Borongan

Borongan, officially the City of Borongan (Waray: Siyudad han Borongan; Filipino: Lungsod ng Borongan), is a component city and capital of the province of Eastern Samar, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 71,961 people.

It is the most populous LGU in Eastern Samar and it is also nicknamed as the "City of the Golden Sunrise/Sunshine" and aspiring to be the "King City of the East". Its cityhood was settled by the Supreme Court of the Philippines when it decided with finality on April 12, 2007, the constitutionality of its city charter, Republic Act 9394, which conferred upon and elevated the status of the municipality of Borongan into a component city of the province of Eastern Samar.

Pronounced bo-róng-gan, the name Borongan was taken from the local word "borong", which in the Waray-Waray language means "fog". The mountainous terrains surrounding Borongan is covered by a heavy veil of fog which can usually be seen during the cold and raining seasons and in the early hours of the morning. Because of this characteristic, the pre-Hispanic natives attributed the name borongan to the place, which was then a fragmented commune of households.

Boronganons were known to be fierce fighters according to William Henry Scott, who stated that, "There was an Indio of gigantic stature called Pusong, a native of the town of Magtaon in the interior of the island of Samar and lbabao, who used to make frequent invasions of the towns of Calbiga and Libunao which are on the Samar side, but not so much around Borongan because those on that coast were much more feared."^{[citation needed]}

Its development into a town, and eventually into a city, is traced back to the early 1600 out of the scattered hamlets located on the banks of the adjacent Guiborongani (Borongan or Sabang) River and Lo-om River. Guiborongani was the larger settlement and was later on called Borongan because of the heavy fog that usually covered the place. The people inhabiting the eastern coast of Samar were originally called "Ibabao" during the pre-Spanish period.

As early as 1595, or 74 years after Ferdinand Magellan's landing in Homonhon (now an island barangay of Guiuan, Eastern Samar) Spanish Jesuit missionary priests from mission centers in Leyte began to evangelize the southern portion of the island of Samar. The first evangelical mission was established in Tinago, Western Samar and gradually expanded to Catubig. In 1614 Palapag was selected as the mission center of the Ibabao region or the north-eastern coast of the island; from this mission center in turn was the eastern coast of Samar subsequently evangelized. The missionaries proselytized to the inhabitants in the faith, raised stone churches, and protected the people from the Muslim predatory/piratical raids from the south. This is probably the reason why the town itself was established some distance away from the shoreline and built on a hill overlooking the northern banks of the Lo-om River.

In fact, the old Catholic church convent has its own self-contained water supply: a deep dugout well lined with big blocks of ancient hewn stones located underneath the convent building itself. The major settlements then were Borongan, Bacod/Jubasan/Paric (now Dolores), Tubig (Taft), Sulat, Libas/Nonoc (now San Julian), Butag (now Guiuan) and Balangiga.

The development of Borongan was greatly influenced by the religious missions of the Jesuits during the period 1604–1768, and the Franciscans from 1768 to 1868. Borongan was established as a pueblo on September 8, 1619. On this date, the Commandancia and the Very Rev. Father Superior of the Jesuits from Palapag, a town in Northern Samar, went to Ibabao to install the first priest of Borongan, Fr. Manuel Martinez, who served up to 1627.