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favored name of the new
town was “Angeles” in
honor of the “Holy
Guardian Angels,” their
patroness’ protectors. It
is also in consideration of
the Founder’s name Don
Angel who put forward
the new town under the
love and care of Our Lady
of the Holy Rosary whose
feast day (La Naval) commemorates
the beginning
of its foundation.
In the year 1833, the
Founders built a new
church replacing the old
Santuario that was already
inadequate in accommodating
the inhabitants,
who had multiplied
progressively.
In the same year, the
Casa Tribunal was built,
although since 1829
(foundation date) there
had already been a provi-
sional one, having Don Ciriaco de Miranda,
the Founder’s son, the first gobernadorcillo
for the whole year of 1830. (The Casa Tribunal
is the present municipal building.)
From then on, the town of Angeles had
been governed by gobernadorcillos for an
annual term each until 1868 and later
changed to two-year terms until 1893. Due
to reforms in the Spanish administration,
the title was changed to Capitan Municipal
until 1898, towards the end of the Spanish
regime in the Islands.
At the time of Angeles foundation,
there were only six barrios: Sto. Rosario
(the center), San Jose, Cutcut, Pampang,
Amsic and Santol which were successively
populated from 1796, when the founders
settled down in Culiat. The founders donated
to the Church two parts of the land,
one dedicated to the parish priest’s main-
The original processional
image of the town’s patron
saint enshrined at the Holy
Angel University chapel
(Courtesy of Mrs. Teresita N.
Wilkerson)
Descendants of Don Angel Pantaleon de Miranda (Sally Naguiat)
tenance, and the other to
finance the annual fiesta
celebration.
In 1846, Capitan General
Claveria was appointed
to Pampanga; he
ordered that San
Fernando’s seven barrios
become part of Angeles.
They are Pulungbulo,
Mining, Tabun, Capaya,
Sapa Libutad, Pulung
Cacutud, and Pandan.
Likewise, the three barrios
of Mabalacat:
Malabañas, Balibago and
Pulung Maragul, and a
barrio of Mexico: Cutud.
That shaped the expanse
of Angeles town with the
boundaries of the three
towns. Aside from the 17
barrios mentioned, Angeles
stretched out to other
areas mainly due to the
population increase that
extended to other five
villages, which were not yet populated.
They are the following: Sto. Domingo in
1830, Anunas in 1840, Sto. Cristo in 1852
and San Nicolas in 1852. Areas which
started to be populated when the market
was relocated to the site at that time were
Tacondo that comprised the barrio of
Anunas, and began to be inhabited in 1890;
Sapangbato of barrio Pasbul Bulo in 1898,
and Talimunduc of barrio San Nicolas in
1901. In summary, Angeles had 22 barrios
at that time, and three places identified
also to become barrios….
Even before being constituted as a
town, a Santuario had been built in Culiat
in 1810 but it was only two years later
(1812) that it had its first chaplain, Padre
Juan Zablan, a native of Minalin,
Pampanga, and later followed by Padre De
Concepcion, Pedro David, Vicente Navarro,
Cristobal Concepcion, Flaviano Ladia,
Agapito Medina, Claudio de Castro, Leandro
Cortes, Jose de la Incarnacion and Macario
Paras, who were all Pampangos.
Culiat was the name of the barrio of
San Fernando that became the town of Angeles.
It is the name of a bush that then
grew there in abundance. But the other
barrios like Santol and Anunas are names
taken from fruit-bearing trees; Pandan,
name of a very well known plant; Tabun,
which means dam or dike; Pampang, high
borders of a river or tideland;
Pulongmaragul, large forest; Pulung
Cacutud, small forest; Pulungbulu and
Pasbulbulo, places where there are an
abundance of bamboos and canes;
Sapalibutad, means to be in between or in
an estuary or creek; Capaya, name of a
plant called papaya; Balibago, shrub/tree
of fibrous bark; and Sapangbatu, a brook
that runs among rocks.
Angeles, when constituted as a town
(1829), stopped being administered by religious
chaplains. The last one noted was Don
Macario Paras. Parish priests succeeded
them and the first Augustinian friars were
as follows: Vicente Cordones, Manuel Diaz,
Pedro Medina, Jose M. Torres, Tomas Oresa,
Guillermo Masnou, Ramon Sarronandia, Juan
Marino, Pedro Ibeas, Vicente Ruiz, Rufino
Santos, and Baltazar Camarra, the last Spanish
priest; and later, the Filipino seculars,
Don Vicente Lapus and Don Pablo Gamboa,
the current parish priest.
This results in a summary of all data
that I acquired at the time. And as seen,
Angeles being a newly founded town, lacks
legends and old manuscripts except those
provided to me by Don Mariano V. Henson,
one of the surviving grandsons of the
founders.
(Translated from the Spanish
original by Anton Prima)
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