Luna Baluarte Watchtower in Brgy. Victoria—PGLU-PIO
On the shores of Victoria in Luna, La Union, a watchtower stands proud.
It didn’t always look as it does now. Built four centuries ago, “Baluarte” broke apart in 1996 after the ground underneath eroded. In 2015, a year after the National Museum of the Philippines (NMP) declared the tower a National Cultural Treasure, Typhoon “Lando” toppled the leaning half of it.
Thankfully, the declaration allowed a swift rehabilitation project. Whole again, it was unveiled in 2017. Succeeding projects gave it its present look. What reminds visitors of the Luna tower’s importance is the NMP marker saying, “Mga Bantayan ng La Union” (Watchtowers of La Union). That begs the question: Where are the others?
“There exists five towers… built during the Spanish colonial era in the 18th and 19th centuries,” said the NMP declaration. The one in Luna is the northernmost of the coastal structures believed to have been “a means of local and regional warning and defense against attacks and predations from the sea.” The other four are—going south—in Balaoan, Bacnotan, San Juan and San Fernando City.
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Moro Watchtower in the City of San Fernando—ERWIN BELEO
While the NMP called these “Moro” watchtowers referring to Moro pirates, the structures may also have been used to warn folk against Japanese and Chinese looters. At least the one in Luna functioned as a post for the US Armed Forces during World War II.
The Luna landmark’s collapse “became a stimulus for people’s consciousness about the towers,” recalled Jeddahn Rosario, senior culture and arts officer at the La Union Provincial Tourism Office. However, for various reasons, it still is the only one of the five with a marker. To advocate the conservation of all five—and to hopefully make the other four accessible to tourists in the near future—program “Bantayán ang mga Bantáyan” is underway.
