Photo of the Batangas Provincial Administration Building [July 1914 BPW Quarterly Bulletin]
At the turn of the 20th century, the new American colonial government started an aggressive infrastructure construction program in the Philippines. This program included the construction of roads, a rail system, school and public buildings. The bulk of the construction fell upon the shoulders of the Bureau of Public Works.
In the case of public buildings, the bureau, in its July 1914 Quarterly Bulletin, acknowledged that many such buildings constructed during the Spanish era were still in existence in Batangas at the time and described these as “conclusive evidence of an early period of prosperity” under Spanish rule.
Among these was the Batangas Provincial Administration Building, shown in the photograph below. About this building, the bureau had to say:
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The Batangas Provincial Administration Building. Image digitally extracted from the July 1914 edition of the Bureau of Public Works Quarterly Bulletin. |
Notes and references:
1 “Bureau of Public Works Quarterly Bulletin, Volume 2 No. 4,” compiiled by C.A. Tansill, published July 1914 in Manila by the Bureau of Public Works.