CARCAR FAMILIES: A Genealogy Blog for Carcar

I had long lamented that as elementary school pupils in Carcar we were never given what should be standard poop–a list of our mayors. The municipal government itself did not have that kind of list. Well, wonderfully, it seemed someone had thought of and done that long before–only, his compilation was lying in state at a library in Cebu City that charges viewing fees.

The list was compiled by Vicente Emiliano (Jaen) Noel, himself a mayor. This is part of the Vicente Noel Papers donated to the Cebuano Studies Center of the University of San Carlos.  It appears that the mayors included in the first portion here were only those of memory, and their terms had not been reconstructed anymore. Since Carcar was established ca. 1599 (presupposing the civil government was organized at the same time, or thereabouts), there must have been gobernadorcillos from 1600s to this obvious 1800s list — maybe a hundred more chief executives than this.

I’m sure I’d read somewhere that only indios and mestizos Sangleys could be gobernadorcillos. So, I was a little surprised Gregorio Silva, who was classified as a criollo in his Marriage in 1837 (see Barcenas Family tree), or at least was a mestizo Español, became gobernadorcillo, too. As did (capitan municipal) another mE, Gregorio Rodriguez, whose father came from Madrid.

The term dates for Apolonio Cuison below were added by me based only on certain church records which gave him out as the current capitan of the time (capitan actual Apolonio Francisco). Ditto with Donato Alcos (Donato Francisco). But I kept the order as they appeared in the Noel list.

A marriage record in 2-Sep-1833 gave out the parents of the groom as the difunto capitan D. Francisco Valentin and Salvadora Albarado. Francisco Valentin’s family is Navarro. He died in 1832.  Since this Noel list does not contain his name, let us presume he had been capitan even earlier than the individuals on it. Another capitan found was Clemente Alvarado. In the 1837 burial entry for of his wife, Ma. Lorenza, he was called capitan Clemente Albarado.

Still another past capitan found was Francisco Laurencio, who also died in 1832 as “capitan passado [sic] de 70 años viudo de Ma. Luisa”.  Can’t say with finality what surname his family later got, although they could be the couple just named Lorenzo and Luisa in my Alcover file. Again, like Francisco Valentin and Clemente Alvarado above, Francisco Laurencio’s name is not on the Noel list below so we can only suppose the three had been capitanes even before those on the list.

Anyway, we should be grateful Don Vicente took this initiative. Our schoolchildren should be reciting this list from memory in our elementary schools, but if not for him, these names would have been lost forever. Don Vicente also wrote a history of the town. He died in 1951, and so the mayors after 1951 were just from my own memory as well. I also added the Born column to show who were non-natives. As I said, post-1951 is just my reconstruction and I’ve just been reminded, and this is embarrassing, Leoncio Gantuangko was mayor 1955. Embarrassing — and unforgivable — because his son, Edmundo was a grade school classmate of mine.

I was given a digitized copy of the Noel list by Jerry Martin Noel Alfafara, who was at the time still in the process of writing Carcar’s history for the provincial Towns History Project. JM’s grandfather was Don Vicente’s youngest brother.

Subsequent to the original posting of this page, Nicepuro Apura has assumed as city mayor 30-Jun-2010 after Mario Patricio Barcenas who’d served three terms (9 years) but later downgraded per a supreme court ruling back to municipal even as the whole local government machinery awaits for its supreme-ness to “correct” itself again. And sure enough it did in 2011, and Apura is back to being city mayor again.

(page under construction)

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