A friend who also hails from the province of Tarlac and also now based in Sydney gifted me The Tarlac Book 2007, Yesterday’s History, Today’s Legacy put together by a kababayan, Virgilio Buan, a freelance photojournalist.
Going over its pages, I thought the book looked impressive. It is just like an almanac with facts and figures about Tarlac. Town histories, town profiles, Tarlac’s contribution to Philippine history and politics, old photos of Tarlac landmarks, etc. Name it, the book appears to have all the answers!
Going over the history and profile of my hometown, Capas, I was surprised to find some kind of “origin” of family names of people whose families, or shall I say clan, dominate the township.
According to the book: “In the course of time townspeople of Capas where (sic) ordered by the Spanish authorities to change their family name of their own choosing on condition that such family name begins with letter ‘C’ (the first letter of Capas). Descendants of the early inhabitants still hold to this days (sic) such family names as Capiendo, Capuno, Capitulo, Capule, Capunpun, Cayabyab, Castañeda and Catacutan.”
I thought that part of the journal, if correct, is a very interesting piece of history. Unfortunately, the book does not have any source for that kind of information. I imagine that this is part of the Capas folklore that is, that part where it is claimed that families were ordered to adopt family names and their family names should begin with letter “C” to coincide with the first letter of the town. Even granting that is correct, still I could not find how that could be right. Wasn’t it that Capas for awhile was spelled with “K” and not “C”?
This business of family names and their etymology had fascinated me for many years now. Even before the Google era, I attempted to study how people attach names, family names included, to themselves. Based on what Renato Perdon wrote in his book, the list of surnames handed out by the Spanish authorities, compiled in a catalogue, were distributed to the natives for them to choose from. A number of those family names were Spanish names like Santiago, Santos, Ramos, etc. I am not too clear though if those who already had second names (second names would just be like nicknames or “bansag” like “di masupil” meaning cannot be overcome) were ordered to adopt the surnames listed in the catalogue. Apparently, they were not. Up to these days we still have native family names like Cayabyab (originally, spelled as ka yabyab, meaning fellow rice pounder), Dimagiba (meaning, indestructible), Sulit (meaning, redeem or compensated), etc.
This means that the natives were not ordered, or given the option, to select family names starting with letters equivalent to the first letter of their village or township. At least, I have not encountered any historical account that was the case.
Considering also that most Cayabyabs are based in San Carlos, Pangasinan which according to my late father that is where he came from, I find it with great difficulty to accept the accuracy of the Tarlac history journal.
But who knows, the writer of the Capas chronicle might just be right. Which means, that is a new “historical find” and history should therefore be re-written to accommodate the new information.
About Romeo Zamora Cayabyab
from what i heard as a story, tarlac was not really the origin of the cojuangcos. the original people who owned tarlac were driven away during the Spanish period. now here is the challenge: who are the original people that owned tarlac?