the CHAMP

July 29, 2009

An Open Letter to The City of Calbayog

Thru the Office of Mayor Mel Senen S. Sarmiento

Subject: Declaring Rev. Fr. CANTIUS J. KOBAK, OFM

‘Son of Calbayog’, ‘Honorary Samarnon’

Dear Sir,

Pax et bonum!

The Christ the King College, through its Research and Human Development Center (RHDC), would like to formally endorse to your good office the declaration of Rev. Fr. Cantius J. Kobak, OFM, as ‘Son of Calbayog’ and ‘Honorary Samarnon’.

This office will commemorate his 5^th Death Anniversary this coming August 15, 2009, with various activities.

Who is Father Cantius J. Kobak, OFM? Why there is a need to confer on him the title ‘Son of Calbayog’ and ‘Honorary Samarnon’? Please, allow us to give you the following reasons:

To quote Prof. Rolando O. Borrinaga, my former professor in UP, in his article entitled ‘Historian of Samar passes away’ published in The Tacloban Star (September 12-18, 2004, pp. 1, 4, 5) [Note: the article is still available on the net through this link: http://www.geocities.com/rolborr/kobakobit.html], he said:

Father Cantius was “undoubtedly the GREATEST historian of Samar and the Bisayas region in the previous century”.

His life, especially those times when he was in Samar, particularly in the city of Calbayog, as a professor of CKC was dedicated to research and writing about the history and culture of Samar Island (to be more specific that of Calbayog) and the Bisayas region in general. The following paragraphs appeared in the article of Prof. Borrinaga:

During academic breaks, Fr. Cantius began cultivating an interest in the history and culture of Samar Island, which was prompted by the virtual absence of any publication about these subjects upon his arrival. His curiosity led to extensive research, and even archaeological excavations in various areas of the island.

In 1967, Fr. Cantius co-founded with Father Anthony A. Buchcik, SVD, the Leyte-Samar Museum and the Leyte-Samar Studies journal of the Divine Word University in Tacloban.

In 1968, he founded the now-closed CKC Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum.

In 1970, Fr. Cantius was transferred to Manila…But he continued his research and writing on Samar history and culture.

He was the foremost authority on the Sumuroy Rebellion in [Palapag] Samar in 1649.

His scholarly articles were initially published in ‘Leyte-Samar Studies’. Later, they were published in ‘Philippiniana Sacra’, the journal of the University of Santo Tomas.

Fr. Cantius’ greatest scholarly achievement was the tracing (in various European and American museums), transcribing, translating from Spanish to English, and publishing or preparing for publication all extant copies of the manuscripts of Father Francisco Ignacio Alcina, SJ, known in the academic community as the Historia de las Islas e Indios de Bisayas … 1668…The Alcina manuscripts on the Bisayas provide the most complete and extensive ethnographic account of any regional group in the Philippines in the 17th century.

Again in his article, Prof. Borrinaga has this statement: “Father Cantius was particularly helpful to fellow historians interested in Samar and the Bisayas region”.

In the early 1970s, he helped American scholar Bruce Cruikshank with his doctoral dissertation research on Samar. This was the first extensively documented research on the local history of Samar, which was completed in 1975 and came out as a book titled Samar: 1768-1898, published by the Historical Conservation Society in Manila in 1985. (Fr. Cantius was the first name mentioned in the book’s Acknowledgment)

In 1984, Dr. William Henry Scott, another prominent historian based in Sagada, Mountain Province, had purchased from the British Museum a microfilm copy of the Vocabulario de la Lengua Bisaya, the oldest Bisayan dictionary completed by Father Mateo Sanchez, SJ, in Dagami, Leyte around 1616 and published in Manila in 1711.

But Scott did not have a microfilm reader, and electricity reached Sagada only the year before. To make his task simpler, he wrote a letter verifying from Fr. Cantius if he had a typescript of the same document. He was promptly lent the bound volumes of the document for photocopying.

This display of generosity by Fr. Cantius enabled Scott to reconstruct the sixteenth-century Bisayan society and culture that went to his last two books, Looking for the Prehispanic Filipino and Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and Society.

The latter book was posthumously published the year after Scott passed away in 1993.

