Santander, officially the Municipality of Santander (; ), is a municipality in the province of Cebu, Philippines. According to the 2024 census, it has a population of 18,669 people.
Santander is located approximately 134 kilometers south of Cebu City. It is the southernmost municipality in the Province of Cebu, bounded by the municipality of Oslob to the northeast and the municipality of Samboan to the northwest. To the southeast lies the Bohol Strait, while the Tañon Strait borders its southwestern coast. Santander serves as Cebu's gateway to the neighboring Province of Negros Oriental through its three ports: one in Barangay Talisay, which accommodates barges and ferryboats bound for Tampi, Amlan, Negros Oriental; and two in Barangay Lilo-an, which serve pump boats and fast craft traveling to Sibulan, Negros Oriental. Regular bus services ply the Cebu–Negros route via these ports.During the nineteenth century, under the leadership of Fr. Julian Bermejo, parish priest of Boljoon beginning in 1802, four stone watchtowers (baluartes) were constructed in Santander as part of the defense system established along Cebu's southeastern coast against Moro raids.² These watchtowers guarded the Tañon Strait and the approaches to the coastal towns of Negros across the strait, underscoring Santander's longstanding importance as the southern gateway of Cebu.
History and Origin of the Town Name
During Pre-Spanish Era The earliest inhabitants of Tañong, like the rest of the Visayans, were generally more corpulent, better built, and somewhat taller than the Tagalogs. Most of the men were dark-skinned because they spent much of their time outdoors, often wearing only minimal clothing under the sun. The women, who generally remained at home, were fairer in complexion than the men. They typically had round faces, black eyes, were generally of short stature, and had flat noses.
Teeth-filing practices, known as sangka, were common among both male and female Cebuanos, as well as among other Visayan groups. This practice involved filing the front surface of the teeth horizontally while straightening and widening the sharp lower edge, resulting in teeth that were evenly aligned both lengthwise and across. The procedure was performed by a skilled practitioner using a slender stone file, sometimes removing as much as half of the tooth in the process. After filing, the teeth were stained in various ways by chewing substances that imparted color, such as betel nut, which gave the teeth a reddish hue. In addition, some natives adorned their teeth with gold through inlays, crowns, or plating. Among Visayan women, hair received considerable attention, and they took great care to keep it clean and well combed, washing it with tree bark used as a natural soap. They also applied fragrant oils, such as sesame oil, to promote hair growth and eliminate lice. Men generally did not wear their hair as long as women did, although longer hairstyles were customary in some parts of the Visayan Islands.
Both men and women customarily wore gold earrings, with two or three piercings made in each ear. Over time, the piercings became larger as the earlobes stretched under the weight of the ornaments attached to them. Two types of earrings were commonly worn by both sexes: one was concave and circular, worn so that only the gold was visible and not the flesh; the other was worn over the first and fastened securely to the piercing to prevent it from falling off. An example of such a gold earring was uncovered during an archaeological excavation in Boljoon, another southern municipality of Cebu located just a few kilometers from Santander.
During the Spanish Colonial Era
The Establishment of Pueblo de Santander In general, the establishment of cities and towns in the Philippines was a result of colonial policies and bureaucratic legislation. In the creation of towns, certain procedures established by the colonial bureaucracy had to be strictly observed by interested parties. The cabezas de barangay and principales of the barrios concerned were required to inform the alcalde in writing of their desire to merge their barrios into an independent town. The documents had to be duly signed by the petitioners and accompanied by supporting evidence to substantiate their reasons for separating from their mother town. Among the required documents were lists of annual tributes collected from each barangay, affidavits from the gobernadorcillo of the mother town and neighboring towns attesting to claims regarding boundaries, distances, and the number of tributes collected. In addition, the petitioners were required to obtain the affirmation of the parish priest, clearly defining the boundaries of the proposed town and providing a detailed map of the area.
Upon receipt of the petition, the alcalde would review the documents to determine their validity. He would either return them to the petitioners if revisions were necessary or make the appropriate recommendations to the governor-general. The Asesor General de Gobierno of the Office of the Governor-General would then review the petition for approval. If the petition was approved, the governor-general would issue a Superior Decree, a copy of which would be furnished to the alcalde and the Gobernador Yntendente de Visayas. They would then inform the townspeople of the outcome of their petition.
