1.
Battle of Leyte Gulf
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The Battle of Leyte Gulf is generally considered to be the largest naval battle of World War II and, by some criteria, possibly the largest naval battle in history. It was fought in waters near the Philippine islands of Leyte, Samar and Luzon, from 23–26 October 1944, between combined American and Australian forces and the Imperial Japanese Navy. The Imperial Japanese Navy mobilized nearly all of its major naval vessels in an attempt to defeat the Allied invasion but was repulsed by the U. S. Navys 3rd. The IJN failed to achieve its objective, suffered heavy losses. The majority of its surviving ships, deprived of fuel, remained in their bases for the rest of the Pacific War. It was the first battle in which Japanese aircraft carried out organized kamikaze attacks, by the time of the battle, Japan had fewer aircraft than the Allied forces had sea vessels, demonstrating the difference in power of the two sides at this point of the war. S. 5th Fleets Fast Carrier Task Force captured most of the Mariana Islands and this offensive breached Japans strategic inner defense ring and gave the Americans a base from which long-range Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers could attack the Japanese home islands. The Japanese counterattacked in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, the U. S. Navy destroyed three Japanese aircraft carriers and approximately 600 Japanese aircraft, leaving the IJN with virtually no carrier-borne air power or any experienced pilots. For subsequent operations, Admiral Ernest J. U. S. Army General Douglas MacArthur championed an invasion of the Philippines, which also lay across the supply lines to Japan. Leaving the Philippines in Japanese hands would be a blow to American prestige and an affront to MacArthur. However, Nimitz and MacArthur initially had opposing plans, with Nimitzs plan centered on an invasion of Formosa, Formosa could also serve as a base for an invasion of mainland China, which MacArthur felt was unnecessary. Nimitz eventually changed his mind and agreed to MacArthurs plan and it was also estimated that an invasion of Formosa would require about 12 divisions of U. S. Army soldiers and Marines. It was eventually decided that MacArthurs forces would invade the island of Leyte in the central Philippines, amphibious forces and close naval support would be provided by the 7th Fleet, commanded by Vice Admiral Thomas C. The 7th Fleet at this time contained units of the U. S. Navy, the U. S. 3rd Fleet—commanded by Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr. with Task Force 38 as its main component—would provide more distant cover and support for the invasion. A fundamental defect in this plan was there would be no single American naval admiral in overall command, Kinkaid and his 7th Fleet fell under MacArthur as Supreme Allied Commander Southwest Pacific, whereas Halseys 3rd Fleet reported to Nimitz as C-in-C Pacific Ocean Areas. This lack of unity of command, along with failures in communication, was to produce a crisis, by coincidence, the Japanese plan, using three separate fleets, also lacked an overall commander. The American options were apparent to the IJN, the plans were for complex offensive operations committing nearly all available forces to a decisive battle, despite this substantially depleting Japans slender reserves of fuel oil. The Japanese command therefore put Shō-Gō2 into action, launching waves of air attacks against 3rd Fleets carriers, following the American invasion of the Philippines, the Japanese Navy made the transition to Shō-Gō1
2.
USS Leyte Gulf
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USS Leyte Gulf is a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser in the United States Navy. She was named in memory of the World War II Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Pacific. She is powered by four large gas-turbine engines, and she has a complement of guided missiles for air defense, attack of surface targets at sea and ashore. In addition, she carries two Seahawk LAMPS multi-purpose helicopters, whose mission is ASW. On 14 October 1996, Leyte Gulf collided with the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, the incident occurred as the carrier, without prior warning, reversed her engines while Leyte Gulf was behind her and slammed into the cruisers bow. There were no casualties or injuries reported. In 2002, she won the Marjorie Sterrett Battleship Fund Award for the Atlantic Fleet, in March 2003 Leyte Gulf was assigned to Carrier Group Eight. On 15 September 2007, there was a fire aboard Leyte Gulf as she underwent a modernization program in BAE Systems Shipyard in Norfolk. Initially the fire received national attention due to the possibility that it was a terrorist incident, however, five shipyard workers were injured in the incident, one seriously, but no naval personnel were involved. In February 2011, Leyte Gulf was involved in an incident with Somali pirates after they captured the United States flagged yacht Quest, the cruiser returned to Norfolk on 15 July 2011. During her deployment, she had participated in operations which had captured 75 Somali pirates and had missile strikes by her carrier strike group against the Libyan government, in January 2015, Leyte Gulf returned from a six-month deployment to the Mediterranean Sea. The ship served as flagship of Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 for much of the deployment, images Carrier Strike Group Two Leyte Gulf I - Ship Command Operations Reports. Official website USS Leyte Gulf on Facebook Ships Reunion Info, Deck Log, and Crew List Ship History - uscarriers. net USS Leyte Gulf webpage
3.
Hinunangan, Southern Leyte
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Hinunangan is a 3rd class municipality in the province of Southern Leyte, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 29,976 people and it has a 5. 21% population growth compared to the 2010 census. Hinunangan is known as the Rice Granary of the Province for its vast plain land that is planted with rice. Hinunangan has great potential for tourism because of its sand beaches. The town is also a producer of rattan and wood-based furnitures, abaca handicrafts items, pineapple, vegetables, other forest products and it has a potential for mineral water and root crops processing and copper mining. Hinunangan is also known as a gateway in Leyte because of its near proximity to Tacloban City. The opening of Abuyog–Silago Road cuts travel time from Tacloban by half from the previous 6 hours to less than 3 hours and it is also the place in Southern Leyte with the most immigrants from Europe and North America. It has a lot of places, such as Tahusan. There are also hotels, inns, a market and beach resorts. Hinunangan is home to the highest mountain in the province, Mount Nacolod, Hinunangan is politically subdivided into 40 barangays, two of which are island barangays located at the east of the town. The twin islands are accessible by motorized boats through Barangay Canipa-an, in 1521, Magellan recorded sighting Hunonganan during the voyage in Leyte Gulf. As far back in 1750, Hinunangan was a station of Boholanos trading in Eastern Leyte. They rested overnight at the mouth of Das-ay River where they moored their boats, a shelter was built for the crews and tenders known as hononganan or stopover. In 1822, a certain Boholano named Palonoy founded Hinunangan, at this time, Silago to the north and Hinundayan and Anahawan to the south were part of Hinunangan. In 1944, in the greatest naval battle in history the blocking warship of the Liberation waylaid the Japanese Fleet near Hinunangan, thus, the area in Southern Leyte is the natural frontier of historically significant events in Philippine history. On July 19,2007, an earthquake hit the town with magnitude 6 on Richter scale. The private infrastructure damaged included the Roman Catholic Bell tower - P100,000, Water tank of the Catholic convent - P40,000, Manalog barangay Chapel - P20,000, Sto. Nino barangay Chapel - P10,000, a number of houses - P400,000, broadcast transmission and studio is located in Hinunangan Commercial Complex
4.
Eastern Visayas
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Eastern Visayas is an administrative region in the Philippines, designated as Region VIII. It consists of three islands, Samar, Leyte and Biliran. The region has six provinces, one independent city and one highly urbanized city namely, Biliran, Leyte, Northern Samar, Samar, Eastern Samar, Southern Leyte, Ormoc, the highly urbanized city of Tacloban is the Eastern Visayas Regional Center. These provinces and cities occupy the easternmost islands of the Visayas group of islands, Eastern Visayas faces the Philippine Sea to the east. The region is known for its famous landmark, the San Juanico Bridge, dubbed as the Most Beautifully Designed, as of 2015, the region has a population of 4,440,150 people. Eastern Visayas lies on the east central section of the Philippine archipelago and it consists of three main islands, Leyte, Samar, and Biliran which form the easternmost coast of the archipelago. It has a land area of 2,156,285 hectares or 7. 2% of the country’s total land area. 52% of its land area are classified as forestland and 48% as alienable and disposable land. There are two types of climate prevailing in the region under the Corona system of classification, Type II, Type II climate is characterized by having no dry season but a pronounced maximum rainfall from November to January. Samar Island and the part of Leyte Island fall under this type of climate. Type IV on the hand has an even distribution of rainfall the year round. This type of climate is well exhibited at the half of Leyte island. In November 2013, the region was hit with the highest death toll in the country by Typhoon Haiyan, the regions sea and inland waters are rich sources of salt and fresh water fish and other marine products. It is one of the fish exporting regions of the country, there are substantial forest reserves in the interiors of the islands. Its mineral deposits include chromite, uranium, gold, silver, manganese, magnesium, bronze, nickel, clay, coal, limestone, pyrite and sand and it has abundant geothermal energy and water resources to support the needs of medium and heavy industries. Waray-Waray is the lingua franca of the Eastern Visayas Region spoken on the island of Samar, Biliran, a Sama language, distantly related to the languages of the region, called Abaknon is spoken in the island of Capul in Northern Samar. Cebuano is spoken in western and southern parts of Leyte and in Southern Leyte, Eastern Visayas consists of 6 provinces,1 highly urbanized city,1 independent component city,5 component cities,136 municipalities and 4,390 barangays. Eastern Visayas is primarily an agricultural region with rice, corn, coconut, sugarcane, primary sources of revenue are manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade and services
5.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
6.
