the town Santa and the Abra river

Unless you still don’t know but the town Santa was the second oldest town in Ilocos region after Ciudad Fernandina founded by the Spaniards (Augustinian friars) in 1576 a year after Vigan was founded. There was a time in my college that I gone to Vigan public library just to research this fact. Santa was called then Santa Catalina de Alexandria or Santa Catalina De Baba from our patron Saint Catherine of Alexandria. Santa has the same date of town fiesta with the town Santa Catalina every 25th day of November. Long time ago Santa was an encomienda of Narandan that served as hospital of the Spaniards. Before the Spaniards came it was believed that Santa also played a major role in trade and industry of Ilocos.
If you can recall Vigan at that time was marshy place that traders from China arrived to exchange their goodies among the local natives. No wonder why there are many Chinese name in Vigan like the Singsons etc. The IIocanos also had trade relationships with the native of Abra (the Itnegs) using the tributary Abra river in exchanging or bartering their goods. The beautiful, majestic and polluted Abra River unless you don’t know start from Buguias, Benguet descends to Cervantes and flows to the Province of Abra down to the towns of Caoayan and Santa. A destructive flood from Abra river in 1852 called “Layos Bungsot” eroded the original town built by the Spaniards causing the town to be transferred 4 kms away from its location and another flood called “Layos Nawnaw” in 1905 eroded the second town causing the poblacion to be transferred to where it is now today.
Why the name Catalina de Alexandria was removed from its name and the town Santa was called just a plain Santa. One theory was that it was only called Santa because the friars had run out of name of saints. Like Santa Maria, Santa Lucia etc. When the original town was destroyed by flood and it was at this time that The Augustinians founded another town south of Vigan which they named it maybe from the destroyed town and renamed the new town Santa Catalina. To avoid confusion from the new created town, the name of Catalina de Alexandria was dropped and that is where Santa got its name. Another theory from our townsfolk is that the name of Catalina de Alexandria was dropped to save the town from further disasters after the disastrous Layos Nawnaw in 1905.
I have not read nor seen a historical date when the town of Santa Catalina was founded unless I would be corrected by some batch mate of ours when was the exact date or year when their town Santa Catalina was founded. So I will stick to the theory that Santa was almost forgotten to be revived by the Spaniards after the devastating flood and they founded a new town and re-named the new town which could be a successor of the destroyed town in Santa.
What is known about Santa aside from its gusty wind or umatiberret nga angin probably because Santa was located between a mountain and a coastline. The eldest son of US President Theodore Roosevelt Sr., Thoedore Roosevelt Jr. then the American Governor General in 1930’s in his visit to Santa called Santa as “The mountain in the east the winding, roping river in the north and the immense sea in the west make Santa a poetic town.” No wonder the Santanians; as the people call themselves ….. are poets hahaha….
Aside from the “umatiberret ti angin”don’t you know that our Ilocano’s Joan of Arc Gabriela Silang a half Spanish meztisa, Half Ilocano and with Itneg blood revolutionary married to revolutionary hero Diego Silang (Diego was an Ilocano from Aringay, La union. Her 2nd husband. La union at that time was part of Pangasinan) was born in barangay Caniogan in the town of Santa. There no exist barangay Caniogan at present because it was denuded by water and only a small portion of land exists today of the said barangay. Santa a long time ago was a large tract of agricultural land frequently flooded by the Abra river leaving people to migrate westward to the mountainous area. Gabriela Silang was believed to have continued the fight of her assassinated husband in the 1760’s in the mountains of Abra with the Tinggiuans and in the plains of Ilocos until she was captured and hanged in the plaza of Vigan. Gabriela Silang symbolizes the heroism of Filipino women in the fight for our liberty and independence from our colonial master the Spaniards.
When a friend asked me from where I came from? I told them I came from Santa in Ilocos. Their usual reaction is always “where in the world was that in ilocos”. When I came to add our Mayor in my friendster account and told him this fact and urge him to put a marker at the Santa Paradise at our boundary with Narvacan. Now our town is now known as “the birthplace of Gabriela Silang”. How I wish there could be a monument in our town plaza after our heroine Gabriela Silang and not Jose Rizal who was standing low and behold in our town plaza when he was not in the first place came from Santa hahaha…..