Sorsogon
Sorsogon, officially the Province of Sorsogon, is a province in the Philippines located in the Bicol Region. It is the southernmost province in the island of Luzon and is subdivided into fourteen municipalities and one city. Its capital is Sorsogon City and borders the province of Albay to the north.
Sorsogon is at the tip of the Bicol Peninsula and faces the island of Samar to the southeast across the San Bernardino Strait and Ticao Island to the southwest. Sorsoganons is how the people of Sorsogon call themselves.
History
Spanish colonial era
In 1570 two Augustinian friars, Alonzon Jiménez and Juan Orta, accompanied by a certain captain, Enrique de Guzmán, reached Hibalong, a small fishing village near the mouth of Ginangra River, and planted the cross and erected the first chapel in Luzon. It was from this village that Ibalong, referring to the whole region, came to be. Moving inland with a northwesterly direction they passed by the territory now known as Pilar, before they reached Camalig, Albay. The establishment of the Abucay-Catamlangan Mission later was ample proof of this. The early towns established here were: Gibalon in 1570 ; Casiguran – 1600; Bulusan – 1631; Pilar – 1635; Donsol – 1668; Bacon - 1754; Gubat - 1764; Juban and Matnog – 1800; Bulan – 1801; Castilla – 1827; Magallanes – 1860; Barcelona – 1866 and Irosin – 1880. The province was eventually separated from Albay on October 17, 1894, and adopted the name Sorsogon. The town of Sorsogon was also selected as its capital.American colonial era
At the 1935 Philippine Constitutional Convention, Sorsogon had its own delegates. They were Adolfo Grafilo, Francisco Arellano, José S. Reyes, and Mario Gaurino.During the Marcos dictatorship
The Philippines' gradual postwar recovery took a turn for the worse in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with the 1969 Philippine balance of payments crisis being one of the early landmark events. Economic analysts generally attribute this to the ramp-up on loan-funded government spending to promote Ferdinand Marcos’ 1969 reelection campaign, The next two and a half years were fraught with social conflicts as various sectors went to the streets to express their dissastisfaction with policies that fostered widespread poverty. In 1972, one year before the expected end of his last constitutionally allowed term as president in 1973, Ferdinand Marcos placed the Philippines under Martial Law. This allowed Marcos to remain in power for fourteen more years, during which Sorsogon went through many social and economic ups and downs. Labor unions and protest actions were banned, media outlets were shuttered, the legislature was shuttered, and freedom of expression was generally suppressed. Those who expressed opinions which criticized the government or its policies were accused of being communists and arrested without warrant.During this time, many citizens of Sorsogon joined the effort to resist the erosion of democracy, and many of them became political detainees, or were tortured and killed by the dictatorship's forces. Among the more prominent of them were local figures Ma. Antonia Teresa “Nanette” Vytiaco, Antonio "Tony" Ariado, Ceasar Gavanzo Jr., and Manuel Dorotan, as well as figures like Liliosa Hilao and Juan Escandor, who were killed in Manila. Vytiaco, Ariado, Gavanzo, Dorotan, Hilao, and Escandor have all since been honored by having their names inscribed on the Wall of Remembrance at the Philippines' Bantayog ng mga Bayani, which honors the martyrs and heroes who fought against the authoritarian regime.
Contemporary
In 2000, Sorsogon City was created through the merging of the municipalities of Bacon and Sorsogon.Geography
Sorsogon covers a total area of occupying the southeastern tip of the Bicol Peninsula in Luzon. The province is bordered on the north by Albay, east by the Philippine Sea, south by the San Bernardino Strait, and west and northwest by the Ticao and Burias Passes. The Sorsogon Bay lies within the central portion of the province.The province has an irregular topography. Except for landlocked Irosin, all the towns lie along the coast. They are all connected by concrete and asphalt roads. Mountain's sprawl over the northeast, southeast and west portions. Mount Bulusan, the tallest peak, rises above sea level.
Except for its overland link with the province of Albay to the north, it is completely surrounded by water. Sorsogon is the gateway of Luzon to the Visayas through its Roll-on/Roll-off ferry terminal facilities located in the municipalities of Matnog, Pilar and Bulan.
Administrative divisions
Sorsogon comprises 14 municipalities and 1 city.Climate
Sorsogon belongs to Type 2 climate based on the Climate Map of the Philippines by the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration. Being a Type 2, Sorsogon has No dry season with a pronounced rainfall from November to January.The province of Sorsogon normally gets 5 to 10 typhoons every year.
