Putol, Tuy, Batangas: Historical Data

Historical data from the National Library of the Philippines.

Full transcription of the so-called “Historical Data” for the barrio of Putol in the Municipality of Tuy, Batangas, the original scanned documents at the National Library of the Philippines Digital Collections not having OCR or optical character recognition properties. This transcription has been edited for grammar, spelling and punctuation where possible. The original pagination is provided for citation purposes.

[Note to the reader.]

Batangas History wishes to advise the reader/researcher that may be inevitable errors in the transcription of the documents for the poblacion as well as barrios of the Municipality of Tuy because the original documents were either typed using poor typewriter ribbons or poorly scanned. Many of the pages, therefore, were very difficult to read.

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Historical and Cultural Background of Putol

Putol, a barrio of Tuy, is situated in the southern part of the municipality. The boundaries are: north – the Atga River; south – Guinhawa; east – Dao; and west – Molino River. The barrio is traversed by a provincial road leading to Balayan. It is further divided into four prosperous sitios, namely: Atga, Intina, Pinta and Sabang.

It has been said that during the Spanish regime, a group of people settled here to cultivate the virgin lands. After many years, the families multiplied and the inhabitants felt it necessary to build a road to town. During that time, as it was the only barrio in existence, the people had to stop the construction of the road right in the heart of the barrio. Before the construction of the road, the place was known as Esaribano a name derived from a prominent family of the locality. It has been the custom of the people to call the place Esaribano. Later on, when the road was

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constructed, they used to say “putol,” meaning the end of the road. The calling of Putol was handed [down] from generation to generation. The name Esaribano was forgotten gradually. When the official name of the different barrios of Tuy were given, Putol became the official name of the barrio.

At present, the barrio can be said as the melting pot of people from different municipalities. Landowners from Taal, Lemery, Balayan, Calaca and other nearby towns bought large tracts of land here as a result of the sugar industry boom. Tenants from these towns were induced to settle in this place. Sugar mills driven by work animals were established. The families of Tumbaga, Macalindong, [unreadable], [unreadable], de Guzman, [unreadable], Hernandez and Andino originated from Calaca and Lemery. From Taal and San Luis, the families of Bituin, Pesigan and Mendoza came to this place. The Masalaguin [unsure, blurred] and Vasquez, the original families of the locality, took active part in the economic progress of the place.

Several barrio lieutenants have served the barrio. Because no written records of their service could be obtained, the first set of barrio lieutenants is unknown. The line of service started from Gregorio Vasquez who served for several years. The following were the barrio lieutenants and other officials who served:

The last world war wrought havoc on this place. Tremendous losses in properties were suffered by the people. Since the barrio is along the provincial road, the people were forced to give food supplies to the Japanese invaders. Work animals, carts and calesas were taken by the Japanese from the people.

In line with education, the inhabitants are school-spirited ever since. The first teachers assigned to this place were [unreadable] Florentino Esteron, Elena Adrina [unsure, blurred], and Pedro Medina. A school site was donated by Don Jose Ibarte [unsure, blurred]. A semi-permanent building was constructed during the term of Assemblyman Miguel Tolentino. At present, the barrio has a complete elementary school with seven teachers.