by Claro A. Lanipa
Pagadian City, March 25 (PIA) – The city of Pagadian will be marking a big milestone in its political history as it celebrates the 75th founding anniversary dubbed as the “Diamond Jubilee Celebration” on March 26, 2012 with the theme “Pagadian at 75: Building a Better Relationship, a Better Community, and a Better Future.”
Different activities have been lined-up for the grand celebration, to culminate the weeklong festivities a grand civic-military parade will be held Monday (March 26), to be participated by the national, regional, provincial and city officials and employees, military, Philippine National Police (PNP) and other uniformed personnel, civic organizations, non-government organizations, people’s organization, the academe and barangay officials.
the grand parade, the anniversary program will follow at the city’s gymnasium with Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero as the guest of honor and keynote speaker. Also to grace the occasion is former Congresswoman of the lone congressional district of Las Pinas City Cynthia Villar.
It may be recalled, there are many legends as to how the city got its name, one theory is that during the early part of the 20th century, the place was called “Pangadyi-an” a Visayan word which means, “a place to be prayed for” because of a malaria epidemic that nearly wiped out the early Christians population, majority of them came from the Visayas. Another alternative theory suggests that it was named after a bird that the native inhabitants called “Gagadian.”
However, the officially accepted version is on how it came to be called “Pagadian” is derived from the Iranun language “pagad” (wait) and “padian” (market). The place has been a trading post and market during the Maguindanao Sultanate period.
During this time, Pagadian was still a sitio (a small enclave) of Margosatubig. When Labangan, one of the places near it, became a municipality district, Pagadian became one of its barrios or neighborhood. It stayed as such until 1934 during the American occupation, Governor General Leonard Wood commissioned Teofisto Guingona, Sr, then the director of the Bureau of Non-Christian tribes, to find out the possibility of transferring the seat of government from the district of Labangan to another place. With the help of Datu Macaumbang and Datu Balimbingan, (who were the leaders of Labangan at that time), the municipal district of Labangan was dissolved and, in its place, the municipal district of Pagadian was formed on March 26, 1937.
The town became a city on June 6, 1952 when Congressman Roseller Lim authored Republic Act (RA) 711 which divides Zamboanga Peninsula into two provinces, (Zamboanga del Norte and Zamboanga del Sur). Pagadian became the capital of Zamboanga del Sur and on, June 21, 1969, via R.A. 5478, became a chartered city. In 2004, it became the Regional Center for the Philippines’ Region IX, the Zamboanga Peninsula. (PIA9/CAL)