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Misamis Occidental

The town began life as Layawan, named for the river that still runs through it. In 1884, when it was granted township status, it was renamed Oroquieta after a village in Navarra, Spain, the birthplace of the Franciscan friar Tomás Casado who served as its first Spanish parish priest.

Casado built the convent, the school, the bridges, and the plaza kiosk that is still standing today. He called the place la pueblo de la buena vida, the town of the good life. More than a century later the city still trades on the phrase.

He left in 1898 during the Philippine Revolution. Oroquieta became the provincial capital on 6 January 1930, and in 1942 it served briefly as the capital of the Free Philippines, where President Quezon authorised the printing of the Mindanao emergency currency notes. Cityhood came under Republic Act 5518, inaugurated on the first day of 1970.

Spanish records list it only as the barrio of Tango. The name Tangub is usually traced to the Subanen word tangkub, a bark container for storing rice, though no one has ever proved it.

It was organised as the municipality of Regidor by executive order in December 1929, taking effect on the first day of 1930, the same day the province of Misamis Occidental itself came into being. It took the name Tangub later that year, and became a chartered city on 17 June 1967 under Republic Act 5131, the second city in the province.

What made it famous came much later. Every December the city covers itself in light, and the month-long Festival of Lights has earned it the title Christmas Symbols Capital of the Philippines. Since 2024 it has also been the province's road link to the rest of Mindanao: the 3.77-kilometre Panguil Bay Bridge lands here.

For most of its history this city was called Misamis, and it is where the province got its name. The word is thought to come from the Subanon kuyamis, a variety of coconut.

In 1756 the Jesuit José Ducos built a fort at the mouth of Panguil Bay, the Fuerte de la Concepción y del Triunfo, to hold off raiders coming across from Lanao. Its coral stone walls are still standing, and everyone here just calls it the Cotta.

After the war the town was chartered as a city under Republic Act 321 on 16 July 1948, the fourth city in Mindanao after Zamboanga, Davao and Marawi. The charter also renamed it Ozamiz, for José Ozámiz, the province's first governor and later a senator.

The harbour that made it worth defending still does the same work. Ozamiz port is the principal outlet for the region's minerals and produce, and for most visitors it is the front door to the province.