CALABARZON, Region IV-A, Philippines

Last modified: 2005-09-24 by rob raeside
Keywords: southern tagalog | tagalog | calabarzon | batangas | lipa | cavite | tagaytay | tres martires | laguna | san pablo | quezon | rizal | lucena |
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The Philippine Republic's Region IV, Southern Tagalog, comprised eleven provinces with eight cities. Most of these provinces are in the southern part of the island of Luzon, but the province of Palawan, an archipelago in itself, stretches southwest of Luzon almost as far as Borneo, forming one of the four sides of the Sulu Sea. It has subsequently been subdivided into CALABARZON (Region IVA, comprising Batangas, Cavite, Laguna, Quezon and Rizal) and MIMAROPA (Region IVB, comprising  Occidental Mindoro, Oriental Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan).

Flag images here drawn after Symbols of the State, published by the Philippines Bureau of Local Government.

Region IV-A: CALABARZON

• Batangas
  • Batangas City
  • Lipa
• Cavite
  • Cavite City
  • Tagaytay
  • Tres Martires
• Laguna
  • San Pablo
  • Santa Rosa city
• Quezon
• Rizal

• Marinduque
• Mindoro Occidental
• Mindoro Oriental
• Palawan
  • Puerto Princesa
• Romblon

See also:

• Philippines
• Philippines: index of all pages
• Philippines provincial flags

Batangas

image by Jaume Ollé, 12 January 2001

The Philippine Republic's Province of Batangas, located on the island of Luzon, comprises two cities, Batangas (the capital, pop. 245,000) and Lipa (pop. 219,000), and thirty-two towns on 3,165 sq.km. with a total population of 1,885,000.

In the late nineteenth century the Philippines became one of the world's leading sources of coffee, and Batangas was heavily given over to coffee cultivation, but the coffee blight of the eighteen-eighties eventually overleapt quarantine measures and devastated the Philippine crops. The Philippines would not again export coffee for almost a century. The stately homes of the coffee planters still stand. Batangas was home to several early nationalist leaders, and contains museum-monuments to General Malvar, the last military leader in the Philippine-American War (Philippine Insurrection) to surrender to the United States, to Apolinario Mabini, to President José P. Laurel, and to Marcela Agoncillo, who made the first official Philippine flag during the insurrection against the Spanish.

Batangas offers a number of vacation destinations, including Taal Volcano, the world's smallest, on an island in Lake Bombon. Dive spots are extremely numerous, and there is a "submarine garden" of coral, visible at low tide, at the town of Lobo. The first balisong, or Philippine butterfly knife, was made in Taal, Batangas, in 1905, and the province is still a center for their manufacture. It produces rice, maize, coconuts, sugar, pepper, fruits, vegetables, poultry, cattle, horses, other livestock, and fish, and has a considerable variety of light and heavy industries, from garments to electronics to steel. It is also a shipping center..
John Ayer, 12 March 2001

Batangas City

image by Dirk Schönberger, 12 January 2001

Source: Symbols of the state

Batangas City is the capital of Batangas, pop. 245,000.
John Ayer, 12 March 2001

Lipa

image by Dirk Schönberger, 12 January 2001

Source: Symbols of the state

Lipa, the second city of Batangas, has a population of 219,000.
John Ayer, 12 March 2001

Cavite

image by Jaume Ollé, 12 January 2001

The Philippine Republic's Province of Cavite abuts metropolitan Manila. It is named for the hook (Tagalog kawit) of land that juts into Manila Bay, and which is an important objective of any force wanting to rule Luzon and the Philippines. The province's population is 1,907,000 by the census of 2000, its area 1,474 sq.km. There are three chartered cities, Cavite (pop. 98,000), Tagaytay (32,000) and Trece Martires (35,000), and twenty towns. The legislature meets in the town of Imus (pop. 177,000 by the 1995 census) and that is not the most populous town; two others have more than a quarter of a million apiece. Trece Martires is the seat of provincial administration. Tagaytay is "the second summer capital" of the Philippine Republic, famous for its perch overlooking Taal Lake, also known as Lake Bombon, the crater of what is said to be the world's largest volcano.

What is now the Province of Cavite in the Philippine Republic has a long history of resistance to Spanish rule. It was known for generations as "Madre de los Ladrones," the mother of bandits--the way an imperial power usually describes resistance forces. (I do not know Spanish, and am open to correction on this interpretation.) In 1859 a battle involving cannon was fought at the Julian Bridge in Imus between Philippine and Spanish forces. In 1872 two hundred Filipinos working at the naval arsenal at Cavite mutinied. This mutiny was put down, and three Catholic priests, José Burgos, Mariano Gomez, and Jacinto Zamora, who were implicated in the uprising were executed. I believe the city of Trece Martires is named for them. In 1896 the last uprising against Spain began, and Cavite was swiftly secured for the rebellion. General Emilio Aguinaldo, president of that first Philippine Republic, was a native and resident of Cavite. One of the towns in the province now bears his name. The province also includes the island of Corregidor famous from World War II. Also in Imus is a monument commemorating the Battle of Alapan; this includes a ninety-foot-tall flagpole from which the Philippine flag flies, and a statue of a woman carrying a Philippine flag. The province is very liberally supplied  with historical monuments, resorts, noteworthy churches, and places of religious retreat. Its economy seems to be more industrial than agricultural, though it produces rice, coffee, fruits, vegetables, and seafood.
John Ayer, 13 March 2001

Cavite City