Busuanga, officially the Municipality of Busuanga (), is a 3rd class municipality in the province of Palawan, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 25,617 people.
History
Oral tradition has it, that the entire island of Busuanga was once the realm of a Cuyonon datu named Datu Macanas. The island was once part of the four jurisdictions of Cuyonon datus with the other three being Datu Magbanua who reigned over Cuyo archipelago, Datu Cabaylo who had Taytay and surrounding islands and Datu Cabangon reigning over south of Taytay.
The town of Busuanga was created from the barrios of Concepcion, Salvacion, Busuanga, New Busuanga, Buluang, Quezon, Calawit, and Cheey of the town of Coron in 1950.
Quezon was reinstated as a barangay in 2000.
The history of Busuanga could well be said to date back as early as 3,000 B.C. at the time group of nomadic people were known to make such waves of immigration by way of land-bridges from the Asia mainland, some of which lagged and drifted along the Philippines Archipelago. Much later, the Malayans and Indonesians followed. For some thousands of years, they explored, discovered, utilized, and finally spread and populated the Philippines Island, presumably including the island of Busuanga.
Accordingly, as early as the 9th century A.D., Chinese traders were known to transact business with the natives of the coastal regions of Calamianes, and referred to some places as “Pa-laoyu”, “Kia-ma-yan”, and “Pa-ki-nung”, meaning Palawan, Calamian, and Busuanga, respectively, as mentioned in their (Chinese) narratives.
In 1380, nearly a century and half before Christianity reached the Philippines, an Arab missionary from Mallaca, named Mahdu introduced Islam in Sulu. Through the next centuries the Islamic faith must have spread and secured a profound influence in the lives of the early Filipinos. Thus, our ancestors possessed dominantly an Islamic-pagan life and culture, long before the Spaniards came to the islands.
Origin
More than 3000 years before the conversion of Busuanga into a municipality in 1951, the name BUSUANGA was already attributed to the island. Actually the name is ascribed to that of a big river, the largest in the municipality (an average width of 100 meters; length is unknown), christened by the natives after the great calamitous upheaval in nature, handed down then by word of mouth to be a legend.
The legend
According to the age-old legend, *a small limpid river with a narrow picturesque bank no bigger than a brook flow and runs southwards inland in a beautiful valley where people had their livelihood and seems to have always enough. Everyday the inhabitants make good spoils of the bounties of nature around, and lived a contented life. Until on that one fateful day, a violent, strong storm raged and made a rampage of the whole island; and on five or fourteen consecutive days, dilute the place with heaviest rains and strongest winds to sweep the island.
*It is believed that the legend is real account of a natural calamitous event, which could have actually occurred thus causing the sporadically located small rivers and creeks in the island to branch out and unite their flow one great stream, which is the now-evolved Busuanga River.
In the clear, cold dawn that settled after the storm, the inhabitants were amazed to find-in a mixed awe and terror-a massive phenomenal transformation in their place. Out of the darkness of the storm, a wide new channel through the western portion of the mainland into the sea. Thus, nature gave birth to this great river, evolved out of a small brook which up to this day serves an unmistakable beautiful natural landmark.
Busuanga, from the vernacular word meaning “burst” in English, is the popular rendition of this event.
Formation
Busuanga during the Spanish Regime : 1600-1898
In 1622, the colonization of Palawan under Count San Augustine reached the island of Busuanga. A number of Augustinian-Recollect missionaries landed in the eastern coast of the mainland, converted the inhabitants to Christianity and built church for them together with the establishment of the Spanish local government in the barrio, known then as Busuanga*, the oldest barrio in the municipality.
Later, 1636, the Spaniards began constructing fortification with small muzzle-loading artilleries to defend the barrio from an almost perennial raids and onslaught of Muslim rebels. With the establishment of a strong naval station at Puerto Princepe Alfonso, now Balabac, together with the forts of Cuyo, Taytay, Labao, etc. combined with the powerful Spanish fleets cruising the seas, the Muslim attacks was eventually put to an end.
