STA. CRUZ - STO. NIÑO

Sta. Cruz – Sto. Niño is an urban barangay at the town of Balamban with a total land area of 43 hectares. It is bounded by Baliwagan in the north; Cantuod & Prenza in the east; Aliwanay in the south; and the Tañon Strait in the west.

NAME-ORIGIN & BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BARANGAY

According to oral history during the Spanish period the barangay was only named as Santa Cruz.¹ Probably the said barrio which comprised the poblacion along with Aliwanay and Baliwagan was really named after Barrio de Santa Cruz, a neighborhood near the center of Seville, Andalucia, Spain whose population in the 18^th century was only second to another neighborhood which was Toledo in the entire Iberian Peninsula. Seville’s Barrio de Santa Cruz was an old judería (Jewish quarter) while the city of Seville itself was conquered by the Muslims and was regained back by Ferdinand III of Castile who concentrated on the city’s Jewish population which underwent a major process of urban renewal, including the conversion of a former synagogue into the current Church of Saint Bartholomew.²

Considering the oral histories that recounted that (a) the poblacion before it was transformed into a pueblo by the Spaniards was predominated by the Muslims who continuously marauded it when it was conquered by the Spaniards; (b) the poblacion was known as Kangma believed to be inhabited by early Malay settlers but who were actually Tibetans (see Unit III, Chapter Ten: Cambuhawe) who being Buddhists were often mistaken as Jews by Christian missionaries during their visits in Southeast Asia especially in Java & Sumatra in the 13^th century; and (c) by its proximity to Hinulawan which was renamed as Toledo after Toledo which is  a neighborhood of Barrio de Santa Cruz in Seville when it was granted a separation from Balamban -- it would be very probable that barangay Sta. Cruz - Sto. Niño was likened before to the scenarios which had been observed at Barrio de Santa Cruz in the 18^th century. If this hypothesis is true then it could also be very possible that the site of the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi was a site of a Buddhist temple before it was converted into a Christian church.

It was believed that the old town of Balamban at the coast of Barangay Nangka was established as a pueblo or town by the Spaniards in 1745³ but submerged in the sea due to a tsunami at around 1876 thus another pueblo had been built in the present site.⁴ From this view, a local Barrio de Santa Cruz might be established within the said year as a barrio that partly composed the new poblacion which later on was renamed as Barangay Sta. Cruz – Sto. Niño after the two existing streets of the barangay that served also as its sitios.

The barangay holds its fiesta every 3^rd day of May with the Santa Cruz (Holy Cross) as its patron. In the past years it held annual Santacruzan by which selection of Reina Elena was considered as the earliest form of beauty pageant in Balamban.

It is a home of prominent families in Balamban like the Binghay, Karamihan, and Paulin and of numerous Spanish ancestral houses.

Among the said Spanish ancestral houses in the barangay which are still existing at present are: (a) the house of the late Teofisto Demetria, the Municipal Treasurer during the time of Mayor Eufracio Yntig (1945-1946), which was built in the 1930’s that was hit by bullets during World War II (some of the bullet holes at the ceiling are still evident); (b) the house of the late Mayor Exasperanza Sanchez – Binghay which ground floor is converted into Agencia Balamban (a pawnshop); the house of the late Mayor Socrates Gonzalez which is converted into Araneta Learning Center; and the house of the grandparents of Mayor Exasperanza Sanchez – Binghay which ground floor is converted into Mercury Drugstore  and RCBC.

The St. Francis Academy, the private high school located in the barangay, had somehow managed to grow, no matter how slowly, from the time of its opening early in the 1950s. The SFA’s management through the years eventually passed on to Filipino hands, so that during the celebration of its Golden Jubilee on September 29 to October 1, 2000, the Mother Superior was a Filipina: Sister Josefina de los Reyes, ICM.

In a manner of saying, the growth of SFA may be considered also as a gauge of the growth of Balamban itself. Many of its graduates, during its half-century of existence, succeeded in various fields of endeavor along their respective lines of expertise. A number of graduates became priests, many adopted teaching as a profession, and a few became elective municipal officials and appointive line bureau directors of the government. Many moved to other places such as Mindanao, the United States and Europe. A number became lawyers, medical doctors, or men who started their own businesses as entrepreneurs. Prominent among them were Msgr. Achilles Dakay who became the spokesman of Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, Socrates Gonzales who became the mayor of Balamban through the martial law years, and the two Roperos brothers, namely: Nerius who graduated salutatorian of his SFA class and later became the director of the Bureau of Plant Industry agriculture department; and Cesar who the dean of the graduate school of Public Administration of Western Mindanao State University in Zamboanga City.¹