Bikol and Bikolnon are both names for the people, culture, and language of the Bicol region. Bikol might have come from “Bico,” which is the name of a river that flows into San Miguel Bay. Possible sources are the bikul or bikal bamboo trees that grow along rivers, as well as the old native word bikod (twisted or bent).

The Bicol region is on the southeast end of the island of Luzon. It is managed as Region V. It is surrounded by the Visayan Sea in the south, the Pacific Ocean in the east, Lamon Bay in the north, and the Sibugan Sea and Quezon province in the west. It is made up of six provinces: Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, Catanduanes, Albay, Sorsogon, and Masbate.

The land in Bicol is rough. It has a few plains, mostly in Camarines Sur and Albay, but most of them are in the highlands. These include the Mayon Volcano, Mount Malinao, and Mount Masaraga in Albay, Mount Isarog, Mount Iriga, and the Calinigan mountain range in Camarines Sur, and the Bulusan Volcano in Sorsogon. Lamon Bay and San Miguel Bay, the Lagonoy, Ragay, Albay, and Asian Gulf, the Sibugon Sea, Burias Pass, Ticao Pass, and Maqueda Channel, and the freshwater lakes of Buhi, Bato, and Baao in Camarines Sur and Bulusan Lake in Sorsogon are all important bodies of water. Rain falls often and heavily in the area. Most years, it rains more than 2 meters, but Baras, Catanduanes, gets 5.4 meters of rain, which is the most in the country. In the last few months of the year, typhoons happen often and cause a lot of damage.

In 2010, there were 5,420,411 people living in the area. They were spread out over 17,632.50 sq km of land. But the Bikol people live all over the world, not just in Bikol. As of 2000, they were the largest non-Tagalog group in the following cities in Metro Manila or the National Capital Region: Caloocan City, with 59,276 people, Pasig City, with 24,678 people, and Valenzuela City, with 21,896 people, or 4.55% of the city’s population. After the Bisaya, they have the second most people in Quezon City, with 108,293 people, or 5%. In Manila, there are 39,295 of them, or 2.5%, making them the third largest group after the Ilocano and Cebuano. They are the biggest non-Tagalog group in the provinces of Rizal (73,253), Laguna (57,282), and Batangas (11,661) on the island of Luzon. After the Bisaya, they come in second in the provinces of Cavite (52,031, or 2.54%), Bulacan (43,605, or 1.95%), and Quezon (36,339, or 2.45%). They are also found in the provinces of Aurora (7,079 people), Pampanga (6,685 people), Oriental Mindoro (2,930 people), Cebu (1,534, or 0.06% of the population), and Marinduque (247 people). Just based on this random survey, there are more than half a million Bikol people who live outside of their home region. On the other hand, besides the Tagalog, there are also the Bisayans, especially the Cebuano and Ilonggo, and the Kankanaey from northern Luzon in the Bicol area.

At least eight Bikol languages are spoken in the Bicol region: Buhi’non Bikol, Central Bikol, Libon Bikol, Miraya Bikol, Northern Catanduanes Bikol, Rinconada Bikol, Southern Catanduanes Bikol, and West Albay Bikol. Also among these are at least 11 dialects. Most people think that the Bikol that is spoken in Naga, Albay, is Standard Bikol. Bikol is spoken in 11,689 homes in Metro Manila. This makes Bikol speakers the third largest group in Metro Manila who don’t speak Tagalog, after those who speak Ilocano and Bisaya.

Bikol History

People thought that the name Ibalon came from the words ibalio, which meant “to bring to the other side,” or ibalon, which meant “people from the other side,” or “people who are friendly and give visitors gifts to take home.” It could also be a misspelling of Gibalong, which is now a sitio in Barangay San Isidro, Sorsogon. This is where the first Spanish settlers arrived in 1569. In 1572, Spanish records first talked about the Bico River. The Spanish called the area “Los Camarines” because of the huts they found in Camalig, Albay.

No fossils of prehistoric animals have been found in Bicol, and no one is sure who lived there in the past. The presence of the Aeta from Camarines Sur to Sorsogon is a strong sign that aborigines lived there a long time ago, but the earliest evidence is from the middle to late neolithic.

