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Laguna de Bay: A Lake that is a Bay?
Luzon's Great Lake
Named after Ba-é [Ba-i or Bay], a town on its southern shore, Laguna de Ba-é is a brackish lake, 922 square kilometers in size, with the mean depth of two meters. Fed by rivers and streams from the Sierra Madre, it empties into Manila Bay through the sixteen-kilometer long Pasig River. It was in the town of Ba-é on the lake’s southern shore that the Augustinians, established their first Christian mission station in Laguna, in 1571. Hence, the lake’s name.
American cartographers misread the name "Ba-é", leading to the cartographic conundrum of some contemporary map: a lake that is a bay. By definition, a bay is a body of water, usually salty, with a large opening making it an ideal harbor while a lake, usually fresh, is encircled by land.
The heart-shaped lake, Laguna de Ba-é, is encircled by two provinces, Rizal and Laguna, and Metro Manila. To the east is the Sierra Madre, to the south are the volcanic mountains--Banahaw (2,177 mts), San Cristobal (1,470 mts), Makiling (1,090 mts), Atimba (654 mts), and Nagcarlang (629 mts)--and to the northwest the plains of Metro Manila.
Laguna offered an ideal place for habitation. The lake yielded a variety of fish and seashells, and the seasonal flooding of the lake made rice cultivation along its shores possible. Apparently, rice was extensively cultivated by the 14th century (remains of ancient rice terraces, watered by the annual rains, have been found on the slopes of Mount Banahaw). Food, the first necessity of any communal existence, was thus readily available. Because the Pasig was navigable, shallow draught vessels from Manila Bay could enter the lake through the river. Archaeological evidence of trade with the Chinese has been unearthed in places like Pila, giving the impression of thriving communities in prehispanic times. Trade with China connected the lakeshore communities with the rest of Southeast Asia. Trade also catalyzed the development of villages and settlements.
Arriving in Manila in 1571, the Spanish conquistadors and missionaries’ first impression of the Tagalogs that lived along the Pasig and the lake was that of a sophisticated people: their nobles dined on imported China, wore silk and gold; the women brought smoking braziers of incense for their worship; their traders could communicate with other Asiatics, using Malay as lingua franca. The Tagalogs had been trading with China as early as the 11th century.
The village at the Pasig’s mouth called Maynila or Maynilad was a busy entrepôt, where Chinese junks and other vessels were moored. The Tagalogs built well-defended villages, like Sulayman’s Maynila which had kuta or fortification of stout timbers armed by native canons called lantaka or like Cainta on Laguna’s eastern shore which also had a kuta.
Their nobility or maharlika had embraced Islam, a faith brought by traders to southern Philippines in the late 1300s but which had steadily advanced north. The ordinary people though, hardly knew the tenets of Islam, content to avoid eating pork and keeping a few other ritual requirements to satisfy the demands of their faith.
The Tagalogs, who lived along the banks of the Pasig and the shore of the lake, where people whose life was intimately connected with water. For them this lake was simply lawa or laot (the deep) or dagat (the sea).
This riverine people Juan de Salcedo brought under the Spanish rule during his campaign of conquest and pacification in 1571. In his wake came the missionaries who brought the Christian faith. First, came the Augustinians who established the first mission in Ba-é. Then, the territory around the lake was ceded to the Franciscans in 1578, except for Ba-é which remained under the Augustinians until 1737. Ba-e became the capital of Laguna province until 1688, when the capital became Pagsanjan, and later Santa Cruz.
Lacking in personnel, the Franciscans ceded their missions of Taytay and Antipolo to the Jesuits in 1591, and for a brief time the towns of Baras and Tanay. The Jesuits remained active in this area until 1768 when they were expelled from the Philippines. On 23 February 1853, the government created the district of Morong by carving territory from Manila and Laguna; this politico-military district we now call Rizal. In 1762, the towns of the northern shore, Pasig, Cainta and Taytay, fell under the British; while in Laguna, resistance against British was able to spirit funds from Manila to aid in Simon de Anda’s campaign against the British.
Our heritage tour brings us to these historic towns where the handiwork of the intrepid Augustinian, Franciscan, and Jesuit missionaries lives as a strong influence in the daily lives of the Tagalog.
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Click here for suggested itineraries |
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- Antipolo to Pagsanjan or vice-versa
- Los Baños to Pagsanjan or vice-versa
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