Body of water
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A body of water or waterbody is any significant accumulation of water, generally on a planets surface. The term most often refers to oceans, seas, and lakes, a body of water does not have to be still or contained, Rivers, streams, canals, and other geographical features where water moves from one place to another are also considered bodies of water. Most are naturally occurring geographical features, but some are artificial, there are types that can be either. For example, most reservoirs are created by engineering dams, similarly, most harbors are naturally occurring bays, but some harbors have been created through construction. Bodies of water that are navigable are known as waterways, some bodies of water collect and move water, such as rivers and streams, and others primarily hold water, such as lakes and oceans. The term body of water can also refer to a reservoir of water held by a plant, note that there are some geographical features involving water that are not bodies of water, for example waterfalls, geysers and rapids. Arm of the sea - also sea arm, used to describe a sea loch, arroyo - a usually dry creek bed or gulch that temporarily fills with water after a heavy rain, or seasonally. Artificial lake or artificial pond - see reservoir or impoundment, barachois - a lagoon separated from the ocean by a sand bar. Bay - an area of water bordered by land on three sides, similar to, but smaller than a gulf, bayou - a slow-moving stream or a marshy lake. Bight - a large and often only slightly receding bay, or a bend in any geographical feature, billabong - see Oxbow lake, a pond or still body of water created when a river changes course and some water becomes trapped. Boil - see Seep Brook - a small stream, canal - an artificial waterway, usually connected to existing lakes, rivers, or oceans. Channel - the physical confine of a river, slough or ocean consisting of a bed. See also stream bed and strait, earth scientists generally use the term to describe a circular or round inlet with a narrow entrance, though colloquially the term is sometimes used to describe any sheltered bay. Basin - a region of land where water from rain or snowmelt drains downhill into another body of water, such as a river, lake, creek - an inlet of the sea, narrower than a cove. Delta - the location where a river flows into an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, distributary or distributary channel - a stream that branches off and flows away from a main stream channel. Draw - a usually dry creek bed or gulch that temporarily fills with water after a heavy rain, fjord - a submergent landform which has occurred due to glacial activity. Glacier - a large collection of ice or a river that moves slowly down a mountain. Glacial Pothole - see Kettle Gulf - a part of a lake or ocean that extends so that it is surrounded by land on three sides, similar to, but larger than a bay, headland - an area of water bordered by land on three sides
7.
Bay
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A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, lake, or another bay. A large bay may be called a gulf, sea, sound, a cove is a type of smaller bay with a circular inlet and narrow entrance. A fjord is a particularly steep bay shaped by glacial activity, bays can be the estuary of a river, such as the Chesapeake Bay, an estuary of the Susquehanna River, which is the largest bay in North America. Bays may also be nested within each other, for example, some large bays, such as the Bay of Bengal and the Hudson Bay, have varied marine geology. The land surrounding a bay often reduces the strength of winds, bays were significant in the history of human settlement because they provided a safe place for fishing. Later they were important in the development of sea trade as the safe anchorage they provide encouraged their selection as ports, there are various ways from which bays can be created. The largest bays have developed as a result of plate tectonics, as the super-continent Pangaea broke up along curved and indented fault lines, the continents moved apart and the worlds largest bays formed. These include the Gulf of Guinea, Gulf of Mexico and the Bay of Bengal, another way bays form is via glacial and river erosion. A bay formed by a glacier is a fjord, rias are created by rivers and are characterised by more gradual slopes. Currents can make waves more constant, and soft rocks speed erosion, hard rock eroded less quickly, leaving headlands. The Gulf of California is an example of a bay created by plate tectonics as Baja California peninsula moves away from the Mexican mainland, Bay platform Great capes Headlands and bays
8.
Leyte
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Leyte /ˈleɪtɛ/ is an island in the Visayas group of the Philippines. Politically, the island is divided into two provinces, Leyte and Southern Leyte, territorially, Southern Leyte includes the island of Panaon to its south. To the north of Leyte is the province of Biliran. The major cities of Leyte are Tacloban, on the shore at the northwest corner of Leyte Gulf. The island was once the location of Mairete, a community which was ruled by Datu Ete. Before being colonized by Spain, the island was home to indigenous animist Warays to the east. Leyte today is notable for the electric power plants near Ormoc. However, Leyte is most famous for its role in the reconquest of the Philippines in World War II. On 20 October 1944, General Douglas MacArthur waded ashore on Leyte, saying, I have returned, the convergence of naval forces resulted in the four-day Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history. The island measures about 180 kilometres north-south and about 65 kilometres at its widest point, in the north it nearly joins the island of Samar, separated by the San Juanico Strait, which becomes as narrow as 2 kilometres in some places. The island province of Biliran is also to the north of Leyte and is joined to Leyte island by a bridge across the narrow Biliran Strait, to the south, Leyte is separated from Mindanao by the Surigao Strait. To the east, Leyte is somewhat set back from the Philippine Sea of the Pacific Ocean, Samar to the northeast, to the west is the Camotes Sea. Leyte is mostly forested and mountainous, but the Leyte Valley in the northeast has much agriculture. The Leyte Provincial capital is the seat of the government where there is a historic mural depicting the First Mass of Limasawa in the Orient. The MacArthur Landing Memorial National Park in Red Beach, Palo and it also has a lagoon where a life-size statue of Gen. MacArthur stands. MacArthurs true landing took place at Dulag, Leyte, lake Danao is a violin-shaped lake hemmed by cloud-capped mountain ranges. Kalanggaman Island in Palompon, Leyte is an island with pure white sand. The ecological atmosphere of the island had been preserved by the municipality, nino Shrine and Heritage Museum boasts the painting of the fourteen stations of the cross done by Filipino artists and a bas-relief of the legend of the first Filipino man and woman
9.
Philippine Sea
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The Philippine Sea is a marginal sea east and northeast of the Philippines occupying an estimated surface area of 5 million km². of the western part of the North Pacific Ocean. The sea has a complex and diverse undersea relief, the floor is formed into a structural basin by a series of geologic faults and fracture zones. Island arcs, which are actually extended ridges protruding above the surface due to plate tectonic activity in the area, enclose the Philippine Sea to the north, east. The Philippine archipelago, Ryukyu Islands, and the Marianas are examples, another prominent feature of the Philippine Sea is the presence of deep sea trenches, among them the Philippine Trench and the Mariana Trench, containing the deepest point on the planet. The Philippine Sea is by the Philippines and Taiwan to the west, Japan to the north, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the Philippine Sea as that area of the North Pacific Ocean off the Eastern coasts of the Philippine Islands, bounded as follows, On the West. By the Eastern limits of the East Indian Archipelago, South China Sea, by the Southeast coast of Kyushu, the Southern and Eastern limits of the Inland Sea and the South coast of Honshu Island. By the ridge joining Japan to the Bonin, Volcano and Ladrone Islands, by a line joining Guam, Yap, Pelew and Halmahera Islands. The Philippine Sea Plate forms the floor of the Philippine Sea and it subducts under the Philippine Mobile Belt which carries most of the Philippine archipelago and eastern Taiwan. Between the two plates is the Philippine Trench, the Philippine Sea hosts an exotic marine ecosystem. About five hundred species of hard and soft corals occur in the waters and 20 per cent of the worldwide known shellfish species are found in Philippine waters. Sea turtles, sharks, moray eels, octopuses and sea snakes along with species of fish such as tuna can commonly be observed. Additionally, the Philippine Sea serves as spawning ground for Japanese eel, tuna, later it was discovered by other Spanish explorers from 1522 to 1565 and the site of the famous galleon trade route. Between June 19 and 20,1944, the Battle of the Philippine Sea took place in the eastern Philippine Sea, the aircraft carriers Taihō, Shōkaku, Junyō, Hiyō and Ryuho were bombed, torpedoed and sunk by American carrier-based planes and assaulted from other naval vessels. The aerial part of the Battle of the Philippine Sea was nicknamed the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot” due to losses of Japanese aircraft. The battle facilitated the Allied conquests of Saipan, Guam and Tinian in the Marianas, Palau in the Southwest, following an escalation of the Spratly Islands dispute in 2011, various Philippine government agencies started using the neologism West Philippine Sea to refer to the South China Sea. However, a PAGASA spokesperson said that the sea to the east of the Philippines will continue to be called the Philippine Sea, Philippine Trench Philippine Sea Plate Benham Rise Devils Sea
10.