Stone tools and burial jars have been found in Bato, Sorsogon; burial jars have also been found in Bahia, Bagatao Island in Magallanes, Sorsogon, and in the Batongan Cave in Mandaon; golden crowns, thought to be from 91 BC to 79 AD, have been found in Libmanan, Bulan, and Juban; and 14th- and 15th-century ceramic plates, clay pots, and human Pottery was found in the Kalanay cave in Aroroy. It is called the Sa-Huynh-Kalanay complex because it is similar to things found in Vietnam between 400 BC and 100 BC. Other things found in Masbate show that people used to trade with China a long time ago. In Burias, Masbate, caves held sealed wooden boxes from before the 16th century. These were different from the hollowed-out logs that are usually found elsewhere. The Ticao Stone was also found on Masbate Island. It is a pair of stones with characters from the native syllabary, baybayin, carved into them. Even though it hasn’t been decided yet if the two stones are real, they are on display at the National Museum in Manila.

In 1567, Mateo del Saz and Martin de Goiti led a group of Spaniards to Masbate. When they got there, they found villages that were empty because the native people had fled to the highlands before they got there. But for the Spaniards, this wasn’t a way in; it was just a place to restock. Luis de Guzman’s military trip to Bicol in 1569 was the first step in settling the area. From then on, the Spanish started to hurt people in this area, as they did on all the other islands. Andres de Ibarra was the first person to treat the natives badly. He came to Bicol in 1570. When Juan de Salcedo explored the northern part of Bicol in 1571 and found their gold mines, they were also used. When the natives fought back quickly, their property was taken, they were forced to work, they were sent to war, and they lost their traditional power. Bishop Domingo de Salazar moved to the colony in 1581. Within a few months, he was writing angry letters to King Philip II about how cruel the Ibalon tax collector was. The chieftains, who were put in charge of getting the tributes from their people, were tortured by being crucified and hung by their arms until they died.

Alonso Jimenez and Juan de Orta, who were Augustinian missionaries, were the first people on Luzon to convert to Christianity. They did this by working with the Bikol people. Near the village of Naga, Pedro de Chavez built the Spanish city of Caceres. It became a Franciscan mission in 1578, and the bishopric’s capital in 1595. On the other hand, Pedro Ferrer, a former soldier who became a Franciscan missionary, was sent to Camalig. The natives, who didn’t like how he suddenly got in the way of their lives, almost killed him.

In 1636, the area was split into Ibalon and Camarines. Ibalon was made up of the provinces of Albay, Catanduanes (which used to be part of Albay), Sorsogon, Masbate, and the islands of Ticao and Burias. Camarines was made up of the towns north of Camalig. Camarines was split into Norte and Sur in 1829. The two parts were put back together in 1893 and became provinces in 1919. Bicol was also home to the first Filipino bishop of the Catholic Church, who served from 1850 to 1909. His name was Jorge Barlin y Imperial.

Bicol became more Hispanic when religious education was introduced, when Fray Pedro de Espallargas put a hemp-stripping machine in Sorsogon in 1669, which helped Bicol’s abaca industry, when the natives and the colonial government worked together to fight off Muslim invaders, and when a shipyard was set up to build Manila-Acapulco trading galleons. The Real Astillero on the island of Bagatao at the mouth of Sorsogon Bay was the biggest shipyard. It was close to where Sorsogon got its wood and to the San Bernardino Strait, where ships went to and from Acapulco, Mexico. In 1849, Governor-General Claveria told the natives that they had to get last names. This was supposed to be the end of their ties to their native past.

Fray Martin de Rada, a historian from Spain, said that the Bikol were very fierce warriors. So, their history is full of fights against foreign invaders. In 1649, Sorsogon took part in Samar’s Sumuroy Revolt. Small rebellions happened in Camarines at the same time as the Sumuroy rebellion and while the British were in control of Manila from 1762 to 1764. The natives mostly fought back against the Spaniards with weapons. When they were outnumbered, they used a clever system of alarm signals. If these didn’t work, they went to the hills. Mount Isarog became a safe place for rebels, who were called remontados or cimarrones by the Spaniards. Even though they were told to only speak Naga Bikol, the natives kept using 15 different languages and dialects as a form of defiance.

