AMARINES SUR

Camarines Sur is the heartland of Bicol. It is bounded on the northwest by the provinces of Camarines Norte and Quezon and on the Southeast by the province of Albay. The entire province tilts at an angle from the northwest to the southwest forming two (2) coastal regions. The northern coast skirts the San Miguel Bay, Pacific Ocean and Lagonoy Gulf. The Southern coast is bathed by the Ragay Gulf. The land is generally flat especially along the central plains cut by the Bicol and Libmanan River.

 BRIEF HISTORY:

The history of Camarines Sur has been an amalgam of cross-sectoral developments and outside influences. The Spanish discovery of the territory now known as Camarines Sur took place in 1569 when an exploring party led by Captain Luis Enriquez de Guzman, Martin de Goite and Andres de Ibarra entered the lake village of Bato and pushed until Nabua. The

number of bamboo-nipa sheds dotting the banks of the Bikol River Villages that were strange, peculiar but awesome sights for the Spaniards were among the distinctive geographic landmarks of the area. The native referred to these as “kamalig” serving as their rice granaries, rendered in Spanish plural form as “camaronchones” or “camarines”. Since then, the territory was designated in Spanish documents as Tierra de Camarines or simply Camarines. 

On May 27, 1579, a decree was issued laided the groundwork for the rise of Spanish settlement in the province referred as the Bikol River and Camarines. Sometime later, the City of Nueva Caceres was established and became ecclesiastical and administrative center of the province of Bikol or Ibalon. Nueva Caceres became the hub of the diocese of Nueva Caceres in 1595, covering the entire Bicol Region as well as the municipality of Tyabas (Quezon). The northern areas around the Bicol River plains became a partido or division known as Camarines, which in 1663, through a royal decree, was separated from the southern portion of Bicol and made into a separate province of Camarines.

In 1829, Camarines Norte was taken out of the province of Camarines and the remaining portions became Camarines Sur. Between 1829 and 1919, the two provinces were divided and fused several times until in 1919, under the American colonial government, the final separation was effected.

Camarines Sur is the center of religious observance that is being shared by all Bicolanos who are by far the most staunchly Roman Catholic ethnic groups in the country. Our Lady of Peñafrancia in Naga is considered the Patron of all Bicolanos. Every September, the Bicolanos celebrates the feast of Peñafrancia with a festival that begins with a “traslacion”, a procession of the barefooted male devotees of our Lady of Peñafrancia, followed by a mass and a fluvial parade where the image of the Virgin Mary is carried on thebarge on the Bicol River. The annual festival draws thousands of Bicolanos and tourists to Naga.