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municipality of the Philippines in the province of Laguna
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Pangil, officially the Municipality of Pangil (Tagalog: Bayan ng Pangil), is a municipality in the province of Laguna, Philippines. According to the 2024 census, it has a population of 25,318 people.
According to the paper “Alamat ng Pangil, Laguna” by Santiago T. Adre, there are three commonly cited theories regarding the origin of the name “Pangil.”
One theory suggests that the name was derived from the town’s geographic shape, which, when viewed from an elevated position, resembles the fang (pangil) of a wild boar. Another theory attributes the name to the early settlers known as the Panguilagan. Over time, the name was shortened to “Panguil,” a form commonly found in Spanish-era documents, as Spaniards had difficulty pronouncing the original term. A third theory links the name to a pre-Hispanic leader, Gat Paguil, whom the Spaniards encountered upon their arrival in the area.
During the American period, following the United States’ takeover of the Philippines in 1898, the name “Panguil” was standardized to its present form, “Pangil.”
Pangil is one of the oldest settlements in Laguna, rich in Hispanic, American and Japanese history. Discovered artifacts of the 12th century Ming and Sung Dynasty were attributed to Chinese immigrants and traders who settled in this place then. According to oral literature, the first leader of the area, which now encompasses four separate towns, was Gat Pangil, who united four ancient settlements to establish a Tagalog kingdom in the area. During the Hispanic period, Pangil became a staging ground of the Spanish missionaries in Christian Evangelization drive in 1578 in the present-day provinces of Rizal, Laguna and Quezon (then known as Tayabas), until it gained recognition as a town through the Franciscan friars in the 1579.
One of the revered myths in the town of Pangil is the belief that in 1724, Prince Carlos, the son of King Philip V of Spain, was banished from his country and was sent to the Philippines. The young prince stayed in the town for three years and resided with the Franciscans in the adjoining convent of the Paroquia del Nuestra Señora de la Natividad Church considered then as the biggest in Laguna. The prince was a known hunter and he enjoyed his stay in the Sierra Madre mountain range that was known as a good hunting ground for wild animals and fowls. He was also very fond of the creek that branched out from the Pangil River and now called as the Bambang Hari or King's Canal.
By 1728, the King lifted the ban on the Prince and ordered the latter to return to their kingdom. With his ascension to the throne of Spain as King Charles III, he ordered his emissaries to send the statue of Nuestra Seńora de la O (Our Lady of Expectation) and the statue of Santo Nińo de la O (Holy Child of Expectation) as a sign of gratitude and appreciation to the Pangilenians for the hospitality and kindness that was accorded to him. Although this story is a source of pride among the Pangilenos, there is nothing in the historical records of the archives of the Franciscan Province in the Philippines or the Archdiocese of Manila, or the Ministerio del Ultramar in Madrid that could corroborate this folk history.
In 1903, Pangil, alongside Famy, was absorbed into the town of Siniloan by virtue of Act No. 939. It was later separated from Siniloan to become a present-day municipality.
This town is separated by the Laguna de Bay from each other. Pangil is 23 kilometers (14 mi) from Santa Cruz, 110 kilometers (68 mi) from Manila, and 71 kilometers (44 mi) from Lucena.
Pangil is politically subdivided into 8 barangays, as indicated in the matrix below. Each barangay consists of puroks and some have sitios.
In the 2024 census, the population of Pangil was 25,318 people, with a density of 560 inhabitants per square kilometer or 1,500 inhabitants per square mile.
Poverty incidence of Pangil (%)
10
20
30
40
2000 30.16
2003 18.97
2006 11.80
2009 7.40
2012 16.15
2015 8.61
2018 5.80
2021 7.08
2023 14.64
Source: Philippine Statistics Authority
The Pangil-Pakil Schools District Office governs all educational institutions within the municipality. It oversees the management and operations of all private and public, from primary to secondary schools.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Pangil”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.