Abuyog, Leyte
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Abuyog is a 1st class municipality in the province of Leyte, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 59,571 people, facing Leyte Gulf out into the Philippine Sea, it is the largest town of the island of Leyte in terms of land area. It is bordered to the north by Javier, to the east by Mahaplag and Baybay City, Abuyog got its name when Spanish sailors came ashore in an early settlement at the mouth of the Abuyog River to replenish their supplies. Swarms of bees were all over the shore, the Spaniards asked the natives Como si y llama el pueblo. Not knowing that the Spaniards asked for the name, the natives answered Buyog. Repeating after the natives, the sailors muttered, Ah, eventually the town came to be known as Abuyog to which some Spanish chroniclers often used in reference to the whole island of Leyte. But Abuyog in the annals, though grown prosperous, remained obscure because of the absence of a powerful chieftain. It was Datu Bangcao, who had his seat of government in Carigara, people mostly from Samar migrated to Abuyog because of the many opportunities the immigrants got from its rich soil. The language of this town which acquired the name melting pot became Waray-Waray language from the Samar immigrants, Abuyog is politically subdivided into 63 barangays. In 1588, presumably on account of mal-administration of the incumbent encomendero, capitan Juan Esguerra had to send a punitive force to chastise the assassins of the encomendero. In 1613, Sanguiles and Caragas plundered and marauded the town, in 1655 the Jesuits made Abuyog their second post, with Dagami as the center. The year 1716 saw the founding of the town and parish under the patronage of St. Francis Xavier, the Augustinians took over in 1768 and continued the work of Frs. The people of this era, according to Fr, augustin Maria de Castro, were very rich though extremely belligerent, the continually defied the Moros. In 1843 the town was given to the Franciscan Order with Fr, santiago Malonda as the first Franciscan parish priest. A horse path was opened between Abuyog and Dulag in 1851, the early captains were Galza, Foran, Nicolas Mandia, Faustino Remanes, Prudencio Remanes, Felipe Costin, Ciriaco Costin, Eulalio Brillo, and Vicente Tiaoson. Eulalio Brillo became president in 1896-1899 while Nazario Tupa took office in 1900, the period 1901 to 1906 was notable for the notorious pulahanes or bolero attacks, the most infamous leader of which was Faustino Ablen. Ex-Capitan Eugenio Villote, Pedro Gonazaga, and two policemen were killed in the encounter. In the electoral division made by the Philippine Assembly, Abuyog was placed in the district of Leyte
11.
Balangiga, Eastern Samar
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Balangiga is a fourth class municipality in the province of Eastern Samar, Philippines. As of the 2015 census, it had a population of 14,085 people, Balangiga is the site of the Balangiga massacre in 1901, which remains one of the longest-running and most controversial issues of the Philippine–American War. Balangiga is located on the southern coast of the island of Samar facing Leyte Gulf, to the west lies the municipality of Lawaan, to the north is Llorente, and to the east are the municipalities of Quinapondan and Giporlos. Balangiga is politically subdivided into 13 barangays. Bacjao Cag-olango Cansumangcay Guinmaayohan Poblacion I Poblacion II Poblacion III Poblacion IV Poblacion V Poblacion VI San Miguel Sta. Rosa Maybunga In the 2015 census, the population of Balangiga, Eastern Samar, was 14,085 people, Balangiga can be reached through public utility vans and buses from Tacloban City. Pedicabs, tricycles, and habal-habal by the means of inner town transportation, Balangiga bells Philippine Standard Geographic Code Philippine Census Information Local Governance Performance Management System
12.
Basey, Samar
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Basey is a 1st class municipality in the province of Samar, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 55,480 people, Basey is said to be the Leytes capital during the American period. It is currently the holder in the Guinness Book of World Records for the worlds longest mat or banig. On 8 November 2013, Basey was one of the places heavily devastated by Super Typhoon Haiyan, the towns name is pronounced Basai or Basay, not basÉY. This mispronunciation was propagated by American soldiers in the days of the American colonial period. There is no ey sound in the Waray-Waray language, Basay is from the Waray word mabaisai, meaning beautiful. Basey is politically subdivided into 51 barangays, in 1957, the sitio of Cancoral was converted into the barrio of Roxas. The town of Basey is famous for its beautiful Sohoton Caves, whose inner chamber features stalactites, stalagmites, the town is also known for artistically woven decorative mats called Banig. Tourists buy these mats as souvenir items, Philippine Standard Geographic Code Philippine Census Information Local Governance Performance Management System More photos and information on Basey Municipality
13.
Dulag, Leyte
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Dulag is a 3rd class municipality in the province of Leyte, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 47,300 people, popularly known as the Liberation Town, Dulag survived and has risen from the ruins of the Second World War and at present time, a thriving coastal town fronting Leyte Gulf. Dulag was a center of commerce in the eastern sector of the Leyte Island. Local and foreign ships docked at its seaport carrying merchants from seafaring nations who barter their products for local materials like abaca, copra, tobacco, rice, goods from these towns were exported through Dulag to foreign countries. Other etymological versions explaining how Dulag got its name includes dulao, nagdudulag, Dulag is one of the few barangays in Leyte that antedated the discovery of the Philippines in 1521. It is situated in the eastern coast of Leyte, there are several versions as to how Dulag got its name. The first was that in the years of the 18th century, the town was already a flourishing community. The town then was considered the center of activities going on thus it was named Dulag. Another version states that it is the variation of a certain herb called dulao which grew abundantly in the area. Dulao is a kind of plant which is yellowish-green in color used as a seasoning for a local dish. Because of its abundance, the place was called after this herb, the third version states that there was a time when bones of different kinds of animals were scattered all around the place. Whenever people would see all around, they always commented. This means that bones were scattered all around, the word nagdudulag was then shortened to Dulag. The last version says that the name could have come from the name of the first settler whom legend says was named Dulagdulag, the first Jesuit missionaries arrived at Dulag in September 1595. An encomendero, Don Pedro Hernandez brought them in his boat from Cebu, juan del Campo, first coaxed the natives to settle within the limits of the sitio instead of living far from each other. After this was accomplished, the Jesuit fathers built a church, a nucleus of some 60 boys from Palo was formed by the fathers for the first mission school in Dulag. In the church compound they were taught their three Rs and religion, using the crudest of materials, the boys learned the Spanish language and helped serve as interpreters to the missionaries on their missions. The burden of supporting the boys began to tell on the resources of the padres, the school was patterned after a Jesuit school in Antipolo in Luzon, which the Jesuits had founded earlier
14.
Giporlos, Eastern Samar
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Giporlos is a fifth class municipality in the province of Eastern Samar, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 13,308 people, formerly Giporlos was a barangay part of Municipality of Balangiga. Giporlos comes from the word Hi-Podolos, legend says that there is a shore called Rawis in Giporlos where one woman was collecting sea shells. Suddenly, one Japanese soldier saw her and tried to raped her, but the woman fought back until her hands slipped under the hands of moro soldier and she ran away. From that time on, the place was called Hipodlos and eventually became Giporlos. Giporlos is politically subdivided into 18 barangays. The population of Giporlos in the 2015 census was 13,308 people, Philippine Standard Geographic Code Philippine Census Information Local Governance Performance Management System
15.
Guiuan, Eastern Samar
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Guiuan is a first-class municipality in the province of Eastern Samar, Philippines. As of the 2015 census, it had a population of 52,991 people, Guiuan played a significant part in Philippine history. In the 16th century, when Ferdinand Magellan discovered the Philippines and it is probably because of this that the majority of the population of the town are Catholics. The towns church, the Church of the Immaculate Conception, is one of the oldest in the country, during the Second World War, Guiuan served as one of the Alliances bases. Now all that is left of the American occupation are concrete slabs which once served as the foundations of a vast supply depot, and an air strip, as well as a rich historical background, Guiuan has many scenic spots. Being a coastal town on the Pacific side, the town has many beaches that are suitable for swimming and surfing. The municipality of Guiuan is located at the southernmost tip of Samar Island and it is bounded on the north by the municipality of Mercedes, on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Surigao Strait, and on the west by the Leyte Gulf. Clustered around the municipality are numerous islands and islets such as Manicani, Calicoan, Sulangan, Candulo, Homonhon, Suluan and they are protected as part of the marine reserve known as the Guiuan Protected Landscape and Seascape. Guiuan is 109 kilometres south of Borongan and 154 kilometres from Tacloban and it has a total land area of 175.49 square kilometres. It is composed of sixty barangays and the town in the province with biggest number of island barangays. Guiuan is politically subdivided into 60 barangays, Guiuan is widely known for two significant events in history 423 years apart. In 1521, Ferdinand Magellan, first European to set foot on Philippine soil, landed in Homonhon, now part of Guiuan. In 1944, the American Forces landed on the island of Suluan where they fought their first battle in the Philippine territory three days before Gen. Mac Arthur stormed the beaches of Leyte, the name of the town originated from its geographical location. The first settlers named the town “Guibang” when they discovered a break in the mountain range which screens the town from the Pacific Ocean in the East. Subsequently, settlers modified its name to Guiuan, the occurrence of World War II shook the town and people moved to the mountains to find comfort. On June 28,1943, several Japanese soldiers set foot on Guiuan soil, not as fearful and brutal as they were thought of by the local populace, a cordial relation soon existed between the conquered and the conquerors. Evacuees came down from the mountains and resumed a normal urban life, except for a few killings of suspected traitors by both Japanese, Filipino soldiers and local guerillas, not a drop of blood was shed needlessly. This made Guiuan one of the few places in the islands where World War II did not leave so many tragic memories, the first sign of liberation of the town came on November 27,1944, when a US Navy submarine chaser steamed the harbor for reconnaissance duty
16.
