 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Tolosa, Leyte" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(June 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Tolosa | |
|---|---|
| Municipality of Tolosa | |
.jpg) | |
 Flag | |
| Nickname: Home of Catmon Hill | |
 Map of Leyte with Tolosa highlighted | |
OpenStreetMap  | |
.svg)  Tolosa Location within thePhilippines | |
| Coordinates:11°03′48″N125°02′07″E / 11.0633°N 125.0353°E /11.0633; 125.0353 | |
| Country | Philippines |
| Region | Eastern Visayas |
| Province | Leyte |
| District | 1st district |
| Barangays | 15 (seeBarangays) |
| Government | |
| • Type | Sangguniang Bayan |
| • Mayor | Erwin C. Ocaña |
| • Vice Mayor | Menardo M. Mate |
| • Representative | Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez |
| • Councilors | List
|
| • Electorate | 15,238 voters (2022) |
| Area | |
• Total | 22.54 km2 (8.70 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 21 m (69 ft) |
| Highest elevation | 779 m (2,556 ft) |
| Lowest elevation | 0 m (0 ft) |
| Population (2020 census)[3] | |
• Total | 20,708 |
| • Density | 920/km2 (2,400/sq mi) |
| • Households | 5,252 |
| Economy | |
| • Income class | 5th municipal income class |
| • Poverty incidence | 24.75 |
| • Revenue | ₱ 129.6 million (2022) |
| • Assets | ₱ 317 million (2022) |
| • Expenditure | ₱ 105.3 million (2022) |
| • Liabilities | ₱ 75.41 million (2022) |
| Service provider | |
| • Electricity | Don Orestes Romualdez Electric Coperative (DORELCO) |
| Time zone | UTC+8 (PST) |
| ZIP code | 6503 |
| PSGC | |
| IDD : area code | +63 (0)53 |
| Native languages | Waray Tagalog |
Tolosa, officially theMunicipality of Tolosa (Waray:Bungto han Tolosa;Tagalog:Bayan ng Tolosa), is amunicipality in theprovince ofLeyte, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 20,708 people.[3]
It is located 24 kilometres (15 mi) south ofTacloban.
The cities closest to Tolosa are Tacloban, Ormoc, Baybay, Borongan, Catbalogan, and Maasin. The nearest municipalities are Tanauan, Tabontabon, Dulag, Palo, Julita, and Dagami. Its distance from the national capital is 588.52 kilometers (365.69 miles).[citation needed]
According to popular beliefs, Tolosa derived its name from a legend about three chieftains (datus) who united their chiefdoms[citation needed]. According to the legend, the area that is now Tolosa was ruled by three great datus: the datu of fishing, the datu of harvest and the datu of hunting. Typical of chiefdoms in those times, the three datus regard each other with hostility. One time a great battle broke out among the three of them. Their people fought valiantly in defense of each datu. But the three datus were strong they could not defeat each other. Accidentally they were hit by their own swords and they died. Their blood spilt everywhere. Then came a great earthquake followed by a tsunami. When the floodwaters subsided, three promontories rose on three sides of the three datus' lands, as if acting as defensive walls of the contiguous land. Survivors of the great battle realized that the three hills were their great datus who were now united in protecting them from outside dangers. From three (tolo) they became one (usa).
Tolosa was once part of the nearby municipality of Tanauan.Magdaleno Vivero andDomingo Camacho petitioned the Spanish Government to grant Tolosa autonomy from Tanauan. The petition was approved in 1852, resulting in great jubilation among the new town's inhabitants. The town's residents, however, continued to call a nearby promontory Inapusong after the town's old name. Spanish officials named the town in honor ofTolosa, a town in the Basque Country, Spain. The town was formally founded in 1861 and became a parish on February 12, 1863. Its first parish priest wasPadre Geronimo Asenjo, a Spaniard. The first Filipino priest of the parish was Father Quintin Bautista. In 1910, a plan to abolish the municipality worried its inhabitants. Brigido Lauzon became the first civilian Mayor of Tolosa during American occupation in 1901. Owing to the efforts of Captain Daniel Romualdez, grandfather of the late SpeakerDaniel Z. Romualdez, the plan to return Tolosa to the care of Tanauan was averted.