From September to December 1896, people from Bicol who were accused of subversion were put on trial, sent away, or killed. After the change of government, very few of those who were sent to Africa came back. In 1897, Ildefonso Moreno started the Bikol chapter of the revolutionary group Katipunan. However, their uprising failed. About 500 native people were killed by the tribunal de cuchillo (military court) of the province to stop uprisings from happening again. Other counterrevolutionary steps were taken by the governors of Albay and Sorsogon and by church leaders in Bicol. In 1897, hundreds of volunteers from Bikol were sent to Manila to help the Spanish army on the island of Luzon. The bishop of Naga told the ministers in his diocese, and Father Jorge Barlin, the vicar-forane of Sorsogon, told his parish priests to keep an eye out. In 1897, 11 Bikol martyrs were killed in Bagumbayan, also called Luneta. Three of them were priests. But none of these things were enough to stop the workers at the shipyard in Panlatuan, Pilar, Sorsogon from rebelling in 1898.

Elias Angeles and Felix Plazo led the mutiny that ended Spanish rule over Naga on September 18, 1898. Vicente Zardin, the last governor of both of the Camarines provinces, signed the document. After the Spaniards gave up to Ramon Santos on September 22, 1898, Angel de Bascaran, who was the governor of Albay, gave power to Anacleto Solano. After the Spanish were defeated, the new government in the Philippines asked the Chinese for money. But Diokno’s soldiers had taken advantage of the generosity of the Chinese in Sorsogon, so it was harder to get money from them. General Jose Ignacio Paua, the only Chinese revolutionary governor, said that he got 400,000 pesos from Bicol’s Chinese community between November 1898 and October 1899.

In the first part of the Bikol revolution, it is not clear what role the “frailocracy” played. The Bikol martyrs could have been killed in 1897 because of a movement against friars. Since most of Bicol’s parishes were run by Filipino secular clergy, it is also possible that Bicol’s rebels were not as anti-friar as rebels in other parts of the country. When the revolution broke out in Naga, the Spanish Franciscans and Vincentians were well taken care of, and the Franciscans were happy to leave Albay with their fellow Spaniards. But the friars were persecuted when the revolutionary government was given to masonic leaders like Vicente Lukban and Wenceslao Viniegra. Some policies of the revolutionary government also forced Antonio Guevarra and Estanislao Legaspi to take a stronger stand.

Even during the second part of the revolution, the anti-American campaign, there were still problems with how to pay for it. Colonel Amando Airan in Sorsogon and General Paua in Albay, for example, did not have enough weapons. When the Philippine-American War broke out in Bicol in February 1890, the Filipino troops of Colonel Felix Maronilla and Captain Policarpio Ruivivar met the American troops of Colonel Walter Howe. In June of the same year, William Kobbe sent a military group to Sorsogon to cut Aguinaldo off from his army there and give the U.S. control of the abaca industry. Generals Vito Belarmino and Paua in Albay and Colonel Airan in Sorsogon fought back against this. After that, Belarmino took the command away from him. In Camarines in February 1900, General William Bates got a lot of trouble. Under Elias Angeles and Ludovico Arejola, the fighting in the revolution got worse. Later in March, Arejola, Angeles, and Colonel Bernabe Dimalibot brought together Bicol’s guerrilla forces. These fighters of the 20th century brought back the tirador (slingshot) and anting-anting (amulets).

To stay in the area, the Americans encouraged the local people to work with them. But local revolutionaries criticized people who worked with the Americans, like Claro Muyot and Anastacio Camara of Sorsogon, for taking American jobs. When it was formed at the end of 1900, the Partido Federalista helped put an end to resistance like that of Colonel Emeterio Funes in Sorsogon. When the rebels turned down peace offers, the Americans came back in force and burned, stole, and killed. Along with normal battles and mass arrests, there were also many war crimes in the area. Strategic areas like Burias Pass and Ticao Pass were blocked off. When the rebel leaders of Burias were caught, the forces of Sorsogon and Albay lost their last main source of supplies in the area. Arejola gave up on March 31, 1901, but he turned down General William Howard Taft’s offer to become governor. Even after Belarmino and Paua gave up in Albay, Simeon Ola was still in charge until 1903. Ola was the last general from the Bikol tribe to give up to the Americans.

In April 1901, the American military government was taken over by civil governments from the provinces, which were overseen by the Philippine Commission. Bicol’s economic growth brought it closer to the center of the country, which is in and around Manila. With the start of popular education, a new curriculum was set up, but until the 1920s, Spanish was still the language of instruction.

