The Leyte-Samar Museum, housed on the third floor of the Romualdez hall or cultural center is a repository of cultural materials or artifacts particularly from Leyte and Samar. It also provides a research library to aid researchers with available data about the culture, history and literature of Leyte-Samar.

The artifacts collection was started in July 1966 by Fr. Anthony Buchcik, SVD. Among the artifacts on display are religious relics such as images of saints, chalices, monstrances, wheel bells and candle stands; ethnological materials such as rattan bags, betel nut boxes, spears, necklaces, stone rice grinder, archeological findings such as calcified skulls, stone adze, burial jars, gold ornaments, pottery, Chinese bowls, jarlets and dishes made of celadon, porcelain and stone. Most of these are finds from Basey, Samar.

The Leyte-Samar Museum Library also started in 1966 because, in addition to artifacts, Fr. Buchcik and his assistants collected novenas, dramas and old books. The primary purpose of the library is to provide researchers with available data on the cultures, history and literature of Leyte and Samar. The felt need for such collection grew out of the involvement in publishing the Leyte-Samar Studies and the realization that until the literary, historical and cultural materials could be brought together into a meaningful whole, they were of little value

In recent years the Library has gathered, indexed and files more than 650 Leyte-Samar articles, and more than 900 books and bound periodicals of which 95 percent deals with Leyte and Samar.

The Library has a collection of 1,600 proverbs, 700 riddles, 500 folksongs and 350 novenas from Leyte and Samar. It has also files of programs for various occasions, local newspaper from the different agencies such as MPI, historical pictures and biographies of known individuals in Leyte and Samar. Of great interest are old periodicals like The Leyte Courier, the eight years of An Lantawan published in Palo and Tacloban between 1929 and 1941, and Eco de Leyte y Samar published in Calbayog starting 1911.

Liceo del Verbo Divino will open the Museum’s doors back to its people, soon.

The Leyte - Samar Museum