Javier, Leyte
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Javier is a 4th class municipality in the province of Leyte, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 25,379 people, a rural town approximately 73 kilometres south of Tacloban City, it is located between the boundaries of Baybay on the west side and MacArthur and Abuyog towns, along the Leyte Gulf. It has a very narrow coastlines and coastal plains facing the Pacific, Javier is subdivided politically into 28 barangays as per RA3422 - An Act Creating the Municipality of Bugho as an independent municipality in the Province of Leyte, enacted on June 18,1961. The municipality of Javier, Leyte was formerly barrio Bugho of the municipality of Abuyog, Bugho is a contraction of the dialect term Binogho, meaning a small clearing within a forest area. Settlers at about the turn of the century cultivated this small patch of land. Among the earliest known settlers was Macario Cultura, a native of Burauen, Leyte who is believed to have led his friends and relatives to farm the fertile soil of the area, then a virgin forest. Later, as the settlement grew, it became a sitio of barrio Pinocawan, at that time he just came from Cabadbaran, Agusan del Norte where he started extensive farming activities since 1908 after his resignation as principal at the Cebu Normal School. A malaria plague in Cabadbaran, however, inflicted a death toll among his people so that he had to explore other suitable areas until he came upon Bugho. Impressed by the fertility of the soil, he started staking out his claims in Bugho, subsequently, Daniel married Dolores Mercado Veloso, also of Consolacion, Sogod, Southern Leyte, and settled in Bugho naming his settlement as Camalig. He initiated projects in the community where he was accepted as the teacher. He opened a school in 1918 on land donated by Pedro Abordo with Leona Valles as the first teacher and he also prevailed upon the people to accept the modern and progressive ways of agriculture. The community rapidly progressed as people from Cebu particularly from Argao and Bohol came in droves at the invitation, Javier who helped them legally acquire land-holdings. The people from Argao led by Pedro Gacera of Barrio Talaytay of that town settled at the west side of what is now Barrio Binulho. A bigger school had to be built because of the size of the community and so Mano Daniel invited Mr. Waters, the people through the Bayanihan system furnished most lumber requirements. Corn, abaca & coconut were the products of the community. Mano Daniel introduced irrigation utilizing the abundant water resources and it became a progressive community and was the center of trade among the neighboring barrios. In the 1939s it was among the contenders for township with barrios Palale, since Mano Daniels leadership was recognized by the provincial and district politicians, he used this influence to bring community improvements. Bugho was not only among the centers of resistance activities but also as evacuation centers during the Second World War, food and other resources continued to be readily available and the local people supported the guerrilla movement
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Lawaan, Eastern Samar
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Lawaan is a fifth class municipality in the province of Eastern Samar, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 12,742 people, the town is strategically located in the central part of southern Samar Island. It is sandwiched between the town of Balangiga in the east and Marabut, Samar in the west, hence, being dubbed as The Gateway to Eastern Samar. Lawaan is politically subdivided into 16 barangays. The population of Lawaan in the 2015 census was 12,742 people, many families rely on coastal and deep-sea fishing as well as lowland and upland farming as means of livelihood. The single biggest employer of its local populace is the government, Lawaan is known for its spectacular waterfalls and thriving wildlife. Being a coastal town, it features an amazing view of Leyte Gulf in its southern shores. Amandaraga, Pangi, Amajuray and Ban-awan water falls are some of the best known sites of Lawaan. These water falls also serve as energy source that supply the power needs of Lawaan. Freddie Abuda - retired professional player, currently serving as an assistant coach to the San Beda Red Lions. Philippine Standard Geographic Code Philippine Census Information Local Governance Performance Management System
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Marabut, Samar
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Marabut is a 5th class municipality in the province of Samar, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 16,962 people and its coast stretches more than twenty kilometers along the San Pedro Bay and Leyte Gulf. Marabut is politically subdivided into 24 barangays, in 1957, the sitio of Pinana-an was converted into barrio Pinalangga. During the early Spanish Era, the municipality of Marabut was a sitio of Basey. In 1949, Ysidro M. Ferreras who was then the Mayor of Basey submitted to President Elpidio Quirino a proposal to convert Barrio Sto. Thus on July 22,1949, Executive Order No.247 was signed creating the Municipality of Marabut, Ysidro Ferreras was elected as the first municipal mayor. Philippine Standard Geographic Code Philippine Census Information Local Governance Performance Management System Official Website of Marabut Samar
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Mercedes, Eastern Samar
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Mercedes is a fourth class municipality in the province of Eastern Samar, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 6,070 people, Act No.960 of the Philippine Commission incorporated the town of Mercedes comprising the barrios of Busay, Anoron, Sungan, Bobon, Banoyo and Boyayawon into Guiuan. In 1948, Republic Act No.262 recreated the town. Mercedes is politically subdivided into 16 barangays. The population of Mercedes, Eastern Samar, in the 2015 census was 6,070 people, official Mercedes Municipality website Philippine Standard Geographic Code Philippine Census Information Local Governance Performance Management System
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Palo, Leyte
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Palo is a 3rd class municipality in the province of Leyte, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 70,052 people, the municipality is the seat of most government departments, bureaus and regional offices of Region VIII, although some are situated at the neighboring city of Tacloban. The municipality is located in the part of the province of Leyte,8 miles from the capital city of Tacloban. Palo is politically subdivided into 33 barangays, the discovery of the advancing communities of Palo dates back to the early 16th century A. D. along the banks of Bangon River. However, local historians believe that the settlement of Palo started as early as the 10th to 13th century A. D. The first known settlement were the kingdom of Takuranga, first name of Palo under King Guban, and the Kingdom of Kaluugan, the other settlements were Kasangitan, Binangalan, Kasuguran, Bunga, Bangon and Guindapunan. The settlers of Bunga played a role in the history of Palo. Palo formally became a town in 1768 with Kapitan Balasabas as its first administration, accordingly, the early settlers of Palo were the clans of Panganuron, Kadampog, Manlangit, Kumago, Kawaring, Kabalhin, Kumagong, Maglain, Bilyu and Dilyu. Palo is considered to be one of the most historical towns of Leyte and it is well known as the site of Gen. Douglas MacArthurs return to the Philippines together with Philippine and American military forces after a period of exile in 1944. Hill 522, a located near the town center, was the site of fierce fighting between Allied and Japanese forces during the Second World War. The metropolitan cathedral of the archdiocese, located right across Palos municipal hall, was used as a hospital for wounded Filipino, a memorial now stands at the beach site where MacArthur and his troops landed, locally known as the MacArthurs Park. The first Gabaldon Building is also situated in Brgy and it was inaugurated by President Sergio Osmeña. Palo was also once the capital of Leyte, the towns Purissima Bridge was the first steel bridge built in the province. In 1957, sitio Campitic was converted into a barrio, while barrio Baras-Candahug was divided two, Baras and Candahug. Barrio Malirong was renamed as Libertad, on November 8,2013, Palo was severely struck by Typhoon Haiyan, which destroyed a large portion of Eastern Visayas and killed a number of residents in the town. On January 17,2015, Pope Francis visited the town as part of his visit to the Philippines to meet with the surviving victims of the typhoon. He also blessed the Pope Francis Center for the Poor and met with priests, seminarians, other religious figures, literacy rate in Palo is 99. 5%. The towns native language is Waray-Waray, the language and lingua franca in the Eastern Visayas region
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Quinapondan, Eastern Samar
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Quinapondan is a fifth class municipality in the province of Eastern Samar, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 14,779 people. Quinapondan is politically subdivided into 25 barangays. The population of Quinapondan in the 2015 census was 14,779 people, Philippine Standard Geographic Code Philippine Census Information Local Governance Performance Management System
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Salcedo, Eastern Samar
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Salcedo is a fifth class municipality in the province of Eastern Samar, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 22,532 people, in 1959, the sitio of Balud was converted into a barrio. Salcedo is politically subdivided into 41 barangays. The population of Salcedo, Eastern Samar, in the 2015 census was 22,532 people, Philippine Standard Geographic Code Philippine Census Information Local Governance Performance Management System
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Silago, Southern Leyte
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Silago is a 4th class municipality in the province of Southern Leyte, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 12,775 people and it used to be barrio of Hinunangan until Executive Order No.326 dated May 17,1951 separated it from the mother town. The town has a beach with unique black sand. When the Spaniards arrived, they asked the natives the name of the place, the natives, not understanding the language of the Spaniards, failed to answer the question and instead pointed to the Tuog trees where there were so many bats hanging and said “Tuay daghang Cabug”. The Spaniards looked towards the Tuog trees and, seeing many bats, called the place Murcielago, over time, Murcielago was shortened to Silago. Silago was once part of the Municipality of Hinunangan, located in the northernmost part of the said town, for several years, Silago was under the political jurisdictions of Hinunangan, even during World War I and II. During World War II, Silago was chosen as the site of submarine landing of American military arms, the military hardware was efficiently moved to Leyte by hundreds of volunteer guards under the Leyte area command of Col. Ruperto K. Kangleon. After the Second World War, Silago became more progressive and had increased its population, progress served as pushing factor that Silago has availed and gained qualifications to become a municipality. In 1948, the Secretary of National Defense Ruperto Kangleon worked hard for the conversion of barrio Silago to a municipality, finally on June 20,1950, the new Municipality of Silago was inaugurated by virtue of an Executive Order No.326 issued by President Elpidio Quirino. Such Executive Order was chartered through Republic Act No.5962 “Creating the Municipality of Silago in the Province of Southern Leyte” on June 21,1969 and this was made possible also through the invaluable services and voluntary effort extended by the late Canuto Capapas and Apolonio A. Lucero. These two Silagonhons even donated real properties as lands to meet the requirements of becoming a municipality, the first set of Municipal Officials were appointed by President Elpidio Quirino on May 17,1951. It was headed by Felix Balagon as Municipal Mayor, Leon Fortaliza as Vice Mayor, Manuel Tomol, Enrique Sarona, Modesto Miras, pedro Tomol was appointed as Municipal Secretary. The seat of government of the new municipality shall be in the present site of the barrio of Silago, nacolod to the intersection of this line with the Hinunangan-Libagon boundary line. Section 3 This Act shall take effect upon its approval, Silago is politically subdivided into 15 barangays. Silago got her name from the word “murcielago” which is a Spanish term for bat, proof to this is the giant bat sanctuary at Barangay Catmon. The rock is located just a short distance from the shore of Barangay Laguma, farther north, is a natural rock formation with a length of more or less 50 meters from the shore and about 10 meters wide. The interior of Silago is mountainous, in which is the town’s vast forest, among all the municipalities of the province, Silago is identified to have the biggest forest area. The municipal tree park is another kind of tourist attraction in the municipality where fresh breeze, on its northern part is a clean and clear river suitable for swimming