In 1998, Fr. Cantius was appointed chaplain of St. Anne’s Nursing Home in Milwaukee, his last assignment. There he continued his research and writing on Samar history and culture, which coverage he expanded to Leyte after he had completed the volumes on the Alcina manuscripts.

It was his search for biographical information on Manuel Artigas y Cuerva, the author of Reseña de la Provincia de Leyte (Manila, 1914)…

Around the middle of 2003, Fr. Cantius was admitted to the hospital for a different illness. It was then that he was found out to be suffering from cancer of the lymph glands, for which he underwent chemotherapy over the next few months.

Around July 2003, he decided to bequeath his unfinished manuscripts and their publication rights to Prof. Borrinaga. He also bequeathed the last related items in his personal library and archives and sent these by parcels to the Philippines.

This was the final act of generosity from an extremely generous man.

Fr. Cantius passed away the day after UP Prof. Borrinaga had finished writing the draft of the manuscript for the first book they were collaborating on, titled The Colonial Odyssey of Leyte (1521-1914). [Note: this book won National Book Award for Translation by the Manila Critics Circle].

DEDICATIONS

In the Coffee-table Book of Calbayog (2008), the following words can be read (in toto) in the Acknowledgment section (p. 183):

First in our list is Fr. Cantius Kobak. Although he died in 2004, he cleared the way for our historical journey. From the time he arrived in Calbayog in 1959 until he died, he was consumed by collecting documents on Calbayog and Samar, translating most of them into English (which made our research easier), and writing various histories (on the Franciscans, various towns, among others). Some he bound as “Source Materials for a History of Samar and Calbayog”, hoping that others would continue what he has started. Just when we thought that we have irretrievably lost Eco de Samar y Leyte, a weekly journal published in Calbayog from 1911 to the 1930s, we found extant copies among his collection.

Father Lucio Gutierrez dedicated the History of the Bisayan People in the Philippine Islands, a translation of ‘Historia de las islas e indios de Bisayas 1668’ of Ignacio Francisco Alcina, SJ. He wrote:

In memory of Fr. Cantius Kobak, OFM, humble Franciscan, great scholar and ‘author’ of this book. [by Fr. Lucio Gutierrez, OP, co-editor, June 15, 2005]

UP Prof. Borrinaga also dedicated the Colonial Odyssey of Leyte, a translation of ‘Reseña de la Provincia de Leyte’ (1521-1914) by Manuel Artigas y Cuerva, he wrote:

For Father Kobak, this book was the end of his own personal odyssey. He lost his battle against cancer of the lymph glands and passed away on 15 August 2004, the day after this manuscript was completed and readied for submission to the publisher. Professor Borrinaga personally dedicates this book to him and to his scholarly legacy.

(at the last paragraph of the Book’s Introduction, xxii)

Personally, being at CKC for two years now, for the first time in my life that I was proud of being born a Samarnon. And I thanked Father Kobak for that. He was not a Samarnon nor a Filipino but he wrote well our history. He still has many interesting unpublished researches especially on Samar municipalities that until now only a few have the access. It is our wish here at the CKC RHDC that all of his researches got published one day. We wish to collaborate with your office for this ambitious project as we try to publish a Samar History Book (a compilation of Local Histories of all Samar municipalities).

With all this, Father Cantius J. Kobak, OFM, deserves to become “Son of Calbayog” and “Honorary Samarnon” for his love and dedicated life for the great island of Samar and for all of us, the proud Samareños.

Lastly, we would also like to request from your good office to endorse to the Office of the President of the Republic of the Philippines and/or the Philippine Congress declaring a Special Day in the entire Samar island either on the date of Father Cantius’ birth (June 29) or death (August 15), a day to thank and honor the ‘Greatest Scholar, Researcher, Historian, Archaeologist and Ethnographer’, if not of the Bisayas, but of Samar.

Thank you very much and more power.

Very respectfully yours,

CARL JAMIE SIMPLE S. BORDEOS

CKC Research and Human Development Center

P.S. Two months after having paid two visits to UP last February 2009 with a Coffee-table book of Calbayog in my hands, my former Professor emailed to me after writing the “A Celebration of History, Culture” which was published at the Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 25, 2009 Issue. The article is attached in this letter.