3 September Iriga City 46th Foundation Day

1. Iriga, officially the City of Iriga (Rinconada Bikol: Syudad ka Iriga; Filipino: Lungsod ng Iriga; Coastal Bikol: Ciudad nin Iriga), is a third class city in the province of Camarines Sur, Philippines. 
2. It is located about 400 kilometres (250 mi) south-east of Manila, 37 kilometres (23 mi) south of Naga City, Bicol Region's largest city, and about 61 kilometres (38 mi) north of Legazpi
3. It is bounded by the town of Buhi in the east, by the municipalities of Baao, Nabua and Bato in the west, by the province of Albay in the south, and by the municipalities of Ocampo and Sangay in the north.
4. Iriga, before the Spanish era was called I-raga (beautiful and Flourishing) which sprung from a flourishing native settlement by the bank of the Bikol River called Bua (now the municipality of Nabua). 
5. Bua has a low marshy terrain easily flooded during the rainy season, so some people thought wisely to leave and settle to a higher land at the foot of the Sumagang, a mountain east of Bua. Sumagang or Mt. Asog (now Mt. Iriga ) in the Bua dialect means “sunrise” and in Bikol language “agang sumirang,” meaning “early to rise”. This came to be called Iraga, which historians claim that it was called because Iraga being a frontier land had large tracts of land available for cultivation suitable for settlement. Iraga is Bikol word, a contraction of Igwa (there is ) Raga (land or soil).
6. Some of the events that will never be forgotten in the minds of the early inhabitants of Iriga were some natural calamities. 
• In 1846, during the term of Don Juan Lomaad, a great famine occured which took away many lives. The government ordered the people to plant more staple crops to counter hunger pangs of the people. 
• Cholera epidemic broke out and caused death to thousands of inhabitants in 1857. 
• During the term of Don Miguel in 1863, a terrible earthquake damage the town church.
• In 1871, during the first year of Don Lucas Caayao’s term, epidemic of smallpox broke out and many people succumed to death.
7. Iriga City is also the home of the country’s first bus company when in 1914, a former American servicemen, Albert L. Ammen, converted a two-cylinder Grawbosky truck into a passenger bus which became the forerunner of the present Philtranco fleet of buses and established Iriga as the birthplace of the country’s bus transportation industry. Ammen’s driver, Max L. Blouse, would also start the BLTB four years later in Batangas.
8. In 1901, the first American public school was established and after the Japanese occupation in 15 May 1945, the Iriga Central, the biggest Central School in Bicol before the war, was opened and rehabilitation began.
9. It was Mayor Jose Villanueva who drafted the Charter of the City of Iriga, House Bill No. 7270 and with the support and willful cooperation of the town’s people, the Municipal Government then, successfully gained the conversion of Iriga into a city through Republic Act 5261 otherwise known as the Charter of Iriga City on 8 July 1968.
10. The City was formally chartered as the third city of Bicol Region on 3 September 1968 by President Ferdinand Marcos.
11. Ireguenos refer to their city as “The Concience of Bicol” while Naguenos claim their city as “Heart of Bicol”.
12. PROCLAMATION NO. 851 DECLARING WEDNESDAY, 3 SEPTEMBER 2014, AS A SPECIAL (NON-WORKING) DAY IN THE CITY OF IRIGA.

References:

Proclamation No. 851, s. 2014
Iriga
Iriga City