In the case of Santander, the approval process took several years from the time the petition was submitted. Santander became a separate pueblo from Oslob only in 1867. It was established as such simultaneously with two other pueblos in the southeastern part of Cebu, namely, Alcoy and Caceres. Several reasons were cited as the basis for the establishment of these three pueblos, foremost among them being “the distance that separates these districts and visitas from their respective ‘parent’ pueblos, which prevents efficient and prompt administration.
Aside from this, these districts were required to have a sufficient number of inhabitants to constitute another municipality and must not have any topographical obstacles that would hinder their establishment. However, the parishes of these three pueblos had not yet been established at that time due to a Royal Order regulating the creation of new parishes. The newly established pueblo de Santander consisted of the composite visita of Tañong, which was then part of the pueblo de Oslob, and the village of San Sebastian, which was then part of the pueblo de Sambuan.
The Establishment of a Parroquia Before Santander became a parish, baptisms were registered in the Oslob parish. New converts were trained as catechists so that they could assist in supervising catechism lessons for new learners. Missionaries made extensive use of visual aids depicting the teachings of the Catholic faith. Visayan versions of various prayers were also developed, although these often retained some Spanish terms that had no exact equivalents in the local language. Sermons usually centered on four basic themes: hell and purgatory, the immortality of the soul, the existence of God, and the rewards awaiting Christians in the next life. During regular visits, missionaries would preach short discourses on any of these topics and provide catechism instruction to children.
The petition for the creation of a parish was usually submitted after the establishment of a town. In a letter addressed to the bishop, the gobernadorcillo and the town’s principalia were required to justify why the settlement should be established as an independent parish and consequently assigned a permanent priest. The petitioners had to demonstrate that the town’s tribute collection exceeded the required quota of 500 tributantes. They also had to cite the abundance of natural resources in the town and the loyalty of its inhabitants. These claims had to be supported by relevant documents. The bishop would then forward the petition to the Office of the Governor-General, where it would be evaluated by the Asesor General de Gobierno. Similar to the establishment of a town, a Superior Decree would be issued and signed by the governor-general, with copies furnished to the alcalde, the Gobernador Yntendente de Visayas, and the bishop of the diocese. However, even with the issuance of the decree, a parish priest would not necessarily be assigned immediately. Once a priest became available, the bishop would then issue a diocesan decree appointing him to the newly established parish.
It was not until 1897 that the visita of Tañong became a separate parish from its mother parish of Oslob, by virtue of the approval of Real Order No. 1198 dated November 27, 1896, which took effect on February 27, 1897. Following its declaration as an independent parish, the necessary documents were prepared to allow the construction of a church to begin. Normally, priests were required to obtain permission from the bishop before undertaking church construction. All infrastructure projects, including church construction, were supervised by the Obras Públicas, which was established by the government in 1867. Church construction involved both skilled and unskilled laborers, most of whom were local residents. The duration of construction depended on the availability of financial resources, building materials, the size of the church, and the determination of the community to complete the entire structure.
The construction of the Santander parish church took an entire year and was completed only in 1898.It was Fr. Mauricio Alvarez, during his third tenure as parish priest of Oslob from 1889 to 1898, who supervised the construction of the church in Santander. The church was reportedly built using mampostería and tabique de pampango, construction methods commonly used in many Spanish-period churches. Mampostería is a Spanish masonry technique involving stone and mortar construction. In its simplest form, masons assembled stone rubble walls by mortaring individual stones together over bedrock or a foundation of compacted sand, earth, or stone. Tabique de pampango is a type of construction consisting of a wooden or bamboo framework covered with a mortar finish made of sand and lime. Aside from the church, Alvarez is also credited with the construction of a provisional cemetery, a convent, and school buildings. As with most, if not all, Spanish-period churches in Cebu, the façade of the original church faced the sea. It also served as a kind of watchtower during the period of Moro raids. The church was built atop a promontory approximately 50 meters from the baluarte in Barangay Poblacion, with a stone stairway leading down to the seacoast. To support the needs of a regular parish priest, the Catholic Church would request the local population to donate agricultural lands, in addition to the lot on which the church was constructed. In Pasil, the family of Leon Duranparang, Gregoria Miral, and the Dangculos family donated parcels of land to the Catholic Church. The land on which the church was built was reportedly donated by Bernardo Jugo.