SUMMARY: Last September 5 to 9, the Archaeological Studies Program of University of the Philippines held its exhibit in the AS Lobby

that aimed to share the results from the three-year excavation in Brgy. Pinagbayanan, San Juan, Batangas in order to achieve the objective of understanding and contributing to the towns history. Unearthing History Field School 2011 shared to public about the two structures excavated in the said barangay and was mainly located in the lot owned by Dr. Edgardo de Villa Salud, which was Structure A. National Museum gave this site the code IV-2009-F and have found out that the structure includes zaguan, a place where coaches were parked and kamalig or commonly known as storage room for rice grains. From these, they have found out it was really remains of a bahay-na-bato, a prominent type of house during Spanish Colonization which is characterized by the main materials used such as conglomerate blocks, adobe and some igneous rocks called scoria. Processes involved in the project were clearing of area as a preparation for the excavation, setting of grids, systematic digging, retrieving artefacts, recoding data and backfill. Basing on its location, complexity as well as some of the artefacts found such as some glass shards and miners bowl recognized to be a Qin Dynastys era, the researchers hypothesized that it was indeed a bahay-na bato that may have a residence of a Spanish Elite since it was found near an Old Spanish Church. This excavation introduces us ore possibilities of how towns or pamayanan were structured during the colonization era.

REACTION: Revisiting the past is really one of the most difficult professions. You need to know where to start, when to start and which to start. It may be like a maze with indefinite number of both endpoints and starting points. Just like the past of Philippines Islands. We know the events in the middle and the present but the things that happened in the past are still in the middle of the thick midst. We are all aware of the fact that we had been under the Spanish Colonization for more or less 330 years. It left us many marks since the Spaniards kept some historian to write the events in the colony to report back to Spain, but are not fully aware of the minute details. We are not aware how the Filipino life back then. But because of these kinds of excavations, discoveries and studies, we are now able to picture out and hypothesize that the big gap between the peasants and the nobles was prominent even during the colonization period, since, results of the studies showed that those who were well-to do families were more on the center of the pueblos back then. They were located near plazas and churches which were the center of the Filipino world during the said period. This is just lie the setting of the current society, not only in the Philippines but in most of the countries; those of whom who were part of the so-called elite families mainly in the center of trade and industries. While gaining distance from the center of pueblos of the center of a municipal, the life of the citizens increasingly being neglected, just like now in our current situation. The Law of Uniformitarianism really not only affects the physical aspects of the world but also the sociological and psychological aspects as well. Thus, it may be a good reference of the reason of the happening I our current situation nowadays. Just like history, every tiny thing that

happened now can be rooted deeply back to the past in order to gain the most needed answer for the most necessary question regarding a matter. FRAULINE C. TADLE 2011-04813