ANG BIGAA, SI DOLPHY, PATI NA SI REGINE

Lingid sa kaalaman ng marami, isa rin siyang Dugong Bulakenyo, may lupain si Dolphy sa Bgy. Wawa, Balagtas, Bulacan. Ang ina ni Dolphy na si Salud ay nagmula sa Wawa, Balagtas. Isa sa kanyang anak, si Rodolfo, Jr. ay nakatira sa kanyang rest house sa Sitio Barmat, Wawa.

Ang malapit na kamag-anak ni Dolphy sa Balagtas ay ang lahi ni Lolo Kanor o ang aming Ingkong Kanor na ama ni Kapitan Pabling Miranda ng Wawa. Kapag umuuwi si Dolphy sa Bigaa, ay tumutuloy siya sa matandang bahay ni Ingkong o kaya ay sa bahay ni Tata Pabling sa Bgy. Wawa—ang barangay kung saan nagka isip at nag-aral ng elementarya si Regine Velasquez.

Instrumento si Kapitan Pabling Miranda, pinsan ni Dolphy, na sinasabing nagpakilala kay CHONA VELASQUEZ kay Dolphy nang hindi pa ito gaanong popular. Ang unang exposure sa telebisyon ni Chona ay sa Tita Betty's Children Show noong nasa Manila pa sila, at ng lumipat na ang pamilya niya sa Balagtas ay nasali siya sa BARANGAYAN sa Channel 4.

Ang BARANGAYAN ay isang amateur singing contest sa Channel 4 kung saan inilalaban ng mga barangay ang pambato nilang mang-aawit.

Si CHONA ang inilaban ng Balagtas, Bulacan mula sa tulong ng ng malapit na kamag-anak ni Dolphy na si Kap. Pabling. Pumangalawa lamang si CHONA sa naturang nationwide search, pero ng sumali ulit siya sa Bagong Kampeon, isang nationwide TV singing contest, kung saan host sina Bert Tawa Marcelo na taga Baliwag at ni Pilita Corrales, ay natanghal siyang kampeon, at mula noon ang pangalan ni CHONA ay naging “REGINE” na sumikat nang todo at naging kasikuhan ang pinsan ni Kap. Pabling na si Dolphy. Kung ano ang naging naging halaga ni Dolphy sa pagsikat ni CHONA ay isang lihim na ang tanging nakakaalam lamang ay si Kapitan Pabling.

May ilang anak si Dolphy na nananatiling naninirahan sa Bulacan dahil marami silang kamag anak dito.

Flag in Bulacan town flown at half-staff to honor Dolphy

entertainment.inquirer.net

The flag at the town hall here was flown at half-staff on Friday to honor King of Comedy Rodolfo "Dolphy" Vera Quizon Sr., who passed away Tuesday.

Glimpse on the Old Balagtas Train Station

Balagtas or Bigaa station is one of the defunct stations of the abandoned Northrail line of PNR. This station also serves as a terminus for the Balagtas-Cabanatuan line.

After the invention of railroad in Britain in 1825, it reached France, Germany, the Netherlands, and in 1848 it was introduced in Spain. It was during the Spanish Revolution, and on 1872 that Filipino ‘propagandists’ in Madrid, showed that reforms were needed in the Philippines.

In 1875, Spanish royal orders were issued for general plans and ground rules for rail tracks in the Philippine. A Royal Order in 1880 started the work on the island of Luzon. A prototype line was built north from Manila to the nearby province of Bulacan, and eventually became part of the original main line. A Royal Order of 28 April 1882 directed the northern tracks be extended from Bigaa (present-day Balagtas, Bulacan) to Tuguegarao, Cagayan. Its operation began on November 24, 1892 as the Ferrocarril de Manila-Dagupan, during the Spanish period. 

The shipment of farm produce carried by the railway increased more than 100%. The economic impact was apparent. After his return from Hong Kong on June 1892, Dr Jose Rizal, the country's national hero, wrote that his 120-km train trip from Manila thru Bulacan to Tarlac, took him 5 hours 40 minutes.

