July 26, 2014
The National Historical Commission of the Philippines installed a historical marker at Culion, Palawan, to commemorate the Culion Leper Colony. After the United States’ capitulation of Manila in 1898, thousands of people were afflicted with leprosy. At a time when no cure or effective treatment was known, isolation and segregation of the sick “lepers” were done to protect those who were healthy, and the sparsely populated Culion Island was judged suitable for the purpose. By virtue of Executive Order No. 35, issued on Aug. 22, 1904 by then Civil Governor of the Philippines Hon. Luke Wright, it was officially established as a leper colony. The site began admitting patients with Hansen’s disease (leprosy) on May 27, 1906. The first group of 365 patients arrived from the Visayas. By the 1920s, it had become the world’s largest and model leprosarium, which catered to about 50,000 patients since its operation. The number of patients sent to Culion only declined in 1927 with the establishment of regional treatment centers. In 2006, it was finally declared leprosy-free by the World Health Organization, and was converted into the Culion Sanitarium and General Hospital in 2009.