In the first 10 years of the century, 53 American Thomasites went to Bicol to help carry out the policy on public education set by the First Philippine Commission. Later, they were replaced by pensionados or scholars who had studied in the United States. But the American government and education did not immediately get rid of Spain from the area. But soon, American schools that taught Anglo-American culture changed the Bikol, just as they did in every other province in the country. People were forced to speak English, and being able to do so became an important factor for both public and private jobs. In the same way, towns and provinces in Bicol adopted the structures of local government that the Americans set up.

But problems with land ownership that started during the Spanish colonial period got worse because of American colonial policies. These policies required all land claims in the Philippines to go through legal procedures, especially the Torrens title system. In the past, people in an area could claim ownership of a piece of land by simply farming it. The local elite, called the principalia, usually owned no more than 20 hectares of land, while the average person owned only three. The fruit from trees and plants on land that was owned by everyone was free for anyone to take. If a non-resident or someone from outside the city wanted to use these products, they had to ask permission from the city officials.

But a smart person could use the sudden change to colonialist, legal-bureaucratic procedures to their advantage. In 1890, Don Mariano P. Villanueva, a newcomer from Binondo, Manila, claimed the legal title to 1,300 hectares of so-called pastos (pasture land) on San Miguel, an island across the sea from Tabaco, Albay. In 1897, the mayor of the town wrote in an official document that the land’s ownership was in doubt because the people of San Miguel claimed it as communal property. Before 1890, the land had been planted with “coconuts, cacao, bananas, bamboo, nipa palms, coffee, lemon trees, sugar cane, abaca, anahao [fountain palm], galyang [root crop], and caragomoy [pandan],” which means ” (Supreme Court 2013). But because of the Torrens Title Act, Villanueva was able to get the legal title to the same land again in 1902. About a hundred natives and residents of San Miguel had asked the government a year earlier to bring back Miguel Berces as their presidente (mayor). In a lawsuit filed by Villlanueva in 1902, Miguel Berces and 13 others were named as “usurpers” of the land in question. In 1905, Seor Juan Loyola, who was also one of the people who lost their land, said that Villanueva had sold some Americans a piece of the land near Point Rawis. In 1906, American judge Grant T. Trent ruled in favor of Villanueva. The Attorney General, who was there to represent the US government, was there as well.

Up until 1913, people filed lawsuits and countersuits. By 1908, the so-called “usurpers” were called “The Fourteen” in court records. They were there on behalf of 305 other people who had been kicked out of San Miguel. Irineo Bonagua was one of them. In 1901, he had led the campaign to get signatures for Berces to be made mayor again. In a letter sent home in 1909, the head of the Presbyterian mission in Albay said, “Most of the people have lost their land to a rich man because of a bad title.” In 1913, the Supreme Court upheld the original decision in favor of Villanueva because “the occupants of the land were absolutely without any title” and they had not acted sooner “to protect their rights and interests.” Miguel Berces, Saturnino Bon, Leon Buison, Basilio Buela, Alejandro Bogalos, Idelfonso Buera, Vicente Bolga, Jacinto Brotas, Alberto Beniste, Tomas Berlon, Alejandro Brusola, Fabian Bonagua, Mariano Bonagua, and Agustin Bonagua were “The Fourteen” who fought to keep their land. Tirso Irureta Goyena, a Filipino poet who writes in Spanish, was one of the lawyers who helped the people of San Miguel.

Bicol entered World War II when Japanese soldiers landed in Legazpi on December 12, 1941, and then marched into Naga two days later. Most of the USAFFE (United States Armed Forces in the Far East) troops in Bicol were in Bataan, so they didn’t face much resistance.

In December 1941, Wenceslao Vinzons of Camarines Norte put together the first group of rebels to fight the Japanese in the Philippines. Important people in Camarines Sur put together groups of rebels who attacked Naga in March 1942. Between Pasacao and Pamplona, as well as in Lagonoy and Rinconada in Camarines Sur, Bikol rebels were active. In May 1942, the guerillas led by Police Sergeant Faustino Flor and Teofilo Padua took back Naga. Governor Salvador Escudero launched his own offensives in Sorsogon, almost at the same time that Vinzons attacked Daet, Camarines Norte. In July 1942, Vinzons was caught and, according to reports, put to death. The place where he was born, Indan, was renamed Vinzons to honor his patriotism.

