio, S. J), was the parish priest of Jasaan at that time. The Jesuits later built the Nuestra Senora de Inmaculada Concepcion Church in what is now the Immaculate Conception Church of Jasaan. The original facade of the church has been modified after a series of renovations. The original altar of the church has been moved backward to allow bigger area for the faithful inside the church building. Thus, the original sacristy has been moved to the side. The church is registered as a National Cultural Treasure by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).

External links

• Philippine Standard Geographic Code
• 2000 Philippine Census Information
• Local Governance Performance Management System