8/14/2019 Jae-o River

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A RIVER CALLED JAE-0

One cannot step on the same river twice.-Heraclitus

The Municipality of Balete was approximately established in theyear 1826 when it was ceded out of the Pueblo of Batang (now Batan).Earlier, it was part of the visitas of the Curate of Batang whose patronwas the Immaculate Conception. By that time, historians referred to itnot as Balete but as Jalo or the village near the river Jal-o.

The name Jal-o is derived from the Aklanon word, Jae-o, avariation of the word, Hae-o. Both mean big pestle. The river isnamed as such for two apparent reasons of which our forebears usedto tell us. For a reason, the river is called Hae-o for the fact that viewedfrom a higher elevation, portion of it winding between the mouths of

Panarga and Murao Creekstributaries of Jae-oforms as natural dam,thus creating a semblance of a huge pestle lying across the deepcrevice bounding the hills of the barangays of Oquendo on the westernportion and Guanko on the eastern side. Another theory that came tous tells of the three waterfalls (from the Aeatubang Creeks and theriver source) pouring volumes of waters in rhythmic intervals into thebasin of the river as if there were three giants pounding their pestles inthe silvery rocky mortar. An earthquake in the earlier time had alteredthe course of waters flowing from the Aeatubang creeks where thewaterfalls would only occur during heavy rainfall. Yet, as the storygoes, it was due to that fact that the river was eventually called Jae-o.

Unlike most rivers, Jae-o starts relatively on a lower ground andflow downhill, under the pull of the Earths gravity from its sourcesomewhere in between the hilly portion of upper Oquendo, northwestof the Tulayon Forest of Ganzon, Jamindan, around six statute milesnorth of Mt. Naconlong in the Barangay of Mali-ao, Libacao. It flowsthrough minor rapidsthe Kipot, being the biggestand is joined byseveral (eighteen at least) tributary creeks from Binitinan, Oquendothrough the barangays of Guanko, Cortes, Morales and the Poblacionand meanders into the bends along other tributary creeks and brooksof Calizo and Aranas and the other barangays of the neighboring town

of Batan where its estuaries lie meeting those waters flowing out of theCallojan and Tinago Rivers in the delta at Tinagong Dagat (Batan Bay).

Image of yesterdays Jae-o was that of an active socio-economichighway, and yet at the same time of pristine life-giving water. Today,several legislative interventions have to be exerted to salvage what isleft of the once ecologically balanced Jae-o River, the latest and so farthe most prominent are the Senate Bill 2309 and House Bill 4907,proposing to make it a protected natural treasure.

Al F. de la Cruz, May 30, 2003