During the liberation of the Philippines in 1944, Tolosa and its north eastern neighboring towns were spared from bombardment by the United States and Philippine Commonwealth forces when Eagle ScoutValeriano Abello ofbarangay San Roque, including two other identified scouts braved Japanese sniper fire and directed US and Filipino fire to the exact location of Japanese batteries along Leyte's north-eastern coast. Abello's act saved the lives of thousands of Leytenos and allowed the Filipino Soldiers and Allied Forces unhampered landing on the coast. This unhampered attack dealt the blow that broke the back of the Japanese resistance in Leyte, and ultimately The Philippines.
A few days after the return of General Douglas MacArthur and the forces of liberation in Leyte, Tolosa became the base of the U.S Navy, as well as the 6th and 13th Air Force. It was in Tanghas, a barangay in Tolosa, where the famous American composerIrving Berlin first presented his renowned composition "Heaven Watch the Philippines" together with his Filipino audience including then PresidentSergio Osmeña and Carlos P. Romulo. DuringWorld War II the Tolosa was part of a large US Navy baseLeyte-Samar Naval Base.
About 4 decades ago, Tolosa suffered its worst environmental disaster. The sand in the beaches of Tolosa were black until the 1970s because of the abundance of the mineral called magnetite, a naturally magnetized iron, which was a prime raw material for high quality steel. INCO (Iron, Nickel & Copper Ore), a mining company based in nearby barangay Opong, stripped the town's beaches of vegetation to get the mineral, destroying much of the wide beaches and rendering the town's coastal defenses bare against the onslaught of tidal erosion.
Then First Lady Imelda Marcos developed the area between the sea andMt. Inapusong and built a large compound where she entertained Miss Universe candidates during the pageant held inManila.
Tolosa is politically subdivided into 15barangays. [5] Each barangay consists ofpuroks and some havesitios.
The Municipality of Tolosa, as a Fifth - Class Municipality, is a fifth - class Local Government Unit. it is headed by the Municipal Mayor which elected at - large every three years. The Vice Mayor serves as the presiding officer of the Sangguniang Bayan, with the eight (8) regular Sangguniang Bayan members. The President of the Association of Barangay Councils (ABC) and the President of the Pamabayang Pederasyon ng mga Sangguniang Kabataan (PPSK) serves part of the Sangguniang Bayan as Ex - Officio Members.
Below are the list of the Municipal Mayors of Tolosa since 1901.
| Climate data for Tolosa, Leyte | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | 28 (82) | 28 (82) | 29 (84) | 30 (86) | 30 (86) | 30 (86) | 29 (84) | 30 (86) | 30 (86) | 29 (84) | 29 (84) | 28 (82) | 29 (84) |
| Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | 22 (72) | 22 (72) | 22 (72) | 23 (73) | 24 (75) | 24 (75) | 24 (75) | 24 (75) | 24 (75) | 24 (75) | 23 (73) | 23 (73) | 23 (74) |
| Averageprecipitation mm (inches) | 90 (3.5) | 67 (2.6) | 82 (3.2) | 70 (2.8) | 97 (3.8) | 145 (5.7) | 142 (5.6) | 127 (5.0) | 132 (5.2) | 152 (6.0) | 169 (6.7) | 144 (5.7) | 1,417 (55.8) |
| Average rainy days | 17.0 | 13.5 | 16.0 | 16.5 | 20.6 | 24.3 | 26.0 | 25.4 | 25.2 | 26.4 | 23.0 | 21.0 | 254.9 |
| Source: Meteoblue[6] | |||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Source:Philippine Statistics Authority[7][8][9][10] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In the 2020 census, the population of Tolosa, Leyte, was 20,708 people,[3] with a density of 920 inhabitants per square kilometre or 2,400 inhabitants per square mile.
Poverty incidence of Tolosa
5 10 15 20 25 30 2000 28.74 2003 28.42 2006 18.20 2009 24.43 2012 20.65 2015 28.24 2018 20.96 2021 24.75 Source:Philippine Statistics Authority[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] |
Places adjacent to Tolosa, Leyte | |
|---|---|
 Province ofLeyte | |
|---|---|
Tacloban (capital and largest city) | |
| Municipalities | |
| Component city | |
| Independent component city |
|
| Highly urbanized city |
|
