CANTIUS J. KOBAK: 1930-2004 '''Franciscan, Historian, Scholar and Researcher
Undoubtedly, the GREATEST historian of Samar and the Bisayas region, Zdislaw (Jesse) was born in Chelmoniec-Kowalewo, Torun, Poland, on June 29, 1930, to Andrew and Louise (Mucha) Kobak.
His father came to America in 1931 during the Great Depression, the worldwide economic downturn starting in 1929 to the early 1940s. Six years later, young Jesse came with his mother and brother John in Cleveland, Ohio.
He completed his elementary education at St. John Cantius School, and attended one year at the parish high school before transferring to the Franciscan-operated St. Bonaventure High School and Minor Seminary in Sturtevant, Wisconsin.
Upon graduation, he decided to enter the Order of Friars Minor and became a novice on August 14, 1949 taking the name ‘Cantius’. After making his final profession on August 15, 1953, he continued his theological studies at the Christ the King Seminary in West Chicago, Illinois, and was ordained to the priesthood on June 1, 1957.
He arrived in Calbayog City (Samar, Philippines) on August 28, 1959, and was assigned to teach at Christ the King College.
Interested in the history and culture of Samar Island prompted by the virtual absence of any publication about these subjects upon his arrival, this led to extensive research, and even archaeological excavations in various areas of the island.
In 1967, he co-founded with Father Anthony A. Buchcik, SVD, the Leyte-Samar Museum and the Leyte-Samar Studies journal of the Divine Word University in Tacloban. Then in 1968, he set up the CKC Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum.
His greatest scholarly achievement was the tracing (in various European and American museums), transcribing, translating from Spanish to English, and publishing or preparing for publication all extant copies of the manuscripts of Father Francisco Ignacio Alcina, SJ, known in the academic community as the Historia de las Islas e Indios de Bisayas 1668. Alcina’s Historia 1668 provide the most complete and extensive ethnographic account of any regional group in the Philippines in the 17th century.
He was also the ‘foremost authority’ on the Sumuroy Rebellion 1649-1650 in Palapag, Northern Samar. His scholarly articles were published in Leyte-Samar Studies and Philippiniana Sacra, the journal of the University of Santo Tomas.
He was particularly helpful to fellow historians like Bruce Cruikshank and Dr. William Henry Scott. Cruikshank’s Samar: 1768-1898 was the first extensively documented research on the local history of Samar.
Also, Scott was able to reconstruct the sixteenth-century Bisayan society and culture that went to his last two books, Looking for the Prehispanic Filipino and Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and Society.
He expanded his research and writing on Leyte, which he collaborated with UP Prof. Rolando O. Borrinaga on a book titled The Colonial Odyssey of Leyte (1521-1914), a translation on Manuel Artigas y Cuerva’s Reseña de la Provincia de Leyte. In 2006, the translation won National Book Award by the Manila Critics Circle.
He returned to the USA and was appointed chaplain of St. Anne’s Rest Home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1988. He died of cancer of the lymph glands on August 15, 2004, at the age of 74.
References:
Bordeos, Carl Jamie Simple S. “An Open Letter to the City of Calbayog Thru the Office of Mayor Mel Senen S. Sarmiento requesting to Declare Rev. Fr. Cantius J. Kobak, OFM, ‘Son of Calbayog’, ‘Honorary Samarnon’ dated July 29, 2009.
Borrinaga, Rolando O. “Historian of Samar passes away”. (http://www.geocities.com/rolborr/kobakobit.html. Retrieve date: August 11, 2009)
City Government of Calbayog Museo de Calbayog. “Calbayog: A Coffee-table Book” (2008). p. 58.
Tokarz, Jerry (OFM). “Provincial Newsletter No. 30: ‘Cantius Kobak, OFM, 1930-2004’”. Scepter, Official Student Publication of Christ the King College, Calbayog City. Vol. 51 No. 2, Oct.-March 2006.