Tubungan holds Tubong-Tubong Festival '06
Once again the municipality of Tubungan will hold its annual Tubong-Tubong Festival this last week of April. The spectacle called TUBONG-TUBONG is joined by boys and girls in colorful costumes dancing up the main streets to an ethno-pop beat. The steps are a mixture of today's modern movements with ethnic rituals danced in a perfect rhythm to the beat of indigenous musical instruments. With this year's theme "Kauswagan, Padayunon, Padayon sa Paghili-ugyon," the municipality of Tubungan is inviting everyone to witness and enjoy Tubong-Tubong Festival which opens with an Agro-Fair, Tourism and Trade Center and civic parade with the street dancing competition on April 26. April 30 will showcase a horse fight or "Pahibag Kabayo" at 9 a.m., public plaza open field. The grand Tubong-Tubong Tribe contest will be in May 1, 2006 at 8 a.m.
Tubungan is a municipality in southwestern part of the Province of Iloilo, bounded on the north by the municipality of Leon, on the east by the municipality of Tigbauan, on the south by the municipality of Guimbal and west by the municipality of Igbaras. It has an area that extends to 8,518.2040 hectares.
The formal foundation of Tubungan was sometime in 1768 when the Spanish law of the Indies required that an area, to be recognized as a town, must comply with population needs. Natives from adjacent towns decided to help by settling peacefully and for mutual protection in Tin-an (presently a part of the town site). The first settlers of what is now Tubungan were the people from Nahapay, a barrio in Guimbal, followed by the natives from nearby towns of Leon, Igbaras and Tigbauan. The word Tubungan is said to have come from the local word "tubong," meaning "to add" or "contribute," a reference to the natives that settled in the area.
Tubungan, officially became an independent town in May 1, 1938 by Executive Order No. 143 under President Manuel L. Quezon with Miguel Tagamolila as its first appointed municipal mayor.
The population of Tubungan at the 2000 census was 19,469. Most of the population lives in other barangays, and only nearly 15 percent of the municipality's entire population lives in the poblacion. A share of 67.94 percent of the labor force of Tubungan is engaged in agriculture and livestock.
The dominant landscape of Tubungan is mountainous with rolling hills and limited plains spreading out to its 48 barangays.
Due to its topography, Tubungan economy has, since been dominated by the production of semi-permanent crops and fruit-bearing trees. Although raw materials are abundant and readily available in the area, the industrial sector has not since progressed, largely due to distance of the town from the city---approximately 42 kilometers, lack of development schemes and financial capabilities.