Lt. Francisco “Turko” Boayes continued the fight against the Japanese that Vinzons had started. He was helped by the Tangkong Vaca Guerrilla Unit (TVGU) and the Camp Isarog Guerrilla Unit, which were both big groups (CIGU). In November 1942, the TVGU supposedly set up a trap for General Takano, who was the top military leader for the Japanese in the Philippines.

In 1944, American planes bombed Legazpi, Pili, Iriga, and Naga, destroying many homes even though most Japanese had already left out of fear of US attacks. In March and April of 1945, Douglas MacArthur’s Sixth Army beat the Japanese in the area with the help of Filipino guerrillas. Shortly after that, all of the guerrilla units in the area joined together to form the US Army’s 158th Regimental Combat Team. It was split into two regiments. The first regiment was based in Legazpi and led by Major Eladio Isleta. The second regiment was based in Naga and led by Major Licerio Lapuz. The Commonwealth government was put back in place in Bicol.

After World War II, the agricultural region of Bicol was still one of the poorest and least developed in the country. So many people left the area that it was “almost an epidemic.” On the San Miguel estate, there were violent fights between the next landowners and alleged “squatters” until the 1970s. In 1950, Santiago Gancayco Sr. bought the land and set up the Agricultural Management and Development Corporation (AMADCOR). In 1958, his son Santiago Gancayco Jr., who was also the manager of Hacienda San Miguel, was killed by a group of armed men. One of them told them that his relatives’ camote plantations had been bulldozed because they were “squatters” on the hacienda. Nine days later, the group leader, Pedro Borja, and 39 other people he had recruited to start a rebel movement against the government were caught in Cavinti, Laguna.

Street protests began in 1970, when student leaders from Bikol who were part of the First Quarter Storm (FQS) returned from Manila to organize in the area. The Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) and youth and student groups like Kabataang Makabayan (KM) and the Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan (SDK) were formed. Kilusang Khi Rho and Lakasdiwa, which are more moderate and have ties to the Church, were also formed to support nationalism, justice, and human rights. However, they did not agree with what they saw as the violent and Communist tendencies of their more extreme counterparts. In Octobercarp 1971, many students and farmers took part in a “long march” from Naga City to Legazpi. They stopped in each town to hold rallies. Students in Camalig, Albay, were attacked by a politician’s private army, which then followed the students to the town church, where they had gone for safety.

Romulo Jallores of Tigaon, Camarines Sur, also known as Kumander Tangkad, was the most well-known activist from Bicol. He was a member of the first unit of the New People’s Army (NPA) in Bicol. In 1970 and 1971, he and his fellow rebels set up a guerrilla zone in the Partido district of Camarines Sur. On August 26, 1971, in San Pedro, Iriga City, Jallores’s armed group and the Philippine Constabulary (PC) met for the first time. Jallores’s armed group went on to kill cattle thieves, rapists, and other criminals where they lived and worked. They got the farmers to work together and did “revolutionary land reform.” In 1971, military forces in Naga City killed Jallores.

People thought that the collapse of the Colgante Bridge during the Peafrancia river procession in September, which killed more than a hundred people, was a sign that martial law would be put in place in Bicol. A few days later, martial law was declared, and journalists, clergy, farmers, and student activists were taken into custody. Some of them were tortured, and others just went away.

As a response to martial law, there were two kinds of resistance: armed and unarmed. Students who went underground or to the hills or both were examples of armed resistance. Former “moderates” joined the radicals and were killed as members of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) in fights with the Philippine Communist Party and the Armed Forces of the Philippines, who they called “mga hapon” as a reference to Japanese soldiers in World War II.

After Tangkad fell, the CPP-NPA in Bicol was hurt by the “encirclement and suppression” of their NPA base around Mount Bulusan in Sorsogon, which was inspired by Yenan, and the surrender or capture of the regional leaders who were based there from 1973 to 1975. In Bicol, from Camarines Norte to Camarines Sur and down to Albay and Sorsogon, the CPP-NPA got better and stronger in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In the towns, offices and groups came together to form core groups.

