A couple of years ago I shared my fascination with the Philippine road markers and Kilometer Zero. It turns out there are many folks who are also interested in these prominent signs on our national highways 🙂 Just recently I got an email from a reader who stumbled upon Penfires while he was searching for articles on KM 0.
For the longest time I posted questions on the original article which you can read here, these queries remains unanswered until a few days ago.
Luckily for us Jaii De Guzman has inputs on these road markers and he graciously shared the info with us on this follow-up blog post. Yey! Thanks Jaii!
The last KM 0 I posed against with was the Kilometer Zero of Batan Island, Batanes! *widesssssst smile 😀
Jaii’s grandfather was a Geodetic Engineer, their Lolo’s world fascinated Jaii and his brother. Before their grandad passed away, questions upon questions about their Lolo’s field of expertise were asked and in the sharing of knowledge, Kilometer Zero and road markers figured prominently.
First, Kilometer Zero is the reference point of every road, building, lot, and any structure to be built in an island. This is their reference point. Reference Zero. All measurement, all dimension of these buildings and road are measured from this point. How do they do this? By triangulation measurement.
Jaii’s advises to just google this method. Hehe! I concur hehehhe 🙂
Kilometer Zero is usually found in every island of the Philippines. As per your question in your blog, there is a KM 0 in Mindanao.
Wait! Where is this is Mindanao???
Aha! So Mindanao Kilometer Zero is in Marawi City in Lanao del Sur. Hope to visit this one day, specially that Mindanao Island is the second largest island in the country.
Sidenotes: The ten largest islands in the Philippines are Luzon, followed by Mindanao, then Samar, next Negros, Palawan, Panay, Mindoro, Leyte, Cebu and Bohol.
So how does this work? As we all know it, the Main Reference point is in Luneta. This is the main KM 0 for the whole Philippines Islands. There are also reference points in every Municipality across the archipelago.
Jaii has this example to explain how these points are use…
If you will notice in the TITLE of a LOT (titulo ng mga Lote), you can find a Coordinates, bearing of the perimeter of the lot. This will instruct you how to plot the boundaries of your property. The first point of these boundaries leads to your Municipality and from your Municipality Point to Luneta KM 0 point.
Why do we need the reference point of our house, Municipality and KM 0 of Luneta?
This is for documentation, record and mapping of whole country. This is especially useful in the event of war, catastrophe or disaster just like what happened in YOLANDA affected towns wherein every structure were wiped out. So where will we start the measurements of our properties since our neighbors are also wiped out? Yes, we will start measuring from the KM 0 of Municipality. And with larger scale of reference, we will use the Luneta KM 0 as reference.
DPWH also use this reference points to build national roads. These markers are their land marks in identifying specific location of the road.
While watching news reports on the aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda, I wondered how the people will rebuild since whole communities were wipe-out. What will be the boundary? How will you assert your right to your lot or your property? There’s going to be many barangayans for sure when more than 1 person insists on occupying and claiming a parcel of land. I thought it’s going to be next to impossible figuring out where Juan’s lot ends and Pedro’s begin. So this is the answer! Fascinating!
*New learning for me. Yours too? 🙂
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