Halcon Lodge No. 249
The Name
Named after Mount Halcon( 2505 meters), one of the loftier peaks in a central mountain range known as Central Mindoro Divide, which runs through the length of the island of Mindoro. Halcon is the Spanish word for “ falcon.”
The Lodge
At an organizational meeting held on May 27, 1979, the twenty-six founders of this lodge prepared a petition to the Grand Lodge asking for an authority to found a lodge in Roxas, Oriental Mindoro to be known as Halcon Lodge. On June 4 of the same year, Grand Master Jolly R. Bugarin, himself a Mindoreno, gave them a dispensation.
At the annual communication of the Grand Lodge held in April 1980, Halcon Lodge UD failed to get a charter. The Committee on Charters was of the opinion that it still had to "develop itself to enable her to play an effective role later on," and therefore recommended that instead of being granted a charter,
its dispensation be extended for another year.
The following year, on April 24, 1981, the lodge was finally granted a charter by the Grand Lodge. On September 26, 1981, Grand Master Simeon Rene Lacson, with the assistance of Masonic dignitaries, opened a Special Communication of the Grand Lodge at the Temple of Tamaraw Lodge No. 165
at Calero, Calapan, Mindoro, and formally constituted the lodge. On the same day the officers of the new lodge were installed.
Initially, Halcon Lodge utilized the white house of Ex-Mayor Rosendo L. Umali at Bongabong as its temporary Temple. Later, it transferred to Roxas town in Oriental Mindoro, then to the Baculinao building and still later to the Oddy's theater in the poblacion, until finally the cornerstone of its temple was
laid on February 23, 1985 on a lot donated for the purpose. The Temple was completed in due time. On February 4, 1996, Grand Master Danilo D. Angeles presided over the formal dedication of the Temple to Masonic purposes, thus firmly planting the tenets of the Fraternity in that part of the country.
Location: Roxas, Oriental Mindoro.