By April 1899, the first American Commission to the Philippines arrived in Manila, and the so-called Schurman Commission was to survey conditions in the islands, just as the Philippine–American War started 2 months earlier. The Schurman Commission instructed that construction of roads, railroads, and other means of communications and transportation, as well as other public works be promoted. Transportation was given a high priority.

The second Commission was headed by William H. Taft, later America's 27th President. The Taft Commission's first law was to allocate P2 million (US$1 million) for road and bridge repairs.

Operation of the railroads was returned to its British owners in 1900 and was named as the Manila Railway Company during the American period.. By 1906, four branch lines had been added, including a 91.5-km Bigaa (Balagtas)–Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija section, the closest the tracks got to the Cagayan Valley at that time.

 It was nationalized before the World War II, and was acquired by the Philippine government which expanded the rail network, only to be lost during the war. The extensive damage took several years to repair. On June 20, 1946, under Republic Act No. 4156 the company became Philippine National Railways.

Old Bigaa Train Station

Francisco Balagtas 

Francisco Balagtas y de la Cruz (April 2, 1788 – February 20, 1862), also known as Francisco Baltazar, was a prominent Filipino poet, and is widely considered as one of the greatest Filipino literary laureate for his impact on Filipino literature. The famous epic, Florante at Laura, is regarded as his defining work.

The name "Baltazar", sometimes misconstrued as a pen name, was a legal surname Balagtas adopted after the 1849 edict of Governor-General Narciso Claveria y Zaldua, which mandated that the native population adopt standard Spanish surnames instead of native ones.

Francisco Balagtas was born on April 2, 1788, in Barrio Panginay, Bigaa, Bulacan as the youngest of the four children of Juan Balagtas, a blacksmith, and Juana de la Cruz. He studied in a parochial school in Bigaa and later in Manila. During his childhood years. Francisco later worked as houseboy in Tondo, Manila. He worked as a houseboy to earn for his own living and to continue his studies.

Balagtas learned to write poetry from José de la Cruz (Huseng Sisiw), one of the most famous poets of Tondo, in return of chicks, but later on overcame Huseng Sisiw as a better poet.

In 1835, Balagtas moved to Pandacan, where he met María Asunción Rivera, who would inspired some of his future works. She was referred as 'Celia' and 'MAR' in Florante at Laura.

He wrote his poems in Tagalog, during an age when Filipino writing was predominantly written in Spanish.

Balagtas published Florante at Laura in 1838. He moved to Balanga, Bataan in 1840 where he became the assistant to the Justice of the Peace, also appointed as the translator of the court and then became a Major Lieutenant. He married Juana Tiambeng on July 22, 1842, in a ceremony officiated by Fr. Cayetano Arellano, uncle of future Philippine Supreme Court Chief Justice Cayetano Arellano. They had eleven children but only four survived to adulthood.

He died on February 20, 1862, at the age of 73. Upon his deathbed, he asked his children not to become poets like him, who had suffered so much under his gift. He even told them that it would be better to cut their hands off than let them be writers.

Balagtas is so greatly revered in the Philippines that the term for Filipino debate in extemporaneous verse is named after him: Balagtasan.

His Legacy:

"Pook na Sinilangan ni Balagtas" Monument was places in Panginay, Balagtas, Bulacan.

An elementary school was erected in honor of Balagtas, the Francisco Balagtas Elementary School (FBES) in Santa Cruz, Manila.

A plaza and park (Plaza Balagtas) erected in Pandacan, Manila, and the streets were named after various Florante at Laura characters in honor of Francisco Balagtas.

His birthplace, Bigaa, Bulacan, was renamed to Balagtas, Bulacan in honor of him.

A museum, historical marker, monument and Elementary School has been placed in his birthplace at Panginay, Balagtas, Bulacan. 

A Mercurian crater was also named after him.

