Prospero Awit St., Asturias, Cebu
It is one of the seven streets in the town's center named after influential residents of Asturias. There are actually 12 streets in Brgy Poblacion, the other 4 streets are named after national heroes and country's discoverer (Ferdinand Magellan).
Prospero Awit St. is named after the "Teniente Encargado" or head of the visita (just like a chapel or a sub parish) of Nagjalin (when Asturias was not yet created). It was at that time that the residents of Nagjalin filed a petition to the King of Spain for the creation of a new town to be separated from the town of Tuburan.
Awit and the other residents later called Founding Fathers of Asturias filed a petition for the creation of a new town. Prospero Awit, fondly called "Peroy," was one of the signatories of the affidavit that supported the petition. His other affiants were Francisco Aliviado and Eulogio Aguanta.
On February 8, 1878, the insular authorities in Manila issued a Superior Decree authorizing the creation of the new pueblo of Asturias. However the decree of the governor general was only recommendatory and had to be approved by the King of Spain.
The King of Spain on July 24, 1878 approved the creation of the new pueblo of Asturias by issuing a royal order. The petition for the creation of the new town had the support of the parish priests of Balamban and Tuburan, namely, Fathers Benito Ramiro and Mauricio Esmera, respectively.
The 34 petitioners were, and signed in this order, Euginio Alonso, Francisco Aliviado, Greg Delfin, Martin Palicte, Prospero Awit, Andres Dalogdog, Juan Tagalog, Juan Coraza, Basilio Jamili, Teodoro Alpor, Mamerto Galo, Maximino Delfin, Pablo Aguanta, Lorenzo Delfin, Eusebio Estela, Calistro Arcilla, Victoriano Bantilan, Protacio Revalde, Eusabio Vidal, Bibiano Estela, Lucas Reylan, Estanislao Cairon, Fausto Bantilan, Mateo Trazo, Feliciano Awit, Cayetano Aguanta, Pantaleon Trazo, Pecasio Aguanta, Brigido Bantilan, Filomeno Palatolon, Domingo Onong, Cirilo Taparan, Hilarion Ynoy and Ventura Tacsanan.
It was Don Eugenio Alonso who was responsible for the naming of the town of Asturias, in honor of a bishop friend in Cebu who comes from a province in Spain known as Asturias.
The other five streets in Poblacion, Asturias are Jose Alonso (son of Founder Eugenio Alonso, who was elected representative of the old 7th District of Cebu), Fabian Aguanta (son of founder Eulogio Aguanta, who served as mayor of Asturias and donor of the school site of Asturias Central School, the town's cemetery and a bell now used in the municipal hall), Eugenio Alonso (the father of Asturias), Gregorio Delfin (the first person to settle in the forests which became the visita of Nagjalin, later to be called "Asturias") and Primo B. Trazo (who became municipal president and municipal judge.
Pedro T. Manuel in his book, "124 years of Asturias," wrote that it was Mateo Trazo, one of the early settlers of Nagjalin, who, with the leading founder of Asturias, Don Eugenio Alonso also called Tan Genio, was responsible for the laying out of the streets, taking a few steps here and there to measure the width of the streets. Mateo Trazo is then considered as the town's first surveyor or agremensor of Asturias.
Asturias, which is a fusion of two visitas, Nagjalin and Bugacawa, has their own patron saints, with San Jose as patron of Nagjalin and Santa Lucia as their patroness. The new parish and town chose Senior San Roque as its Patron Saint.
Among the many parish priests of Asturias were Fathers Jose Lofranco, Angel Tabotabo, Simon Borces, Tomas Borces, Crispin Davis, Emiliano Jumao-as, Sancho Abadio, Hermenegildo Hangad, Toefilo Galeos, Elisio Montecillo, Roman Jamili, Mariano Gerali, Felipe Jumao-as, Jose Motus, Sofronio Cabahug, Dominador Dosdos, Pastor Ybanez, Miguel Mambaje, Eliseo Gamallo, Exequio Montecillo, Mariano Batucan, Jaime C. Borces, and Jose S. Laperna.
- Latest
