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Nasunugan Watchtower. The most extensive archeological curiosity in the province are the Nasunugan Ruins (which means burned ruins), a half-hectare complex of structural ruins on a hilltop near the highway just outside the poblacion of Biliran town.
THE mission in Panamao, the ancient name of Biliran,
was presaged by a different set of circumstances. The island, which is
separated from Leyte on its northern tip by a narrow strait, used to be thickly
forested that the Spaniards put up a shipbuilding facility there because of its
good supply of timber. Thus, the area was populated by ship workers and their
families. One of the workers was a Spanish-speaking negro who brought his
wife along. One day, the man was sent on an errand by his captain. When
he returned by nightfall, he discovered his wife was with another man who was
said to be young and good-looking. Maddened by jealousy, the negro rushed at
the young man with a lance, killing him and wounding his wife, whom he left for
dead.
It was for this reason that they sought the help of the
missionaries in Carigara. To settle the matter, Fr. Francisco Vicente was sent
to the island. In his report, he did not say anything about the murderous
affair but wrote only about the initial success of his mission in the island.
He said that on reaching the island on Saturday before the last Sunday of Advent
in 1602, his group was welcomed by the captain ‘with much affection and
kindness.’ It was a large population that was there, consisting of both natives
as well as Spaniards. He was able to talk to them immediately and
convinced them to build a chapel, which was finished in a day’s work. So on the
morning after his arrival, he celebrated the mass and ‘preached to them on
matters related to sin and its injurious nature.’ He said they were all ‘deeply
moved, and resolved to ask’ him for confession. Thus began the
mission in Panamao.[i]
By the year 1600, about five years after the Jesuits set
foot in Carigara, their five missions had expanded to 25 towns or town centers,
with each one having a church, and baptized 4,946 natives out of an estimated
total population of 24, 500, or about 20 percent of the population.
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