Culion Palawan… history and happiness
Our stay in Culion, Palawan was a product of several months of teasing Tita May Aromin. She is the one who is from Culion, but she have not visited her hometown for several years already. Her family showed us the warmth and friendliness of Culioneros.
Culion Palawan is small town composed of 14 baranggays. According to wikipedia, it is a 4th class municipality is the province of Palawan. This island have it’s own share of history in the country. It is once a leprosy segragation camp.
On our first day in the island, my friends and I strolled around and had our own taste of Culion’s history at their Museum. The entrance fee to the museum varies according to the type of visitor.
Foreigners - 200 pesos
Locals- 100 pesos
Culion residents- 50 pesos
The start of the Culion museum itenerary is a film showing of the history of the Island. According to the video, the vast tract of land once owned by the Sandoval in Culion was donated to be utilized as a leprosarium. It was an isolated island then but in the early 1900’s Asuncion Shipping Company (now San Nicholas Shipping) started a missionary trip going to Culion from Coron to serve the community.
A remnant of the fort in San Pedro located somewhere in Burabud is a testimony of a rich history of Culion. In the early 1990’s, it was thought that this fort was already envaded by the roots of balete trees. This was built by the spanish friars (Agustinian Recollects)and is older than the one we now see in Culion proper, the Immaculate Conception Church built by the Jesuits. This fort in San Pedro was more or less built on the same span of date as that in Agutaya, Taytay and Cuyo which forts found in these towns still stand today preserved by the Palawan government. It is about time for the Palawan government to discover this lost fort in San Pedro, Culion to complete the history.
Most of the structures built in the early 1900’s in Culion Proper especially “inside” the once leprosarium which are still sturdily existing were the fruits of the labor of Leonard Wood, a physician and an American Governor General in 1902. In fact, the Culion Museum is one of these memorabilia of Dr. Wood.
Some of my friends did not like the idea of spending 100 pesos for a museum but me and Ana did not want to waste our opportunity of going inside for we do not know if we can go back there again. We do not want to say “sayang….dapat” . So I grabbed my ever handy dandy canon 1000d and paid 100 pesos and started to go back to Culion’s history.
My pictures will show you how we enjoyed our visit to the museum. As we go out to the gates, our friends are already there and picked us to go our next itinerary…. to a place they call as pulang lupa. I do not know why they called it as such but it is an uphill travel. The road was rough but it is a good thing that we took the service coming from the Culion’s tourism office for simple cars will not survive the rough road. As we ended our road trip our eyes was pleased with the views that we saw. Pulang lupa is one of the highest point of the island and it will give you a magnificent view of the Calamianes group of island. The sparkling blue water and pristine environment will make you say wow.