22/03/2023
Tabang was made a visita of the new town of Santo Niño. The people of Tabang could not accept that their town become a mere barrio by what was previously its barrio, Cabarungan, now called Sto. Niño. The people of Tabang petitioned the Spanish government that it be made an independent town both civilly and ecclesiastically. They were partly successful, for from 1892 up to the Revolution of 1896-1898 the priest of Santo Niño lived in Tabang.
In 1897 Tabang was finally declared an independent Mission-Parish. Unfortunately the Revolutionaries came a year after, and Tabang’s parish priest, like those of the other towns of Cagayan Valley had to leave. With no more priest to take care of Tabang, Tabang deteriorated ecclesiastically, and what remains today of its old church of stones and bricks are ruins.
The church of Tabang was improved by Fr. Juan Bautista Gonzalez, O.P., towards the end of Spanish rule, putting galvanized iron to its roof, and installing windows of colored crystals. He also improved the convent which, according to Brugues, was small but good and of stone and bricks up to the roof.
To achieve this task of building a church and convent of stone and bricks, the missionaries built a kiln for the making of bricks. No ruis remain of this kiln. It could have been eaten by the river for, as Jose Brugues, O.P., related, “it is threatened by the river which comes very near during heavy rains.”
In the description of Fr. Jose Brugues, O.P., Tabang was situated at a small plain at the right bank of the Chico river, some 11.5 kilometers southeast of Sto. Niño; some 11.5 kilometers northeast of Piat; south of the mountain ranges that pass by Malaueg; and north of the towns of Piat and Cordoba. The roads, however, to the barrios and other places were bad.
Commerce was by the Chico river which at the time had sufficient water for big boats. Today Chico river has become so much wider and at the same time too shallow for navigation.
Tabang’s land is hilly, but it has enough plains to grow varied kinds of crops. Towards the last decades of Spanish rule, Tabang’s principal product was to***co, though much corn was also produced part of export and part for home consumption. There were also cacao, bananas, betel nuts, coffee, oranges, lemon and other fruit trees.
Wood and bamboos as well as animals for hunting could be had from the forests, situated at the left bank of Tabang. Because of the abundance of animals, the Tabang natives, like the other natives of Cagayan Valley, were devoted to hunting. Thus, said Jose Brugues, O.P., regarding Tabang’s forests:
"The right bank of the river is covered by cogon, with little forests, which nonetheless abound at the bank, full of animals for big and small hunting as well as beehives. In the forests there is a complete supply of all kinds of wood for construction, filamentous plants, rubber, resin, and other forests products of difficult usefulness."
In 1746, the Alcalde Mayor Don Juan de Varona y Velazquez stated that Tabang had “407 inhabitants and 143 tribute-paying individuals, with solid church and convent of stone for the missionary, 5 leagues distant (from Nueva Segovia or Lallo), under the patronage of St. Agnes de Monte Policiano.
Towards the end of Spanish rule Tabang had 2,000 people distributed in the población and barrios of Lobo, Masical, Balani, Nguing, Mattattabag. The houses were generally of wood in the población, but of light materials in the barrios.
With regards to the church of Tabang one can see its ruins even to this day.
There were then two churches, two villages, Tabang and Lobo. And these churches were older than those of Piat and Tuao, the latter have been founded after Tabang and Lobo.
The place was called Lobo because of a creek by that name in the area. The creek followed into the Chico river. Said Malumbres.
“In front of Tabang at the right margin of the Chico River, there existed and still exists a creek called Lubo and in the writings of that epic said creek was called the estuary of Lubo.”
As early as 1598 Dominican chronicles spoke of the mission of Lobo under the patronage of St. Reymond of Pennefort. The mission was officially accepted as a Dominican mission by the Provincial Chapter of May 9, 1894 with 500 tribute paying inhabitants.
While Lobo later disappeared from Dominican writings, Tabang persisted.
It was not surprising that Lobo and Tabang were the first missions funded by the Spaniards in the Itawes region. For these two were the first villages the Spaniards encountered in going upstream the Chico river from Nassiping.
At this time too, Tabang had a Tribunal or Municipal Hall, schools for boys and girls, as well as warehouse for to***co.
In 1604 the Dominican Provincial “sent three religious to the estuary of Lobo and the country of the Itawes”.
The first villages the missionaries founded were Lobo and Tabang, with the Chico River dividing the two villages. Tabang was and still is, at the right bank of the Chico River; while across it, at the left bank of the river, was and still is the village of Lobo.
That the said two villages existed side by side since early Spanish times is clear, among other things from the fact that Jose Brugues, O.P., writing in 1898, spoke of the ruins of a church in Lobo across the river from Tabang.
In 1598 the corporation accepted as a Doctrine or independent Ministry the mission of St. Raymond of Pennafort of Lubo, founded shortly before the said date, proximate to this town (Tabang). Perhaps to this town, founded in the valley of the Chico River, called Lobo in olden times, are the ruins which can still be seen today at the left bank of the river across Tabang towards the north.”
Navigating the Cagayan River, the missionaries transferred boats at Nassiping to travel upstream the Chico River. They reached Tabang and Lobo first, then Piat and Tuao.
There was confusion with regards to the various patron saints of the Itawes towns, with one patron saint given to two towns. The Provincial Chapter of 1616 settled the problem by definitely naming St. Dominic patron saint of Piat, St. Raymond of Pennafort patron saint of Malaueg and St. Agnes of Montepulciano patroness of Tabang.
When the Dominican Province instituted a Vicariate in the Itawes in 1614, Tabang was named the principal town. But after some fifty years Tabang lost its importance, with the Dominican Province reducing it a mere visita of Piat. It remained so until 1890.
(c) Based from the records of Barangay Tabang
