16 September, Foundation Day of Bontoc, Mountain Province

1. Bontoc (Filipino: Bayan ng Bontoc), (Pangasinan: Baley na Bontoc) is a second class municipality and the capital of Mountain Province, Philippines. 
2. Bontoc is the historical capital of the entire Cordillera region since the inception of governance in the Cordillera.
3. The province is very mountainous. The word Bontoc is derived from two morphemes “bun” meaning heap and “tuk” meaning top which when taken together means mountain.
4. Kane, American Supervisor and then Governor, established the capital here after the Philippine Commission passed the Mountain Province Act, building a provincial building, hospital, doctor's office, nurse's home, a school, provincial prison and the Tagudin-Bontoc trail, which by 1926, could accommodate a small car.
5. The municipality also celebrates annual Am-among Festival and Lang-ay Festival.
6. BONTOC lies on the banks of the Chico River about an hour east of Sagada. Primarily used by tourists as a transport hub, the town is also a good base for trekking and has easy access to the beautiful Maligcong rice terraces.
7. Bontoc is home to the Bontoc Tribe, a feared war-like group of indigenous people who actively indulged in tribal wars with its neighbours up until the 1930s. Every Bontoc male had to undergo a rites of passage into manhood, which may include head hunting, where the male has to journey (Sometimes with companions) and hunt for a human head. The Bontocs also used the jaw of the hunted head as a handle for its gongs, and as late as the early 1990s, evidence of this practice can be seen from one of the gongs in Pukisan, Bontoc.
8. Bontoc is the home of the Ifuntok Language, which has variable dialects under it. However, the Original Ifuntok Language is fast dying out, as more of the younger generations speak a mixture of Ilocano, Tagalog, and Kankanaey Dialects. This is partly due to the frequent contact of the younger generations with other regions of the Philippine nation. Some words are not in use anymore. Within the Bontoc proper, only 40% of the local population can communicate using this language without diluting their daily language with other languages/dialects.
9. The local economy depends largely on small trades and agriculture. This capital town's biggest economic potential is tourism with its smaller rice terraces in Barangay Bay-yo, Maligcong and other areas.
10. The road from Baguio to BONTOC is the Halsema Highway or “Mountain Trail”, a narrow, serpentine gash in the side of the Cordillera that’s sometimes no more than a rocky track with vertical cliffs on one side and a sheer drop on the other.
11. Fourteen (14) people, that included Filipino comedian Tado Jimenez, a Dutch woman named Ann Van de Ven and a Canadian man named Alex Loring, were killed when a bus fell into a 500-meter-deep ravine in Sitio Pagang at 7:20 a.m. on 7 February 2014.
12. PROCLAMATION NO. 859  DECLARING TUESDAY, 16 SEPTEMBER 2014, AS A SPECIAL (NON-WORKING) DAY IN THE MUNICIPALITY OF BONTOC, MOUNTAIN PROVINCE

References:

Local Government of Bontoc Mountain Province, Philippines
Bontoc, Mountain Province
Proclamation No. 859, s. 2014
PHILIPPINES // NORTHERN LUZON BONTOC AND AROUND
TripAdvisor Bontoc Philippines
Bontoc
Bontoc bus crash may have been caused by loose brakes—LTFRB chair