Sunday, February 8, 2015

The Fallen 44: A Genealogical Tribute

I know it’s been several days since that tragic event in Mamasapano. As always, it is difficult for me to automatically write something using genealogy as it usually takes days of research to do a family history. Of course, I would not do a genealogy of each of the Fallen 44. As much as I would like to there is not enough time to do that now. But still, I want to give my tribute to these heroic police officers in a way that I, as a family historian, can relate to.

I recently received the final piece of research material for my overdue book on genealogy from very considerate and thoughtful people from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). They sent me a consolidated list of the most populous and popular last names for each municipality in the country, something I need for a chapter in my book. So before I use this list to complete my book, I will use this for this tribute.



When I mapped out the home provinces of the 44 fallen policemen (see diagram above) I noticed immediately at how national the distribution of their hometowns were. This was clearly something that people from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao could relate to as the provinces of these 44 heroes were spread out among the 3 major island groups. Twenty-five of them came from Luzon, 12 from the Visayas, and 7 from Mindanao. This is one of the reasons why the reaction of the Filipino people has been so strong and so real; everyone from these provinces, and by extension in their regions, could claim these heroes as their own and would fight for the truth to come out so as to give justice to these fallen heroes.

With this in mind, I looked at the PSA list further and decided to find the prevalence of the surnames of the Fallen 44. Below is a matrix showing how many times a surname appears as one of the top 50 in each municipality and the number of people carrying the surname today. Of course, we know that because of Governor-General Narciso Claveria's 1849 Surname Decree these people with similar surnames to our Fallen 44 policemen are not all related. The matrix is simply a short practice of looking at the spread of certain surnames across the Philippines.

FAMILY NAME
HOMETOWN
# OF TOWNS W/ SURNAME
# OF PEOPLE W/ SURNAME
Acain
Gutalac, Zamb. del Norte
Appears very populous in 7 towns
1217 people carrying the surname
Acob
Sampaloc, Manila
Appears very populous in 17 towns
2072 people carrying the surname
Agabon
Iligan City
Appears very populous in 3 towns
439 people carrying the surname
Aliaga
Banaue, Ifugao
Appears very populous in 6 towns
763 people carrying the surname
Anniban
Tabuk City, Kalinga
Appears very populous in 1 town
69 people carrying the surname
Asjali
Zamboangaanga City
Uncommon last name
Very few people using the surname
Balaca
Oras, Eastern Samar
Uncommon last name
Very few people using the surname
Baluga
Piat, Cagayan
Appears very populous in 5 towns
383 people carrying the surname
Bedua
Dulag, Leyte
Appears very populous in 2 towns
193 people carrying the surname
Bilog
Tabuk City, Kalinga
Appears very populous in 3 towns
781 people carrying the surname
Cabanlet
Baroy, Lanao del Norte
Uncommon last name
Very few people using the surname
Candano
Dumanjug, Cebu
Appears very populous in 2 towns
274 people carrying the surname
Capinding
San Mateo, Isabela
Uncommon last name
Very few people using the surname
Carap
La Trinidad, Benguet
Uncommon last name
Very few people using the surname
Cayang-o
Sadanga, Mt. Province
Uncommon last name
Very few people using the surname
Cempron
Paranaque
Appears very populous in 1 town
239 people carrying the surname
Clemencio
Carigara, Leyte
Uncommon last name
Very few people using the surname
Cordero
Isulan, Sultan Kudarat
Appears very populous in 52 towns
12644 people carrying the surname
Danao
Baguio City
Appears very populous in 17 towns
5541 people carrying the surname
Danao
Tinoc, Ifugao
Appears very populous in 17 towns
5541 people carrying the surname
Dulnuan
Baguio City
Appears very populous in 22 towns
8626 people carrying the surname
Duque
Aurora, Isabela
Appears very populous in 14 towns
2651 people carrying the surname
Erana
Dumalinao, Z. del Sur
Uncommon last name
Very few people using the surname
Esmulla
Zamboanga Sibugay
Uncommon last name
Very few people using the surname
Gamutan
Basilan
Appears very populous in 1 town
177 people carrying the surname
Golocan
Baguio City
Uncommon last name
Very few people using the surname
Inocencio
Panabo City
Appears very populous in 5 towns
1178 people carrying the surname
Kayob
La Trinidad, Benguet
Uncommon last name
Very few people using the surname
Kiangan
Mankayan, Benguet
Uncommon last name
Very few people using the surname
Kibete
S. J. del Monte, Bulacan
Uncommon last name
Very few people using the surname
Kodiamat
Bontoc, Mt. Province
Uncommon last name
Very few people using the surname
Mejia
San Nicolas, Pangasinan
Appears very populous in 23 towns
11574 people carrying the surname
Nacino
San Luis, Aurora
Appears very populous in 2 towns
283 people carrying the surname
Nacionales
Marcos, Ilocos Norte
Appears very populous in 3 towns
577 people carrying the surname
Pabalinas
Gen. Santos City
Appears very populous in 1 town
390 people carrying the surname
Ramacula
Rosario, N. Samar
Uncommon last name
Very few people using the surname
Sagonoy
Silvino Lobos, N. Samar
Appears very populous in 2 towns
291 people carrying the surname
Senin
San Fabian, Pangasinan
Uncommon last name
Very few people using the surname
Sumbila
Sulat, Eastern Samar
Uncommon last name
Very few people using the surname
Tabdi
La Trinidad, Benguet
Uncommon last name
Very few people using the surname
Tayrus
Zamboanga City
Uncommon last name
Very few people using the surname
Tria
Virac, Catanduanes
Appears very populous in 6 towns
1297 people carrying the surname
Viernes
Tuguegarao City
Appears very populous in 56 towns
9183 people carrying the surname
Villanueva
Zamboanga City
Appears very populous in 573 towns
249243 people carrying the surname

Source:

Top 50 Family Names in the Philippines (data from the Philippine Statistics Authority), 2014.

No comments:

Post a Comment