Biliran Lodge No.338
 

The Name
 

        This lodge was named after the island province of Biliran where it is located. The first name of Biliran was "panamao" which is defined as a fishing net in an old Visayan dictionary, the Vocabulario de la Lengua Bisaya compiled by Jesuit Father Sanchez in Dagami, Leyte, in 1615-1617. Later the name was changed to biliran which is defined by Sanchez as the corner or edge of a boat, vase or anything protruding, like veins, or the furrow made by the plow. The definition strongly suggests that biliran referred to the bottom of a boat, which produces "furrows" on the water when in motion. One theory is that the name of the province was changed to biliran because the island became the site of the first large-scale Spanish shipyard in the Philippines from around the 1580s to early 1600. Another meaning of the word biliran came from Norberto Romualdez who theorized at the turn of the previous century that it was derived from a grass called "borobiliran."

The Lodge
 

       Grand Master Oscar V. Bunyi issued a dispensation to twenty-nine brethren residing in or near the municipality of Leyte on December 29, 2000 authorizing them to form and open a lodge to be known and designated as Biliran Lodge. He designated the following as its Dispensation Officers: Walderico Bonifacio Worshipful Master; WB Albert Villaheremosa, Senior Warden and Antonio Lopez. Ir., Junior Warden. The lodge had the favorable recommendation of Makabugwas Lodge No. 47 and the DDGM of the District. On the same day that he issued the dispensation, MW Bunyi instituted the lodge.

       The Grand Lodge granted Biliran Lodge a charter during the annual communication held in April 2001. On June 32, 2001 Grand Master Napoleon A. Soriano constituted the lodge.
 

       Location: Naval, Leyte