The second type of resistance was non-violent. It was led by local journalists who, even though they had been arrested by the military, kept fighting for press freedom. From 1976 until Marcos left office, the local paper Balalong was a great example of Naga free press. This was especially true of the brave defense of press freedom by human rights lawyer Luis General Jr. and the poems by poet Luis Dato that were against Marcos. In the middle of the 1970s, J. Antonio M. Carpio, who was then the governor for Bicolandia of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), wrote a poem that was critical of the dictatorship. He read it at an IBP national conference in Manila, where Marcos was the guest of honor. Concerned Catholic clergy and pastors of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP), especially in Albay and Sorsogon, helped the resistance by hiding and helping activists. Some of them even joined the underground movement during the martial law years.

Some people liked martial law because of the curfew, the discipline it brought, and how quiet the streets were because there were less crimes and chaos. For many, though, it was a time of worsening poverty, with fuel rationing, rice lines, and more people looking for work. Local politicians like Villafuerte and Fuentebella of Camarines Sur, Imperial of Albay, Alberto of Catanduanes, and Espinosa of Masbate supported Marcos and made sure that their families would be in positions of power.

In 1981, there was an official end to martial law. The Kilusan ng Mamamayan para sa Tunay na Demokrasya (KMTD), or Citizens Movement for Genuine Democracy, was formed, and the boycott campaign against Marcos’s rigged elections started right away. In what is now known as the Daet Massacre of 1981, military members shot and killed four farmers. When Carpio and Grace Magana-Vinzons, leaders of the KMTD, tried to get justice for these farmers, they were put in jail.

The killing of popular senator Benigno Aquino Jr. on August 21, 1983, led to protests all over the country. The Bikol Alliance was started in 1982, and it put out newsletters that were very critical of the Marcos government. During this time, the Nationalist Alliance, Bicol Lawyers for Nationalism, Democracy and Integrity Association (also known as Bicolandia Lawyers), Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan (also known as KaAkBay), Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (also known as Bayan), and Task Force Detainees (TFD) in Bicol were also founded. Organizations with different political views came together under the “Justice for Aquino, Justice for All” (JAJA) umbrella movement and held protest rallies and marches side by side.

As the anti-Marcos movement grew, local politicians changed sides. For example, the “Apat na Aguila” (Four Eagles) coalition of Villafuerte, Cea, Alfelor, and Andaya turned against the “Uwak” (Crow) group of Fuentebella, Trivio, Bigay, and Baltecer. Villafuerte joined Cea in being against the government (Briguera, 71; Santos 1994, 35-39). Local politics were still run by the dakulang tao, which means “big people” and refers to wealthy, old-fashioned politicians.

In San Miguel, the farmers kept trying for a hundred years to get back their land. The farmers took part in rallies in Legazpi City and Tabaco to show their anger. In 1982, the estate was given to Celso de los Angeles Jr., who was Gancayco’s grandson. On March 25, 1983, protests led to the deaths of Nelson Brutas, Rodolfo Burce, and 15 other farmers. In 1984, Freddie Burce led 14 farmers on a long march called Lakad ng Bayan para sa Kalayaan (LAKBAYAN) from Tabaco to Malacaan. Other farmers from Lucena later joined them. The Department of Agrarian Reform finally gave the farmers in San Miguel back their own land on March 27, 1984.

In 1986, the Filipino people rose up against Marcos in what is known as People Power or the Edsa Revolt. Marcos left the country. But activists continued to be harassed, arrested, or “disappeared” until the early 1990s, well into the time that his successor, Corazon Aquino, was in charge. Sotero Llamas, who was also known as Kumander Nognog, spoke for the NPA in peace talks at the start of President Aquino’s term. However, after the Mendiola massacre in 1987, he went back to the hills to lead the CPP-NPA. He was caught in 2004, ran for governor of the island of Albay but lost, and was killed in 2006.

During Fidel Ramos’s presidency, when martial law was still in place, the Anti-Subversion Law was repealed. During the September fiesta of 1988, Naga City called for a “People’s Ceasefire.” It was one of the first Zones of Peace, Freedom, and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) in the country. This was done with the help of the local peace coalition Hearts of Peace (HOPE) and the mayor at the time, Jesse Robredo. This was done even though the military forces in Bicol did not help.