The pride of Bacolor

Bacolor also has many other accomplishments. For example, poet Juan Crisostomo Soto wrote 50 full-length plays and over 100 poems.

Kapampangan priest Anselmo Fajardo wrote the longest comedia in Philippine literature, the 832-page “Gonzalo de Cordoba,” in 1831. It takes seven nights to perform its 31,000 lines.

Luisa Gonzaga de Leon was the first Filipina to author a book, which was a Kapampangan translation of Ejercicio Cotidiano, published a year after her death in 1843.

Mariano Proceso Pabalan wrote “Ing Managpe,” the first zarzuela in any Philippine language, which Teatro Sabina performed in the town in 1900.

Zoilo Galang wrote “A Child of Sorrows,” the country’s first English novel in 1924. He wrote the Philippines’ first encyclopedia in 1934.

Priests

Painter Vicente Alvarez Dizon bested Salvador Dali, Maurice Utrillo and artists from 79 countries in the International Competition on Contemporary Art in 1939. World-renowned painter Simon Flores married a Filipina and settled in Bacolor.

From Bacolor sprung religious persons: Fr. Miguel Jeronimo de Morales (first Filipino priest, ordained in 1654), Fr. Mariano Hipolito (first priest-calligraphic artist) and Sr. Asuncion Ventura (first Filipina who established the orphanage Asilo de San Vicente de Paul in Paco, Manila).

Also born in Bacolor were Cabinet members Honorio Ventura, Estelito Mendoza, Jose de Jesus and Ronaldo Puno; Justices Jose Gutierrez David, Ricardo Puno Sr., Jesus Barrera and Roberto Regala; legislators Francisco Liongson, Zoilo Hilario and Pablo Angeles David; labor leaders Felixberto Olalia and Rolando Olalia; educator Vidal Tan; Ambassador Carlos Valdes; and Bishop Alejandro Olalia.  Tonette Orejas