THE FOUNDING

Records of Saint Augustine’s Parish have it that Spanish Conquistadores headed by Juan de Salcedo, together with the Augustinian Missionaries, started to move northwards of Manila in 1574. After twelve (12) years of intermingling, living, and preaching the people with the Good News, they founded the first towns of Laoag, Bulatao, Kaog, and Tagudin on January 5, 1586.

Tagudin used to be the capital of Amburayan, declared a sub-province of the Mountain Province during the Spanish era, then composed of the towns of Lepanto, Angaki (now Quirino, Ilocos Sur), Suyo, Sugpon, Santol, San Gabriel, and Tagudin. The Government Hill—where the reservoir of the Tagudin Water District now stands—was the former site of the capitol of this sub-province.

In 1818, Tagudin became part of Ilocos Sur and thus became the southern gateway of the province. A number of historical firsts occurred in this town. In 1848, Father Juan Sorolla constructed the first two sundials built by the Spaniards in the Philippines—one inside the Saint Augustine’s School compound and the other in front of the town hall. These sundials still stand today as accurate timepieces.

The ICM Missionary Sisters began their mission in the Philippines here in Tagudin. Led by their foundress, Sister Marie Louise de Meester, their work in education, socio-economic, and religious development gave rise to prominent institutions such as Saint Augustine’s School, St. Theresa’s College in Manila and Cebu, and Christ the King College in San Fernando City. Their efforts also placed Tagudin on the tourism map as the country’s First Living Community Museum.

THE ORIGIN

There are two popular versions of how the town of Tagudin, llocos Sur derived its name. One, which is less known, had it that long even before the Spaniards set foot in the area, the village was under the protection of an ancestral spirit named Tagudin. This man-spirit lived on the promontory of that hill overlooking the Amburayan, exactly at the place where the llocos abutment of the Doña Alicia Bridge spanning the Amburayan, and kept watch over the town. So it was, that the village was known as the village of Tagudin.

The more popular version derived the name Tagudin from the native drying rack (“pagtagudan“) where raw cotton (“sag-ot” ) was spread out and brushed into threads with coconut husk. The “pag-tagudan” was rather a common tool during the time when llocano blankets were traded in markets as far south as Manila and were well known even to the Igorots on the Pacific side of Luzon. Legend would have it that when the Spaniards came to the place, their “adelantado” inquired as to where they are to a native who was making cotton threads for the famed blankets. This native mistook the question for an inquiry as to what she was doing, so she answered in the dialect “agtag-tagudak, apo!” When the question was repeated, the native again thought that the Spaniard was asking the name of her rack, so she said, “Tagudan Apo!” The “adelantado” thus took that as the name of the village. Since then and up to this very day, the place had always been called “Tagudin“.