Padre Burgos History

Padre Burgos was formerly known as "Laguimanoc" due to the shape of the coastline which resembles the bill of a chicken or “manok”. Another version is that chickens were so abundant in the town that hawks always sweeped down the place to snatch chicks from their mother hens. When hawks flew overhead, as warning to their neighborhood, people shouted “Hawk Manok” or “Lawin-Manok”. On January 1, 1917 the village of Laguimanoc, which was formerly a barrio of Atimonan, became a municipality. Ten years after, the town’s council changed the name to Padre Burgos, in honor of one of our country’s martyrs, Fr. Jose P. Burgos. The streets were named after local leaders who rendered valuable services to the community. Because of the physical and topographic conditions of the town, four (4) sitios where clusters of houses were built became the main district of the town namely Campo, Burgos, Basiao and Bundok-Punta. The community converged to be in this particular spot because of its sea which made this town as port of Laguimanoc. In the early days this port offered a good wharf for vessels plying between Manila and Southern Luzon. This was also a port of call for ships exporting lumber to Europe during the Spanish regime. In this town was the residence of the “Alcalde Mar” or Port Officer. Business and other industries were prospering and people conglomerated in this spot. Spots of the historical interest are the wharf symbol of commercial progress, the old church with the old-fashioned “canyon” markers of the people’s religious faith, the Bag Cement Slabs and Stone quarries Mute Testimonies of the effervescent power and grandeur of the early foreign settlers, the Hills near the railroad station where the Japs tortured and massacred civilians in the barrios of Marao and Polo where the Hunter’s Guerillas built their camps.