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Tacloban
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Tacloban is a 1st city income class highly urbanized city in the Philippines and the provincial capital of Leyte where it is geographically situated but governed administratively independent from it. It is 360 miles southeast from Manila, according to the 2015 census, it has a population of 242,089 and is the most populous city in the Eastern Visayas region. In the 2016 electoral roll, it had 124,777 registered voters and it is also the regional center of Eastern Visayas, being the main gateway by air to the region. Tacloban was briefly the capital of the Philippines, from 20 October 1944 to 27 February 1945, on 8 November 2013, the city was largely destroyed by Typhoon Haiyan, having previously suffered similar destruction and loss of life in 1897 and 1912. On 17 January 2015, Pope Francis visited Tacloban during his Papal Visit in the Philippines and held a mass at Barangay San Jose, Tacloban was first known as Kankabatok, an allusion to the first inhabitants – Kabatok. They established their dwellings in the vicinity of the present day Santo Niño Church, others who came later were Gumoda, Haraging and Huraw who erected their own settlements in nearby sites. Huraws domain is the hill where the city now sits. The combined settlements acquired the name Kankabatok, meaning Kabatoks property, by the end of the 16th century, Kankabatok was under the political administration of Palo and part of the parish of Basey, Samar. It was discovered in 1770, by the Augustinian Mission, who were superseded by the Franciscans in 1813, during this period, Kankabatok was renamed to Tacloban. The change of the name came about in this manner, Kankabatok was a haunt of fishermen. They would use a contraption called a taklub to catch crabs. When asked where they were going, the fishermen would answer, tarakluban, eventually, the name Tarakluban or Tacloban took prominence. It is not known when Tacloban became a municipality because records supporting this fact were destroyed during a typhoon and it is commonly believed that Tacloban was officially proclaimed a municipality in 1770. In 1768, Leyte and Samar were separated into two provinces, each constituting a politico-military province, due to its strategic location, Tacloban became a vital trading point between the two provinces. The capital of Leyte was transferred from one town to another with Tacloban as the last on 26 February 1830, the decision to make Tacloban the capital was based on the following reasons, 1) ideal location of the port and 2) well-sheltered and adequate facilities. On 20 June 1952, Tacloban was proclaimed a city by virtue of Republic Act No.760. The arrival of Colonel Murray in 1901 made him the first military governor of Leyte and his first official act was the opening of Tacloban port to world commerce. Before World War II, Tacloban was the commercial, education, copra and abaca were exported in large quantities
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Tanauan, Leyte
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Tanauan is a 2nd class municipality in the province of Leyte, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 55,021 people, Tanauan is one of the oldest towns in Leyte dating back to the year 1710. The town has been baptized the title of “Cradle of the Intellectuals” or Bungto Han Kamag-araman since the Spanish colonial period, Tanauan is approximately eighteen kilometers south of Tacloban City which is the Capital of the Eastern Visayas Region. Tanauan is politically subdivided into 54 barangays, the town got its name from a towering Molave tree which served as a look-out tower. “Tan-awan” or Taran-awan means to look-out in the Waray-Waray language, a person who serves as a look-out would watch for the feared Moro Pirates who would every now and then plunder and loot the settlements along the coast. The first known settlers of Tanauan were the family of Calanao with his wife, in 1661, Juanillo Siengco’s family joined the Calanao family in the settlement along the bank of Bukid River at the foot of Adil Hill. In the course of time, Juanillo’s son Josef, married Calanao’s daughter, Sangod, in 1710, the first town officials were appointed by the Spanish authorities during the Spanish reign in the Philippines. From 1710 up to the end of the Spanish Colonial period in 1900, Tolosa, an adjacent town to the south of Tanauan, was once part of the municipality. Through the efforts of certain Magdalino Vivero and Domingo Camacho, they petitioned the Spanish government to grant Tolosa autonomy from the municipality, the petition was granted in 1852. During the American Regime from 1901–1943, another set of municipal executives followed, when World War II broke out, Pedro A. Villegas was the incumbent Mayor. When the Japanese occupied the town, the incumbent Mayor Pedro Villegas, thus, Rufo Cobacha was appointed Mayor by the Japanese and followed by Pedro Bulik who was eventually killed by the local guerillas. During the Japanese occupation, the town was burned by the guerillas in 1943 and this unfortunate event destroyed the Municipal Building, including its records, and a lot of the big ancestral houses of Spanish Architecture along Calle Real. When the US Allied Forces stormed the town during the liberation of Leyte, it resulted in destruction of the Municipal Hall. However, few lives were lost during the assault as the people were warned beforehand. Eugenio Avila, Sr. was the incumbent mayor when the Filipino, the US Sixth Army initially established its headquarters in Tanauan before the construction of the Airfield began in November 1944. Shortly thereafter, the United States Sixth Army, under the command of Lieutenant General Walter Krueger, established its headquarters in Tanauan. On November 15,1944, a meeting was held at the site of the Sixth Army headquarters by the commanders and it was further hampered by insufficient supply of corals for surfacing the runway. Works were also simultaneously being done on the two airstrips of Buri and San Pablo in the vicinity of Burauen, but it was halted in the latter part of November 1944
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Tolosa, Leyte
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Tolosa is a 5th class municipality in the province of Leyte, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 20,978 people and it is located 24 kilometres south of Tacloban City. Tolosa is politically subdivided into 15 barangays, according to popular beliefs, Tolosa derived its name from a legend about three chieftains who united their chiefdoms. According to the legend, the area that is now Tolosa was ruled by three great datus, the datu of fishing, the datu of harvest and the datu of hunting, typical of chiefdoms in those times, the three datus regard each other with hostility. One time a battle broke out among the three of them. Their people fought valiantly in defense of each datu, but the three datus were strong they could not defeat each other. Accidentally they were hit by their own swords and they died, then came a great earthquake followed by a tsunami. When the floodwaters subsided, three promontories rose on three sides of the three lands, as if acting as defensive walls of the contiguous land. Survivors of the great battle realized that the three hills were their great datus who were now united in protecting them from outside dangers, Tolosa was once part of the nearby municipality of Tanauan. Magdaleno Vivero and Domingo Camacho petitioned the Spanish Government to grant Tolosa autonomy from Tanauan, the petition was approved in 1852, resulting in great jubilation among the new towns inhabitants. The towns residents, however, continued to call a nearby promontory Inapusong after the old name. Spanish officials named the town in honor of Tolosa, a town in Old Spain, the town was formally founded in 1861 and became a parish on February 12,1863. Its first parish priest was Padre Geronimo Asenjo, a Spaniard, the first Filipino priest of the parish was Father Quintin Bautista. In 1910, a plan to abolish the municipality worried its inhabitants, owing to the efforts of Captain Daniel Romualdez, grandfather of the late Speaker Daniel Z. Romualdez, the plan to return Tolosa to the care of Tanauan was averted. Abellos act saved the lives of thousands of Leytenos and allowed the Filipino Soldiers and this unhampered attack dealt the blow that broke the back of the Japanese resistance in Leyte, and ultimately The Philippines. A few days after the return of General Douglas MacArthur and the forces of liberation in Leyte, Tolosa became the base of the U. S Navy, about 4 decades ago, Tolosa suffered its worst environmental disaster. Then First Lady Imelda Marcos developed the area between the sea and Mt. Inapusong and built a large compound where she entertained Miss Universe candidates during the pageant held in Manila, the steep rocky slopes of Mt
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Philippines
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The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is a sovereign island country in Southeast Asia situated in the western Pacific Ocean. It consists of about 7,641 islands that are categorized broadly under three main geographical divisions from north to south, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, the capital city of the Philippines is Manila and the most populous city is Quezon City, both part of Metro Manila. The Philippines has an area of 300,000 square kilometers, and it is the eighth-most populated country in Asia and the 12th most populated country in the world. As of 2013, approximately 10 million additional Filipinos lived overseas, multiple ethnicities and cultures are found throughout the islands. In prehistoric times, Negritos were some of the archipelagos earliest inhabitants and they were followed by successive waves of Austronesian peoples. Exchanges with Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Islamic nations occurred, then, various competing maritime states were established under the rule of Datus, Rajahs, Sultans or Lakans. The arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in Homonhon, Eastern Samar in 1521 marked the beginning of Hispanic colonization, in 1543, Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos named the archipelago Las Islas Filipinas in honor of Philip II of Spain. With the arrival of Miguel López de Legazpi from Mexico City, in 1565, the Philippines became part of the Spanish Empire for more than 300 years. This resulted in Roman Catholicism becoming the dominant religion, during this time, Manila became the western hub of the trans-Pacific trade connecting Asia with Acapulco in the Americas using Manila galleons. Aside from the period of Japanese occupation, the United States retained sovereignty over the islands until after World War II, since then, the Philippines has often had a tumultuous experience with democracy, which included the overthrow of a dictatorship by a non-violent revolution. It is a member of the United Nations, World Trade Organization, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. It also hosts the headquarters of the Asian Development Bank, the Philippines was named in honor of King Philip II of Spain. Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos, during his expedition in 1542, named the islands of Leyte, eventually the name Las Islas Filipinas would be used to cover all the islands of the archipelago. Before that became commonplace, other such as Islas del Poniente. The official name of the Philippines has changed several times in the course of its history, during the Philippine Revolution, the Malolos Congress proclaimed the establishment of the República Filipina or the Philippine Republic. From the 1898 Treaty of Paris, the name Philippines began to appear, since the end of World War II, the official name of the country has been the Republic of the Philippines. The metatarsal of the Callao Man, reliably dated by uranium-series dating to 67,000 years ago is the oldest human remnant found in the archipelago to date and this distinction previously belonged to the Tabon Man of Palawan, carbon-dated to around 26,500 years ago. Negritos were also among the archipelagos earliest inhabitants, but their first settlement in the Philippines has not been reliably dated, there are several opposing theories regarding the origins of ancient Filipinos
