Laoag, Philippines

Laoag City is a city in the province of Ilocos Norte, Philippines. It is the capital city of Ilocos Norte, and the province's political, commercial, and industrial hub. It is also the location of the Ilocos region's only commercial airport. The municipalities of San Nicolas, Paoay, Sarrat, Vintar, and Bacarra form its boundaries. The foothills of the Cordillera Central mountain range to the east, and the South China Sea to the west are its physical boundaries. Laoag experiences the prevailing monsoon climate of Northern Luzon, characterized by a dry season from November to April and a wet season from May to October, occasionally visited by powerful typhoons. According to the latest census, it had a population of 102,457 people in 19,751 households. 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.