The most notable typhoon is in 1987, when Sorsogon was devastated by Super Typhoon Nina named Sisang. It was a major disaster in the Province of Sorsogon. Damages in properties cost millions of pesos and killing 200 people. It is said that Sisang is the strongest typhoon that hit the province, especially its capital, Sorsogon City. According to PAGASA, Typhoon Nina ravaged with a wind of and a gustiness of. Thousands of houses plus business establishments were destroyed by the said natural calamity. Typhoon Sisang hit the Sorsogon soil at around 7:00 pm and it last until dawn of the next day. It also caused massive storm surges particularly around the Sorsogon Bay area which contributed to the many fatalities during the battering of the typhoon.
Typhoon Xangsane also battered the province in September 2006 with torrential rains and strong winds. It caused massive flooding and caused infrastructure and agricultural damages. Damages to the entire province was initially placed at 2.23 billion, of which 1.27 billion was accounted for by damaged houses. Agriculture suffered damage worth 234.21 million; school facilities, 51 million and infrastructure, 208 million.
Demographics
Population
The population of Sorsogon in the 2024 census was 845,066 people, with a density of.The top 5 towns with the greatest number of populations is Sorsogon City, Bulan, Pilar, Gubat, and Castilla. The least populated municipality since the 2000 census is Santa Magdalena.
Of the 704,024-household population in 2007, males accounted for 51.1% and while females comprised 48.9%.
The voting-age population of the province was 369,204 in 2007, equivalent to 52.1 percent of the household population.
Languages
The Bicolano language is predominantly used in Sorsogon as the language used by its people. Despite this, Bicolano itself, as used in the province, has many peculiarities. What is known as "Bikol Naga" is generally used in written communications and generally understood there as a spoken language. However, the people who live in the southernmost parts of Sorsogon like Gubat speak the Waray language. In either case, English and Filipino are the official languages used in education and government communication.The Bikol languages are peculiar in some localities. For example, people in Bacon, Prieto Diaz and Magallanes speak the Albay Bikol variant. In Sorsogon City, Casiguran and Juban, Bicolano is different for some terms being used there, which have similarity to the Hiligaynon language.
In Barcelona, Gubat, Bulusan, Matnog, Irosin and Santa Magdalena, a dialect is spoken in which terms and tones are similar to the Waray language of Eastern Visayas called Waray Sorsogon language. The people of Pilar and Donsol speak a dialect which is similar, but not exactly, to the "Miraya Bicol" or the dialect spoken by the nearby towns of Camalig and Daraga in Albay province. The Castilla dialect, although distinct, has a similarity to that which is spoken in Daraga.
Sorsogon Ayta Language
In 2010, UNESCO released its 3rd world volume of Endangered Languages in the World, where 3 critically endangered languages were in the Philippines. One of these languages in the Southern Ayta language which has an estimated speaker of 150 people in the year 2000. The language was classified as Critically Endangered, meaning the youngest speakers are grandparents and older, and they speak the language partially and infrequently and hardly pass the language to their children and grandchildren anymore. If the remaining 150 people do not pass their native language to the next generation of Sorsogon Ayta people, their indigenous language will be extinct within a period of 1 to 2 decades.The Sorsogon Ayta people live only on the municipality of Prieto Diaz, Sorsogon. They are one of the original Negrito settlers in the entire Philippines. They belong to the Aeta people classification but have distinct language and belief systems unique to their own culture and heritage.
Religion
Sorsogon is predominantly a Catholic province. Spanish conquistadores gave Sorsogon its first encounter with Christianity. This was in the year 1569 when Fray Alonzo Jimenez, OSA, chaplain of the expedition under Luis Enriquez de Guzman celebrated the first Mass upon landing on the coast of sitio Gibal-ong, barangay Siuton, in the town of Magallanes. Christianity, however, was formally established in Sorsogon with the planting of the Cross on the shores of Casiguran town in 1600 by the Franciscan Friars. This was a prelude to the erection of the first church building dedicated to the Holy Rosary, still revered at present as the Patroness of Casiguran. From there, the Franciscan missionaries devotedly spread the faith to the other towns in Bacon, Bulusan and Donsol. The other twelve towns followed suit in the course of time. In the original geographic division, the province of Sorsogon formed part of Albay province. It seceded as a separate province on October 17, 1984. Catholicism is followed by 93% of the population of Sorsogon.The Diocese of Sorsogon was originally part of the Archdiocese of Nueva Caceres. When it was made a separate diocese on June 29, 1951, it included the territory of Masbate. When the Diocese of Nueva Caceres was elevated into an archdiocese in the same year, Legazpi and Sorsogon were made suffragan dioceses of Nueva Caceres. On March 23, 1968, Masbate was made into a separate diocese. At present the Diocese of Sorsogon covers simply the civil province of Sorsogon and the City of Sorsogon with the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral in Sorsogon City as its seat.
The Iglesia Ni Cristo has the minority of this province each town has 2-3 locale chapels built, the whole province comprised 71 locale, and barangay chapels.