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Pacific Ocean
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The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of the Earths oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, the Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres. Both the center of the Water Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere are in the Pacific Ocean, the oceans current name was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish circumnavigation of the world in 1521, as he encountered favourable winds on reaching the ocean. He called it Mar Pacífico, which in both Portuguese and Spanish means peaceful sea, important human migrations occurred in the Pacific in prehistoric times. Long-distance trade developed all along the coast from Mozambique to Japan, trade, and therefore knowledge, extended to the Indonesian islands but apparently not Australia. By at least 878 when there was a significant Islamic settlement in Canton much of trade was controlled by Arabs or Muslims. In 219 BC Xu Fu sailed out into the Pacific searching for the elixir of immortality, from 1404 to 1433 Zheng He led expeditions into the Indian Ocean. The east side of the ocean was discovered by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and he named it Mar del Sur because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific. Later, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailed the Pacific East to West on a Castilian expedition of world circumnavigation starting in 1519, Magellan called the ocean Pacífico because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters. The ocean was often called the Sea of Magellan in his honor until the eighteenth century, sailing around and east of the Moluccas, between 1525 and 1527, Portuguese expeditions discovered the Caroline Islands, the Aru Islands, and Papua New Guinea. In 1542–43 the Portuguese also reached Japan, in 1564, five Spanish ships consisting of 379 explorers crossed the ocean from Mexico led by Miguel López de Legazpi and sailed to the Philippines and Mariana Islands. The Manila galleons operated for two and a half centuries linking Manila and Acapulco, in one of the longest trade routes in history, Spanish expeditions also discovered Tuvalu, the Marquesas, the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, and the Admiralty Islands in the South Pacific. In the 16th and 17th century Spain considered the Pacific Ocean a Mare clausum—a sea closed to other naval powers, as the only known entrance from the Atlantic the Strait of Magellan was at times patrolled by fleets sent to prevent entrance of non-Spanish ships. On the western end of the Pacific Ocean the Dutch threatened the Spanish Philippines, Spain also sent expeditions to the Pacific Northwest reaching Vancouver Island in southern Canada, and Alaska. The French explored and settled Polynesia, and the British made three voyages with James Cook to the South Pacific and Australia, Hawaii, and the North American Pacific Northwest, one of the earliest voyages of scientific exploration was organized by Spain in the Malaspina Expedition of 1789–1794. It sailed vast areas of the Pacific, from Cape Horn to Alaska, Guam and the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, and the South Pacific. Growing imperialism during the 19th century resulted in the occupation of much of Oceania by other European powers, and later, Japan, in Oceania, France got a leading position as imperial power after making Tahiti and New Caledonia protectorates in 1842 and 1853 respectively. After navy visits to Easter Island in 1875 and 1887, Chilean navy officer Policarpo Toro managed to negotiate an incorporation of the island into Chile with native Rapanui in 1888, by occupying Easter Island, Chile joined the imperial nations
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Samar
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Samar is an island in the Visayas, within central Philippines and the third largest island in the country. The island is divided into three provinces, Samar province, Northern Samar province, and Eastern Samar province and these three provinces, along with the provinces on the nearby islands of Leyte and Biliran are part of the Eastern Visayas region. Samar is an easternmost island in Visayas, the island is separated from Leyte by the San Juanico Strait, which at its narrowest point is only about 2 kilometres across. This strait is crossed by the San Juanico Bridge, Samar lies southeast of the Bicol Peninsula on Luzon, the countrys largest island, the San Bernardino Strait separates the two. To the south of Samar is the Leyte Gulf, the site of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the gulf opens out into the Philippine Sea, found to the east of Samar and is part of the Pacific Ocean. Samar was the first island of the Philippines sighted by the Spanish expedition of Ferdinand Magellan on 16 March 1521 after having left the Mariana Islands, realizing he had arrived at an archipelago he charted the islands as San Lazaro because they were sighted on Lazarus Saturday. Catbalogan was the central sanitary garbage landfill of Samar province, media related to Samar at Wikimedia Commons Samar Island travel guide from Wikivoyage
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Mindanao
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Mindanao is the second largest and southernmost major island in the Philippines. It is also the name of one of the three groups in the country, consisting of the island of Mindanao and smaller outlying islands. As of the 2010 census, the population itself is 20,281,545 people, while the Mindanao island group has 21,968,174 inhabitants. Davao City is the most populous city in Mindanao hosting 1,632,991 people, followed by Zamboanga City, Cagayan de Oro City, the island has seen a communist insurgency as well as armed Moro separatist movements. Mindanao is considered the food basket of the Philippines, eight of the top 10 agri-commodities exported from the Philippines come from here. Mindanao is also dubbed with the monikers The Philippines Land of Promise, although many attempts made, it was never occupied by Spain for their 333 years of stay in Luzon and Visayas. Yet during Spains defeat and Treaty of Paris in 1898, they illegally included by coordinates Mindanao, evidence of human occupation dates back tens of thousands of years. In prehistoric times the Negrito people arrived, sometime around 1500 BC, Austronesian peoples spread throughout the Philippines and far beyond. Native people of the Maluku Islands refer the island as Maluku Besar, the evidence of old stone tools in Zamboanga del Norte may indicate a late Neolithic presence. Ceramic burial jars, both unglazed and glazed, as well as Chinese celadons, have found in caves, together with shell bracelets, beads. Many of the objects are from the Yuan and Ming periods. Evidently, there was a history of trade between the Subanon and the Chinese long before the latter’s contact with Islam. In the Classic epoch of Philippine history, the people of Mindanao were heavily exposed to Hindu and Buddhist influence and beliefs from Indonesia, artifacts found from this era include the Golden kinnara, Golden Tara, and the Ganesh pendant. These cultural traits passed through Mindanao into the Visayas and Luzon, in coastal areas, the Hindu-Buddhist cultural revolution was strongest, whereas in interior parts, influences were indigenized into local animist beliefs and customs and appeared more subtly. The Darangen epic of the Maranao people harkens back to this era as the most compete local version of the Ramayana. The Maguindanao at this also had strong Hindu beliefs, evidenced by the Ladya Lawana epic saga that survives to the modern day. The Rajahnate of Butuan, a kingdom mentioned in Chinese records as a tributary state in the 10th century AD, was concentrated along the northeastern coast of the island around Butuan. The coming of Islam happened in the 14th century, the first mosque in the Philippines was built in the mid-14th century in the town of Simunul
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Surigao Strait
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Surigao Strait is a strait in the southern Philippines, between the Bohol Sea and the Leyte Gulf of the Philippine Sea. It is located between the regions of Visayas and Mindanao and it lies between northern Mindanao Island and Panaon Island, and between the Dinagat Islands and Leyte island. The strait is deep but has a current, up to 8 knots. The northern entrance of the Surigao Strait is marked by a light on Suluan Island. It is regularly crossed by ferries that transport goods and people between Visayas and Mindanao. The ferries stop at Liloan, Southern Leyte and Surigao City in Surigao del Norte, according to legend, the strait was named after Solibao, a Negrito chieftain, who lived at the outlet of the Surigao River. Migrating Visayan fishermen gradually formed a settlement there, and when Spanish explorers visited the place, a different theory explains that Surigao may be derived from the Spanish word surgir, meaning swift water or current. In March 1521 during the first circumnavigation of the Earth, Ferdinand Magellan, admiral Nishimura was killed in action when his flagship Yamashiro sank following actions against Jesse B. Oldendorfs battleships, all but one of which had been at Pearl Harbor, media related to Surigao Strait at Wikimedia Commons
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Saint Bernard, Southern Leyte
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Saint Bernard is a 4th class municipality in the province of Southern Leyte, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 28,395 people and it is situated on the Pacific coast and the first town form the mountain road from the eastern side of Sogod Bay. Saint Bernard is politically subdivided into 30 barangays and this town was formerly the largest barrio of San Juan, then known as Himatagon. On December 9,1954, President Ramon Magsaysay issued Executive Order No,84, converting the barrio as a municipality of Saint Bernard. On February 17,2006, a series of mudslides killed over 1100 residents in Barangay Guinsaugon. Affected families were treated by the Philippine government and other non-government organizations from all over the world, New houses were built, and the people chose New Guinsaugon as the name of their village located near the town proper. Saint Bernard economy are based in agriculture and marine culture, the municipality is considered among the fastest growing economy in the pacific area of Southern Leyte. Himbangan Sangat Cave and Beach- Brgy, lipanto Ground Zero Memorial Park & Lawigan River- Lawigan River, access at Brgy Tambis 1 Libas River- Brgy. Libas Kissbone Cove and Resort- Brgy, nino Shrine - Sitio Cansi, Brgy. Disaster Management Office - LGU Compound, Municipal Building, Brgy, Himatagon There are accessible Elementary Schools in every Barangay in the Municipality of Saint Bernard as of 2011 census. List of Secondary Schools in the Municipality of Saint Bernard, Tambis 1 Himbangan National High School- Brgy
33.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
34.
