Anda

Uninhabited except for occasional stopovers by fishermen and seafarers, Anda was first formally occupied in 1842 when Andres dela Cruz Cacho or Andales Kulayo as he was fondly called by locals in Bolinao, brought families from Bolinao and let them settle across the island of Cabarruyan. This was after he discovered that there were fertile tracts of land and an abundant spring for farming. Within four months, the entire Cabarruyan Island was populated.

Within a few years, the population grew large enough to fit the standard of a municipality so that in January 1894, Don Pablo Cacho Valerio called a conference of leaders to draft a petition for the establishment of a new town. This petition was sent to the then Alcalde at Iba, Zambales and to the Archbishop of Manila on March 15, 1849 and then subsequently granted on May 26 of the same year. Accompanied by Rev. Fr. Juan Migrano, Capitan Felipe Cacho Valerio and other officials from Bolinao, the Alcalde chose Segat (now known as Namagbagan) as the town site and its layout was finalized on January 20, 1850 and the town was inaugurated as Cabarruyan on July 23 and 24 of the same year.

However, on January 5, 1853, Don Domingo Cacho Valerio petitioned to change “Cabarruyan” to “Anda” in honor of Simon de Anda, who was a Spanish Governor-General who had served the Philippines favorably. One other part of the petition was for the town’s executive role to be elevated from Teniente Absoluto to Capitan. Although these requests were granted, the municipality of Bolinao actively argued for Anda to return to its previous barrio state, claiming that it was not ready to become a municipality due to the lack of population. For more than five years, Anda remained a barrio of Bolinao but Don Domingo, Don Sixto and Don Gregorio Cacho Valerio sought to change this. They invited people from neighboring provinces to come and live in Anda. With this successful move, the population in Anda grew overtime and the petition to be an independent municipality was brought up again and granted on May 10, 1859. In 1865, Capitan Gregorio Cacho Valerio petitioned for the town site transferred to its current location.

Festival: Binungey Festival – April 17