Pagbilao, Quezon

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Map of Quezon showing the location of Pagbilao

Pagbilao is a 1st class municipality in the province of Quezon, Philippines. According to the 2000 census, it has a population of 53,442 people in 11,146 households. It is located on the northern shore of Tayabas Bay on Luzon, just east of Lucena City, the provincial capital.

The Municipality of Pagbilao rests in the province of Quezon, region 4, and has a total land area of 17,760 hectares. Pagbilao focuses its development goals and objectives as an agricultural municipality but opening its horizon to industries taking into consideration the sustainability of services. Cultural, social and religious legacies will be preserved. Economic activities geared towards total development will be enhanced.

One of the country's largest power plant stations was founded in Pagbilao. It is part of the Tourism Highway program of the Department of Tourism.

Image:Pagbilao seal.jpg

[edit] History of Pagbilao

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One bright day in the early part of 1765, while the natives were busy on their usual trade of business making “papag” and “bilao”, a group of missionaries, mostly catholic priest arrived in the village. It was a traditional belief of the natives that more often, by bad means rather than good ones, for foreigners maltreated the natives and fearing that it may happen, the natives tried to elude the strangers. Realizing that the natives were in panic and afraid, the Spaniards made an excellent idea by raising their right hands wide open symbolizing that they come to make friends with the Filipinos. The natives then became calm and settled in their places in friendly manner. The missionaries tried to talk with the Filipinos using their own language but were not understood. One of missionaries however, asked a friendly question, accidentally pointing to a bamboo bed. “What is the name of this village?”. Assuming that the question was what is the name of the object he was pointing at, one of the villagers quickly replied “PAPAG” and immediately noted the word papag in his record. Another missionary in the group asked the same question with the same manner pointing to a winnowing basket. “What place is this? “BILAO”, readily answered on the natives and the word bilao was also noted on the record. After so many exchanges of strange languages between the natives and the strangers, no proper understanding resulted. Then the Spaniards preceded their course westward discussing as to what name they should call the place. The question was resolved however, by calling the place a name derived from the word spoken by the natives and referring to their records the phrase papag-bilao was soon realized. Thinking that the word as too long to pronounce and to shorter the name, they precisely omitted the first two letters from the word PAPAG -P and A – producing therefore the PAG. With the combination of the word “PAG and BILAO”, the word “PAGBILAO” finally originated and since then, the place was called PAGBILAO.