Japanese occupation of the Philippines
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The Japanese occupation of the Philippines occurred between 1942 and 1945, when Imperial Japan occupied the Commonwealth of the Philippines during World War II. The invasion of the Philippines started on 8 December 1941, ten hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, as at Pearl Harbor, American aircraft were severely damaged in the initial Japanese attack. Lacking air cover, the American Asiatic Fleet in the Philippines withdrew to Java on 12 December 1941, General Douglas MacArthur was ordered out, leaving his men at Corregidor on the night of 11 March 1942 for Australia,4,000 km away. The 13,000 survivors on Corregidor surrendered on 6 May, Japan occupied the Philippines for over three years, until the surrender of Japan. A highly effective guerilla campaign by Philippine resistance forces controlled sixty percent of the islands, mostly jungle, MacArthur supplied them by submarine, and sent reinforcements and officers. General MacArthur kept his promise to return to the Philippines on 20 October 1944, the landings on the island of Leyte were accompanied by a force of 700 vessels and 174,000 men. Through December 1944, the islands of Leyte and Mindoro were cleared of Japanese soldiers, during the campaign, the Imperial Japanese Army conducted a suicidal defense of the islands. Cities such as Manila were reduced to rubble, between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Filipinos died during the occupation. Japan launched an attack on the Philippines on 8 December 1941, initial aerial bombardment was followed by landings of ground troops both north and south of Manila. Under the pressure of numbers, the defending forces withdrew to the Bataan Peninsula. Manila, declared a city to prevent its destruction, was occupied by the Japanese on 2 January 1942. The Philippine defense continued until the surrender of U. S. -Philippine forces on the Bataan Peninsula in April 1942. Most of the 80,000 prisoners of war captured by the Japanese at Bataan were forced to undertake the infamous Bataan Death March to a prison camp 105 kilometers to the north. Thousands of men, weakened by disease and malnutrition and treated harshly by their captors, Quezon and Osmeña had accompanied the troops to Corregidor and later left for the United States, where they set up a government-in-exile. MacArthur was ordered to Australia, where he started to plan for a return to the Philippines, the Japanese military authorities immediately began organizing a new government structure in the Philippines. Most of the Philippine elite, with a few notable exceptions, the puppet republic was headed by President José P. Laurel. Philippine collaboration in puppet government began under Jorge B, vargas, who was originally appointed by Quezon as the mayor of Greater Manila before Quezon departed Manila. The only political party allowed during the occupation was the Japanese-organized KALIBAPI, during the occupation, most Filipinos remained loyal to the United States, and war crimes committed by forces of the Empire of Japan against surrendered Allied forces and civilians were documented
35.
Typhoon Haiyan
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It is the deadliest Philippine typhoon on record, killing at least 6,300 people in that country alone. Haiyan is also the strongest storm recorded at landfall, in January 2014, bodies were still being found. Tracking generally westward, environmental conditions favored tropical cyclogenesis and the system developed into a depression the following day. Haiyan is also the strongest tropical cyclone in the Eastern Hemisphere by wind speed, several hours later, the eye of the cyclone made its first landfall in the Philippines at Guiuan, Eastern Samar. Gradually weakening, the storm made five additional landfalls in the country before emerging over the South China Sea, turning northwestward, the typhoon eventually struck northern Vietnam as a severe tropical storm on November 10. Haiyan was last noted as a depression by the JMA the following day. The cyclone caused catastrophic destruction in the Visayas, particularly on Samar, according to UN officials, about 11 million people have been affected – many have been left homeless. On November 2, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center began monitoring a broad area about 425 kilometers east-southeast of Pohnpei. Moving through a region favoring tropical cyclogenesis, the Japan Meteorological Agency classified the system as a tropical depression early on November 3. Subsequent intensification resulted in the JMA upgrading the system to a tropical storm, by November 6, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration assigned the storm the local name Yolanda as it approached their area of responsibility. Later, the eye of the passed over the island of Kayangel in Palau. Around 1200 UTC on November 7, Haiyan attained ten-minute sustained winds of 230 km/h, six hours later, the JTWC estimated Haiyan to have attained one-minute sustained winds of 315 km/h and gusts up to 378 km/h, according to preliminary track data. The storm displayed some characteristics of a tropical cyclone, though a strong convective band remained present along the western side of the system. At 2040 UTC on November 7, Typhoon Haiyan made landfall in Guiuan, the JTWCs unofficial estimate of one-minute sustained winds of 315 km/h would, by that measure, make Haiyan the most powerful storm ever recorded to strike land. Interaction with land caused slight degradation of the structure, though it remained an exceptionally powerful storm when it struck Tolosa. The typhoon made four additional landfalls as it traversed the Visayas, Daanbantayan, Bantayan Island, Concepcion, a weakened Haiyan, with its core disrupted by interaction with the Philippines, emerged over the South China Sea late on November 8. Environmental conditions ahead of the storm became less favorable, as cool stable air began wrapping into the western side of the circulation. Rapid weakening ensued as Haiyan approached its final landfall in Vietnam, once onshore, the storm quickly diminished and was last noted as it dissipated over Guangxi Province, China during November 11
36.
Storm surge
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Most casualties during tropical cyclones occur as the result of storm surges. The deadliest storm surge on record was the 1970 Bhola cyclone, the low-lying coast of the Bay of Bengal is particularly vulnerable to surges caused by tropical cyclones. The deadliest storm surge in the twenty-first century was caused by the Cyclone Nargis, the next deadliest in this century was caused by the Typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 6,000 people in the central Philippines in 2013 and resulted in economic losses estimated at $14 billion. Louis, Diamondhead and Pass Christian in Mississippi, a high storm surge occurred in New York City from Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, with a high tide of 14 ft. The pressure effects of a tropical cyclone will cause the level in the open ocean to rise in regions of low atmospheric pressure. The rising water level will counteract the low pressure such that the total pressure at some plane beneath the water surface remains constant. This effect is estimated at a 10 mm increase in sea level for every millibar drop in atmospheric pressure, strong surface winds cause surface currents at a 45° angle to the wind direction, by an effect known as the Ekman Spiral. Wind stresses cause a phenomenon referred to as wind set-up, which is the tendency for water levels to increase at the downwind shore, intuitively, this is caused by the storm simply blowing the water towards one side of the basin in the direction of its winds. Because the Ekman Spiral effects spread vertically through the water, the effect is proportional to depth. The pressure effect and the wind set-up on an open coast will be driven into bays in the way as the astronomical tide. The Earths rotation causes the Coriolis effect, which bends currents to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere. When this bend brings the currents into more contact with the shore it can amplify the surge. The effect of waves, while powered by the wind, is distinct from a storms wind-powered currents. Powerful wind whips up large, strong waves in the direction of its movement, although these surface waves are responsible for very little water transport in open water, they may be responsible for significant transport near the shore. When waves are breaking on a more or less parallel to the beach. The rainfall effect is experienced predominantly in estuaries, Hurricanes may dump as much as 12 in of rainfall in 24 hours over large areas, and higher rainfall densities in localized areas. As a result, watersheds can quickly surge water into the rivers that drain them and this can increase the water level near the head of tidal estuaries as storm-driven waters surging in from the ocean meet rainfall flowing from the estuary. This situation well exemplified by the southeast coast of Florida
37.
