Mangarin Ruins
One of the oldest settlement in Mindoro is Manggaring, but it permanently appeared in records as Mangarin due to Spanish orthography. It is a settlement located at the mouth of Pinamanaan River, a river which empties its water into Mangarin Bay. It first appeared in history in 1679, when friars from the Order of Augustinian Recollects "established" this settlement. Perhaps what it really meant was, Mangarin is chosen as a site of a new reduccion. Which means the settlement will be put under a church bell, then less populated settlements nearby or barangays will be force to move there. Thus four years later in 1683, Mangarin was founded as the center of a new parish.
You can take a glimpse of Mangarin's glorious past through its ruins, giving the place a mystical aura to local residents and tourist alike. The ruins grew even more mysterious over the decades, creating all sort of stories that eventually evolved into stuff of legends. These legends eventually made it to the local tourism pamphlet of the municipal government of San Jose, and spilled over into the internet. One such legends revolves around Limahong, the Chinese pirate who attacked and destroyed most of Manila on September 1574. As the legend goes, the ruins in Mangarin was the remnants of a stone fort built by Limahong and his followers. Other variations of the story are much closer to the truth , it says that the ruins was used to be a watchtower built to ward off pirates and it was besieged by Limahong himself. Or the Sangleys built the fort themselves with the help of the inhabitants of Mangarin, when they were still trading their wares in Mangarin Bay. |
| Mangarin Bay and the location of its ruins, Mangarin Fort and Iglesia de Piedra or Church made of stones. |
Prior to the founding of the parish of Mangarin the whole west coast of Mindoro was governed from the parish of Calavite located in Mindoro's northwestern tip. The parish of Mangarin on its peak have under its jurisdiction the islands of Ilin, Ambulong, Semirara, Sibay and Caluya and also the settlements of Iriron, Bulalacao, and Mansalay, the last two is located in the southeastern coast of Mindoro Oriental . Today Mangarin is reduce to just one of the barangays of San Jose, Mindoro Occidental.
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| Inside view of Mangarin Fort from the East (Photo taken by Rosemin De Los Trinos, M.D.) |
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| Front side view of Mangarin Fort from the Southwest (Photo taken by Joma Cordova) |
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| Front view of Mangarin Fort facing Mangarin Bay (Photo taken by Rosemin De Los Trinos, M.D.) |
And the excerpt about the fort goes like this:
"The first parish priest was Fr. Pedro Soto de San Juan Bautista, who arrived on February 12, 1844, in Mangarin, aged 25 years. The first thing he did was the construction of a “kuta”, or defense-work against the Moros, consisting of a stone wall that surrounded the whole village. Inside this compound, in the very center, he built a church and convent from local materials. A sentinel or guard was on duty night and day, to announce immediately anything that might happen, especially any raids from the Moro pirates. The people were certainly glad that this stone defense was constructed, because they still remembered vividly the Moro attack on Mangarin of the previous year (Jan. 12, 1843), when 4 boats with pirates had landed at the sandplate in front of the village, and had assaulted their settlement. But the people had not been afraid, and had fought off the attack with the help of the 4 cannons that they had acquired in the meantime. After thay had killed two Moro pirates, the others had given up ad left in their boats, looking for easier targets."
The frequent Muslim raids started after the restructuring of political and economic system in Mindoro at the beginning of the Spanish colonial rule, which replaced the existing Muslim trade network in the region. Since all the ports and maritime towns of Mindoro were used to be inhabited and governed by Muslims, with trade relations as far as China and Brunei, before it was conquered by the Spaniards. (See Mindoro History 101)
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| Cannon hole facing Mangarin Bay (Photo taken by Rosemin De Los Trinos, M.D.) |
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| Outside view of Mangarin Fort from the North West (Photo taken by Joma Cordova) |
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| Full view of Mangarin Fort from the North (Photo taken by Joma Cordova) |
1. Antoon Postma, Historical Data on the Greater San Jose Parish of Occidental Mindoro (1983)
2. Rudy Candelario, Maikling Kasaysayan ng Occidental Mindoro (2000)
3. Rudy Candelario, Mga Makasaysayang Pook at Istruktura sa Occidental Mindoro (2008)
4. V. Schult, Mindoro: A Social History of a Philippine Island in the 20th Century (1991)
5. Rudy Candelario, History of San Jose and its Barangays
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