His Works:

Florante at Laura, an awit (metrical narrative poem with dodecasyllabic quatrains [12 syllables per line, 4 lines per stanza]); Balagtas' masterpiece

Orosmán at Zafira – a komedya (a Filipino theater form evolved from the Spanish comedia) in four parts

Don Nuño at Selinda – a komedya in three parts

Auredato at Astrome – a komedya in three parts

Clara Belmore – a komedya in three parts

Abdol at Misereanan – a komedya, staged in Abucay in 1857

Bayaceto at Dorslica – a komedya in three parts, staged at Udyong on September 27, 1857

Alamansor at Rosalinda – a komedya staged at Udyong during the town's feast

La India elegante y el negrito amante – a short play in one part

Nudo gordeano

Rodolfo at Rosemonda

Mahomet at Constanza

Claus (translated into Tagalog from Latin)

Balagtas Monument in Panginay

Balagtas, Bulacan

downtown Balagtas

Balagtas before sunset

after Balagtas bridge

Balagtas is a first class urban municipality in the province of Bulacan, Philippines.  It has an area of 28.66 km², and according to the 2010 census, it has a population of 65,440 inhabitants, with a density of 2300/km².

It is a part of Manila's built up area which reaches as far as San Ildefonso in its northernmost part, with the continuous expansion of Metro Manila

Thirty kilometers North of Manila, Balagtas (formerly known as Bigaa), renamed in honor of Filipino poet Francisco Balagtas, has nine barangays. The municipality is bounded by several towns; on the South by Bocaue, on the north tip by Plaridel, on the East by Pandi and portion of Sta. Maria, on the West by the towns of Bulacan and Guiguinto.

Two main roads, the McArthur Highway and the North Luzon expressway (NLEX) bisects the municipality as this national roads cut northward to the Ilocos region. Recently, a new Balagtas/Plaridel By-pass Road was built exiting the NLEX to ease tranffic in Mc Arthur Hi-way. 

At the southern approach of the town, a first class concrete bridge that crosses the Balagtas River is under rehabilitation and construction as of this writing (8/26/14). The river, which provides Balagtas with fresh water food, is navigable by banca and motor boats, empties into Manila bay after snaking from the Balagtas-Pandi boundary, through the town of Bulacan to the West 

At the foot of the bridge, along the highway towards the North, is the town hall. In front of the town hall is an open park where the monument of its hero, Francisco Balagtas is located. The town hall is surrounded by Spanish colonial type houses, including the known "Bahay na Tisa".

Not far from the municipal center is the barrio of Panginay, the birthplace of Francisco "Balagtas" Baltazar, for whom "Balagtasan", a form of debate in versified Tagalog, was also named. In reverence to the hero's deeds, the official name of Bigaa was changed to Balagtas through the legislative act sponsored by the late Congressman, Teodulo Natividad.

In 1946 the Historical Society of the Philippines placed a marker at the birthplace of Balagtas in Barrio Panginay, Bigaa, Bulacan.

Originally known as Encomienda Caluya as per history records regarding the early years of Bulacan Province, Caluya was mentioned as one of the Six Encomiendas of the Province together with Calumpit, Bulacan, Meycauayan, Malolos and Binto (Quingua) later known as Plaridel. It was erected by the Augustinian Missionaries in 1592 under the jurisdiction of the Alcalde Mayor of Bulacan. In 1602, Caluya was formally organized into a town with its own Gobernadorcillo and renamed to Bigaa.

Balagtas also played a vital role in the fight for Philippine independence during the Philippine Revolution.  It is one of the towns where Dr. Jose Rizal stopped and stayed during his trips in the north. The historical  Real de Kakarong de Sili, which was once part of Bigaa (Balagtas), was the site of the bloodiest revolution in Bulacan, where more than 3,000 Katipuneros died. The first Philippine revolutionary republic known as the 'Republic of Real de Kakarong de Sili' was established here on 1896, headed by Brig. Gen. Eusebio Roque, known as "Maestrong Sebio or Dimabungo, together with about 6,000 Katipuneros from various towns of Bulacan. 

When the Americans established civil government in 1902, Bigaa and nearby Bocaue were combined to form a town with the latter as the seat of government. In 1911, however, Bigaa was separated from Bocaue, and to it was added the town of Pandi, which became one of Bigaa's barrios. In 1946, shortly after the Philippines gained political freedom from the United States, Pandi by virtue of a legislative fiat was given a municipal charter of its own, and apart from Bigaa.

Balagtas, Bulacan