Visayas State University
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The Visayas State University is a premier university in the Philippines located at the city Baybay, Leyte, Philippines. It is one of the universities in Southeast Asia for research in agriculture. The five-campus VSU system has eight colleges, three institutes and one school, with Mount Pangasugan and the Camotes Sea as VSUs backdrop, it makes the university distinctive from any other colleges and universities in the region. The Main Campus has an Open University which takes care of the education program. The university also hosts a program on rain forestation, making VSU as the school in the Visayas to be labeled as a Dark Green School by the Environmental Education Network of the Philippines. Programs are available in Agro-Industry, Information Technology, Hospitality Management, Tropical Ecology, Veterinary Medicine, Forestry, Fishery, the 1, 099-hectare campus hosts 193 buildings composed of academic departments, research and trainings centers, staff and student housing facilities and other vital structures. VSU is located by one of the last remaining rainforests in the Philippines. New records of the microbat, with a length of 5.5 centimeters and body weight of 10 grams, a type of skink, vSU’s Natural History Museum collected 43,000 arthropod specimens from 377 families and 500 genera on Mt. Pangasugan. A new species of orchid and a beetle were named in honor of past VSU president Dr. Paciencia Po-Milan. Other endemic species include the eagle-owl, Philippine hawk-eagle, rufous-lored kingfisher, Philippine leafbird and miniature tit-babbler, the Federal Republic of Germany funded the VSU study to collect, identify, describe and document the existing species of aroids and orchids in Mt. Pangasugan. 25 species of aroids representing 12 genera were documented at elevations of up to 350 m ASL, classified as erect ground dwellers or climbers, the most dominant aroid belong to Pothos and Epipremnum. The orchid species represent 16 genera, with the most dominant belonging to Phalaenopsis, the Herpetofauna of Anibong, Jordan, Mt. Pangasugan Range, Leyte is a habitat to endemic species, which is so diverse and slightly distributed. The Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology identified 17 herpetofaunal species belonging to 6 families, limnonectes magnus is already in the near-threatened category. List of forestry universities and colleges DYDC
38.
Scylla serrata
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Scylla serrata is an economically important species of crab found in the estuaries and mangroves of Africa, Australia and Asia. In their most common form, the colour varies from a deep. The natural range of Scylla serrata is in the Indo-Pacific and it is found from South Africa, around the coast of the Indian Ocean to the Malay Archipelago, as well as from southern Japan to south-eastern Australia, and as far east as Fiji and Samoa. The species has also introduced to Hawaii and Florida. Adults were caught mainly below the low mark, with small numbers captured in the intertidal zone at high tide. These crabs are highly cannibalistic in nature, when crabs undergo moulting, other hard-shelled ones sometimes attack the moulting crabs and devour them. The females can give birth to an offspring which can grow up to 3.5 kg in size and have a shell width of up to 24 cm wide. Interest in the aquaculture of this species has been due to the high demand/price for them, high flesh content. In addition, they have a tolerance to both nitrate and ammonia, which is beneficial because ammonia-N is often the most limiting factor on closed aquaculture systems. Their high ammonia-N tolerance may be attributed to various unique physiological responses which may have due to their habitat preferences. However, their aquaculture has been limited due to the often low and this may be due to inadequate nutrition, disease, moult death syndrome, inadequate protocols, or a combination of all. S. serrata can be kept easily in home aquaria when smaller and they are very active and will eat almost any conventional sinking pellets, they also consume some small fish pieces and vegetable matter. They are tolerant of most water conditions and are generally a very hardy, generally cooked with their shells on, when they moult their shells, they can be served as one of many types of soft-shell crab. Some consider them to be among the tastiest of crab species, and demand for them is large in South and Southeast Asian countries, in the northern states of Australia and especially Queensland, mud crabs are relatively common and generally prized above other seafood by the general public. Mud crabs can be killed by placing them in a freezer for up to two hours before cooking, Australia, Queensland government page on mangrove crab aquaculture Cycle of the mud crab Life Cycle of the Mud Crab – Fishnote No.11 March 2007, Northern Territory
39.
Blast fishing
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Blast fishing or dynamite fishing is the practice of using explosives to stun or kill schools of fish for easy collection. This often illegal practice can be destructive to the surrounding ecosystem. The frequently improvised nature of the explosives used also means danger for the fishermen as well, with accidents, although outlawed, the practice remains widespread in Southeast Asia, as well as in the Aegean Sea, and coastal Africa. In the Philippines, where the practice has been well-documented, blast fishing was known prior to World War I, one 1999 report estimated that some 70,000 fishermen engaged in the practice. Such devices, though, may explode prematurely without warning, and have known to injure or kill the person using them. Underwater shock waves produced by the explosion stun the fish and cause their swim bladders to rupture and this rupturing causes an abrupt loss of buoyancy, a small number of fish float to the surface, but most sink to the sea floor. The explosions indiscriminately kill large numbers of fish and other organisms in the vicinity and can damage or destroy the physical environment. Researchers believe that destructive fishing practices like blast fishing are one of the biggest threats to the reef ecosystems. Blown up coral reefs are no more than rubble fields, the long-term impact associated with blast fishing is that there is no natural recovery of the reefs. Coral reefs are less likely to recover from constant disturbance such as blast fishing than from small disturbance that does not change the physical environment, blast fishing destroys the calcium carbonate coral skeletons and is one of the continual disruptions of coral reefs. In the Indo-Pacific, the practice of blast fishing is a cause of coral reef degradation. As a result, weakened rubble fields are formed and fish habitat is reduced, the damaged coral reefs from blast fishing lead to instant declines in fish species wealth and quantity. Explosives used in blast fishing not only kill fish but also destroy coral skeletons, the elimination of the fish also eliminates the resilience of the coral reefs to climate change, further hindering their recovery. Single blasts cause reefs to recover over 5–10 years, while widespread blasting, as often practiced, in Tanzania, one of the few methods to help manage blast fishing is a joint approach between fisheries officers and village committees. Working together, they help the enforcement agencies recognize offenders by patrolling the sea as well as providing information collected in the local villages, as a result, this has assisted the enforcement agencies to reduce the occurrence of fish blasting from an average of 8 per day to zero. It has also provided funding to continue the efficient patrols, a certified planning institution. Similar patrols employed in Indonesia and Philippines have reduced the amount of blast fishing occurrences there, based on dialogue with stakeholder groups in Southeast Asia and people of Tanzania and Philippines, it is evident that firmer enforcement is an effective strategy in managing blast fishing. Many countries have laws regarding blast fishing, but they are not fully implemented, effective management of Marine Protected Areas is key in the patrolling of illegal fishing areas
40.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
41.
Sea
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A sea is a large body of salt water that is surrounded in whole or in part by land. More broadly, the sea is the system of Earths salty. The sea moderates Earths climate and has important roles in the cycle, carbon cycle. Although the sea has been traveled and explored since prehistory, the scientific study of the sea—oceanography—dates broadly to the British Challenger expedition of the 1870s. Owing to the present state of continental drift, the Northern Hemisphere is now equally divided between land and sea but the South is overwhelmingly oceanic. Salinity in the ocean is generally in a narrow band around 3. 5% by mass, although this can vary in more landlocked waters, near the mouths of large rivers. About 85% of the solids in the sea are sodium chloride. Deep-sea currents are produced by differences in salinity and temperature, surface currents are formed by the friction of waves produced by the wind and by tides, the changes in local sea level produced by the gravity of the Moon and Sun. The direction of all of these is governed by surface and submarine land masses, former changes in sea levels have left continental shelves, shallow areas in the sea close to land. The most diverse areas surround great tropical coral reefs, whaling in the deep sea was once common but whales dwindling numbers prompted international conservation efforts and finally a moratorium on most commercial hunting. Life may have started there and aquatic microbial mats are generally credited with the oxygenation of Earths atmosphere, the sea is an essential aspect of human trade, travel, mineral extraction, and power generation. It is the scene of activities including swimming, diving, surfing. However, population growth, industrialization, and intensive farming have all contributed to marine pollution. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is being absorbed in increasing amounts, lowering its pH in a known as ocean acidification. The shared nature of the sea has made overfishing an increasing problem, both senses of sea date to Old English, the larger sense has required a definite article since Early Middle English. Seas are generally larger than lakes and contain salt water, while the defining elements of size and being bounded are generally used, there is no formally accepted technical definition of sea among oceanographers. In international law, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea states that all the ocean is the sea. Earth is the known planet with seas of liquid water on its surface, although Mars possesses ice caps
42.
Bohol Sea
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The Bohol Sea, also called the Mindanao Sea, is located between Visayas and Mindanao in the Philippines. It lies south of Bohol and Leyte and north of Mindanao, siquijor and Camiguin are its two major islands. The major cities on the sea are Cagayan de Oro, Iligan, Butuan, Dumaguete, Ozamiz, the Bohol Sea is home to a large variety of premier scuba diving locations, dive charter boats, and hotels that cater to divers. Around the area of Tagbilaran and Balicasag Island there are numerous wall dives that range from 30 to 100 feet, water temperatures are very warm and most divers use a standard 3/2 shorty wetsuit to dive the location. Sea life is abundant and includes such attractions as clownfish, lionfish, barracuda, dolphins, huge coral formations, rorquals have been confirmed to return into Bohol Sea which is a rare trend in any Asian waters, and most notably Bohol regions host even blue whales. Media related to Bohol Sea at Wikimedia Commons
43.
Camotes Sea
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The Camotes Sea is a small sea within the Philippine archipelago, situated between the Eastern Visayan and the Central Visayan regions. It is bordered by the islands of Leyte to the north and east, Bohol to the south, the sea is connected to the Visayan Sea to the northwest, and to the Bohol Sea to the south by the Canigao Channel and Cebu Strait. It contains the Camotes Islands and Mactan Island, the major cities of the area are Ormoc and Baybay in Leyte province, and Cebu City, Cebu
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