The Fallen 44: A Genealogical Tribute

I know it’s been several days since that tragic event in Mamasapano. As always, it is difficult for me to automatically write something using genealogy as it usually takes days of research to do a family history. Of course, I would not do a genealogy of each of the Fallen 44. As much as I would like to there is not enough time to do that now. But still, I want to give my tribute to these heroic police officers in a way that I, as a family historian, can relate to.

I recently received the final piece of research material for my overdue book on genealogy from very considerate and thoughtful people from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). They sent me a consolidated list of the most populous and popular last names for each municipality in the country, something I need for a chapter in my book. So before I use this list to complete my book, I will use this for this tribute.

When I mapped out the home provinces of the 44 fallen policemen (see diagram above) I noticed immediately at how national the distribution of their hometowns were. This was clearly something that people from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao could relate to as the provinces of these 44 heroes were spread out among the 3 major island groups. Twenty-five of them came from Luzon, 12 from the Visayas, and 7 from Mindanao. This is one of the reasons why the reaction of the Filipino people has been so strong and so real; everyone from these provinces, and by extension in their regions, could claim these heroes as their own and would fight for the truth to come out so as to give justice to these fallen heroes.

With this in mind, I looked at the PSA list further and decided to find the prevalence of the surnames of the Fallen 44. Below is a matrix showing how many times a surname appears as one of the top 50 in each municipality and the number of people carrying the surname today. Of course, we know that because of Governor-General Narciso Claveria's 1849 Surname Decree these people with similar surnames to our Fallen 44 policemen are not all related. The matrix is simply a short practice of looking at the spread of certain surnames across the Philippines.

FAMILY NAME	HOMETOWN	# OF TOWNS W/ SURNAME	# OF PEOPLE W/ SURNAME
Acain	Gutalac, Zamb. del Norte	Appears very populous in 7 towns	1217 people carrying the surname
Acob	Sampaloc, Manila	Appears very populous in 17 towns	2072 people carrying the surname
Agabon	Iligan City	Appears very populous in 3 towns	439 people carrying the surname
Aliaga	Banaue, Ifugao	Appears very populous in 6 towns	763 people carrying the surname
Anniban	Tabuk City, Kalinga	Appears very populous in 1 town	69 people carrying the surname
Asjali	Zamboangaanga City	Uncommon last name	Very few people using the surname
Balaca	Oras, Eastern Samar	Uncommon last name	Very few people using the surname
Baluga	Piat, Cagayan	Appears very populous in 5 towns	383 people carrying the surname
Bedua	Dulag, Leyte	Appears very populous in 2 towns	193 people carrying the surname
Bilog	Tabuk City, Kalinga	Appears very populous in 3 towns	781 people carrying the surname
Cabanlet	Baroy, Lanao del Norte	Uncommon last name	Very few people using the surname
Candano	Dumanjug, Cebu	Appears very populous in 2 towns	274 people carrying the surname
Capinding	San Mateo, Isabela	Uncommon last name	Very few people using the surname
Carap	La Trinidad, Benguet	Uncommon last name	Very few people using the surname
Cayang-o	Sadanga, Mt. Province	Uncommon last name	Very few people using the surname
Cempron	Paranaque	Appears very populous in 1 town	239 people carrying the surname
Clemencio	Carigara, Leyte	Uncommon last name	Very few people using the surname
Cordero	Isulan, Sultan Kudarat	Appears very populous in 52 towns	12644 people carrying the surname
Danao	Baguio City	Appears very populous in 17 towns	5541 people carrying the surname
Danao	Tinoc, Ifugao	Appears very populous in 17 towns	5541 people carrying the surname
Dulnuan	Baguio City	Appears very populous in 22 towns	8626 people carrying the surname
Duque	Aurora, Isabela	Appears very populous in 14 towns	2651 people carrying the surname
Erana	Dumalinao, Z. del Sur	Uncommon last name	Very few people using the surname
Esmulla	Zamboanga Sibugay	Uncommon last name	Very few people using the surname
Gamutan	Basilan	Appears very populous in 1 town	177 people carrying the surname
Golocan	Baguio City	Uncommon last name	Very few people using the surname
Inocencio	Panabo City	Appears very populous in 5 towns	1178 people carrying the surname
Kayob	La Trinidad, Benguet	Uncommon last name	Very few people using the surname
Kiangan	Mankayan, Benguet	Uncommon last name	Very few people using the surname
Kibete	S. J. del Monte, Bulacan	Uncommon last name	Very few people using the surname
Kodiamat	Bontoc, Mt. Province	Uncommon last name	Very few people using the surname
Mejia	San Nicolas, Pangasinan	Appears very populous in 23 towns	11574 people carrying the surname
Nacino	San Luis, Aurora	Appears very populous in 2 towns	283 people carrying the surname
Nacionales	Marcos, Ilocos Norte	Appears very populous in 3 towns	577 people carrying the surname
Pabalinas	Gen. Santos City	Appears very populous in 1 town	390 people carrying the surname
Ramacula	Rosario, N. Samar	Uncommon last name	Very few people using the surname
Sagonoy	Silvino Lobos, N. Samar	Appears very populous in 2 towns	291 people carrying the surname
Senin	San Fabian, Pangasinan	Uncommon last name	Very few people using the surname
Sumbila	Sulat, Eastern Samar	Uncommon last name	Very few people using the surname
Tabdi	La Trinidad, Benguet	Uncommon last name	Very few people using the surname
Tayrus	Zamboanga City	Uncommon last name	Very few people using the surname
Tria	Virac, Catanduanes	Appears very populous in 6 towns	1297 people carrying the surname
Viernes	Tuguegarao City	Appears very populous in 56 towns	9183 people carrying the surname
Villanueva	Zamboanga City	Appears very populous in 573 towns	249243 people carrying the surname

Source:

Top 50 Family Names in the Philippines (data from the Philippine Statistics Authority), 2014.