Laoag City, Ilocos Norte
"Laoag" (Ilocano for "light or clarity"), is an old, flourishing settlement known to Chinese and Japanese traders when the Spanish conquistador Juan de Salcedo arrived at the northern banks of Padsan River in 1572. Augustinian missionaries established the Roman Catholic Church in the area in 1580 and designated Saint William, the Hermit as its patron saint.
At the arrival of the Spaniards in the Philippine Islands, they found out that the natives were divided into community groups, each having its own independent government. That there were centers of population as was observed by Captain Juan de Salcedo, Ilocos was extraordinary in size. In Laoag alone, the population reached as high as 6,000. This was the greatest number of inhabitants in a “barangay” or “purok” in the whole country at the advent of the Spaniards.
The houses of the natives, made of bamboo and cogon numbered to no less than a thousand. These were built and compactly arranged around a hill known as “Ermita Hill”, located at the Southeastern section of what Laoag is now at the very brim of the northern bank of the Padsan River. The natives must have chosen this spot for the location of their community not only of its proximity to the river which is indispensable to them as the source of their protein, that is, fish, shellfish, and water for drinking and washing.
Buzeta, commenting on the practice of the Ilocanos in constructing their houses very close to one another, that no space was left for their orchards contrary to the common practice of the natives in their places of island who constructed their houses isolated in the fields adjacent to their farms. The late Don Luis Montilla, who for several years, was Director of the National Library (now the Rizal Centennial Commission) unquestionable documents in the national Archives which mention 1580 as the real data of the organization of Laoag as a parish under the Patronage of St. William, the Hermit, whose feast is celebrated on the 10th of February every year.
Before the end of the 16th century, the missionaries, in their desire to improve the living conditions of the natives, resettled the big center of the community of Laoag from Ermita Hill to its present location. This center is the present Plaza of the city of Laoag. Following the gridiron pattern of Greco-Roman origin in laying out towns, Laoag was resettled by the Spanish missionaries by first laying out the central rectangle where the location of the plaza, church, convent, tower, “tribunal”, and other important edifices were indicated. These were followed by the laying out of rectangular street blocks. The Laying out of the poblacion done, the indigenous population was prevailed upon to construct their houses in proper places within the reach of the church bells. The poblacion was subsequently divided into different barrios, each named after a patron saint assigned to them.
In 1942, Landed from the Japanese Imperial forces entered in Laoag.
In 1945, the U.S. & the Allied Philippine Commonwealth forces with the help of Ilocano guerrilla units headed by Gov. Roque Ablan Sr. went against the Japanese troops by which making Laoag and the whole Ilocos Norte region the only local government unit who has not surrendered to the Japanese Imperial Forces to the combined Filipino & American soldiers in Laoag.
Though Laoag was converted into a city in 1965 through a plebiscite, leaving its municipal status, it remained the capital of Ilocos Norte. The first city mayor was Hon. Eulalio F. Siazon.
The inhabitants of Ilocos at the arrival of Salcedo were a sturdy and industrial race predominantly Austronesian.
The first wave of Austronesian immigrants to the Philippines came about 200 to 300 B.C. These immigrants were the less civilized Austronesians – ancestors of the Igorots, Ifugaos, Bontocs, and Tinguians of Northern Luzon.
The second wave came after the Christian Era, beginning about the first century A.D. and continuing through the succeeding centuries until the 13th century. These migratory waves saw the advent of the alphabet-using Austronesians – ancestors of the present Ilocanos, Tagalogs, Visayans, Bicols, Pampangos, and other christian Filipinos. To these better civilized Austronesians belonged the Ilocanos that Salcedo found in the Ilocos in 1572.
The Spaniards found the inhabitants of Ilocos with distinctive peculiarities in character and culture. They looked very similar to the Tagalogs with faded hair, big eyes, olive-like color, flat nose and with very thin beard or none at all. However, they spoke a different dialect that, although belonging to a common mother tongue as the Tagalogs, had required certain modifications and idiosyncracies making the Ilocano dialect quite different from the Tagalog. Laoag City, the sparkling gem of Ilocandia, is located at the west central part of the province of Ilocos Norte in Northern Luzon, nestles in the vast plain in the idyllic bank of the Padsan River that course its way from the east towards the South China Sea.
Laoag City is along the Manila North Road. Vigan is 78 km. from Laoag, 217 km. from San Fernando City, La Union, 363 km. from Tarlac and 488 km. from Manila. It is 274 km. from Baguio City.
