Dingle (, locally /ˈdiŋliʔ/), officially the Municipality of Dingle (, , ), is a 1st municipal income class municipality in the province of Iloilo, Philippines. According to the , it has a population of people.
The town is known for its baroque-architecture church and its archaeological cave sites, such as the Lapuz Lapuz Cave, famous for revealing the hunter-gatherer lives of the ancient people of Panay.
Etymology
The name Dingle is believed to have been formed by joining the Old Karay-a words dingding for wall, and maingle for hard. This hard wall refers to a rock formation found on the banks of the Jalaur River in barangay Namatay situated in the eastern part of the municipality. Locally, this hard wall is known as dalipe or tampi.
Before the Spanish contact, the town was known as Sumandig after an Ati datu of the same name. The name means "to lean one thing to another" in the Karay-a language. The settlement however was officially called Baong upon its establishment as a visita in 1593 by the Augustinians. The name comes from the physical form of the settlement which was situated in a depression surrounded by low rising hills. The said name translates to kawa or vat, a cooking utensil similar to, but very much bigger than a carajay. Baong is also a Dioscoridea named Cultivated Dioscorea, and papillary Dioscorea by Fray Francisco Manuel Blanco.
History
Early history
At around 1212, the site of modern-day Dingle was under the jurisdiction of Simsiman. The area was first inhabited by the Ati or Panay Negritos with Pulpulan as chief. Under Marikudo, son of Pulpulan, Simsiman remained as the seat of government of the Ati polity. The settlement was eventually called Sumandig after an Ati ruler whose domain covered the areas along Mount Putian from current-day barangay Lincud in the north to Suague river in the south and from the creek up to present-day barangay Alegria in the west. Sumandig's seat of government is present-day sitio Mananiw in barangay Tabugon, Dingle.
Buyóng Labaw Donggon (lit. "Most Honored"), the first Malay datu of Sumandig in the 29,000-verse epic Hinilawod and "the most high god, all-powerful, magnanimous, a god of gifts and graces" in the Suludnon society and in the old Panayan religion, built his home with his wife Uwang Matan-ayon (lit. "Generous One") beside the spring of Moroboro in Dingle. Matan-ayon was a daughter of Datu Paiburong, the first ruler of Irong-irong.
Sumandig, which was then a district of Sibucao, had a rock believed to have been Labaw Donggon's throne. There, wedding ceremonies were held by the natives to ask for his blessings. It is said that the god took two lovers whose parents were not in favor of their love, for 25 years the lovers adored each other without ever seeing the light of the sun, "living in the fantastic mansion of Dinglian divinity"; so those who yearn for true love, sacrifice offerings before his altar. Young maidens sigh and exclaim, "Abao, Labao Dung-gon, taga-i aco bana! (Oh, Labaw Donggon, give me a husband!)" The Augustinian Hernando Morales destroyed the rock in 1598, removing every bit of it. It was noted that there were still native mundos of Dingle who worshipped Labaw Donggon even until the last years of Spanish rule in the Philippines. These worshippers would stealthily enter a certain cave in the evening of a certain day of the year in order to render homage and to offer burnt offerings of poultry, doves, rice, bananas, and pigs to the ancient Visayan god. It took the Augustinians two centuries to uproot the custom of offering sacrifices to Labaw Donggon.
Spanish colonial era
In 1586, Datu Disayaran, the chief of Siwaragan who traces his descent from Labaw Donggon of Sumandig, and his son Datu Bantugan, led the serious abortive revolt against the Spaniards in Dingle, known at this point as Baong, by the descendants of the settlers from Borneo, the native priests called maaram, and the marauding Ati who refused conversion to the Catholic faith. Said revolt was the first revolt against Spanish rule in Panay.
Fray Diego Álvarez of the Augustinians founded Baong as a visita of Pototan in 1593. Pototan, a village then ruined, was briefly annexed to Baong after the former's population significantly decreased. Accordingly, a church was built in Baong. Around this time, Baong had a population of more than 1,000 and was a well-known place for recreation. Baong became a pueblo on its own right on April 23, 1611. The Estado of 1612 indicates that Baong had two priests to attend 800 tributos or 2,400 souls.
1614 Dutch Attack
In 1614, a Dutch fleet of 10 galleons under the command of Joris van Spilbergen were seen in Iloilo waters. Fray Diego de Oseguera, parish priest of Baong, and Fray Juan de Lecea, the Augustinian prior of Ogtong, came to Baong with supplies and did much to placate the people of Baong who were completely restless after seeing how little the Spaniards could do against the Dutch. The friars brought the valuable things of the convent of Ogtong to Baong into a karacoa, while the rest were buried which they later found. What was supposed to be a day's journey, the group reached Baong in two days. Fray Alonso de Méntrida was first to arrive in Baong from Ogtong where he was welcomed by Fray Diego Oseguera. Although the convent was poor, they acted as if they were wealthy. They shared all the rice and beef of the convent with all the fugitives who kept coming every moment, without taking account of anything. 300 native allies who joined the Spaniards have been cornered and were unable to go anywhere because the natives were also at war. Through the intervention of the friars, the townspeople were led back to the pueblo after they have hunkered down from the mountains while soldiers were dying from lack of food after all the rice and every supply in the convent have been consumed. Fray Francisco Encinas of the Society of Jesus also came to hide in the convent of Baong.
In 1617, the prior of Baong was asked to contribute an annual rent of 10 pesos to the Monastery of Santo Niño in Cebu.
In 1628, the pueblo of Baong and its visitas had two Augustinian priests and a population of 2,400. In 1629, however, the pueblo was nearly depopulated because of the incursion of the Ati and run-away slaves who destroyed farms and killed most of the settlement's population. Although the pueblo endured, only about 600 of the inhabitants survived. As it is remote from trade and situated inland in Panay, residence here was regarded as exile. During the same year, Baong was made a mere visita of Dumangas. This was motivated by the decrease in population, as many townspeople had left because of fear of the Atis, the so-called remontados, who would suddenly come down from the mountains to plunder their ricefields.
In 1634, Fray Alonso de Méntrida managed to secure a seemingly independent existence for the settlement but in 1641, the pueblo became so small when it was again depopulated that it was annexed as a visita to Laglag, present-day Dueñas, and remained as such for 182 years. Not even the report of Augustinian Father Provincial Pedro Velasco in 1760 mentioned it. For the next two centuries, Baong will be sharing its history with Laglag.
Re-establishment of the pueblo
On March 8, 1820, with the support of 31 cabezas de barangay of the principalía or the hispanized Christian descendants of the pre-colonial datus of Dingle and certification of the parish priest of Laglag, Fray Juan Frayle, OSA (Dingle cura párroco, 1829–1849), a petition for the re-elevation of Dingle into a pueblo was submitted to Miguel Calderón, alcalde mayor (equivalent to the present-day provincial governor) of Iloilo, through the leadership of the Dingleño teniente mayor (deputy gobernadorcillo) of Laglag, Don Juan Marcelino Dayot (Dingle gobernadorcillo, 1829–1835).
On April 28, 1823, Dingle was thus re-elevated into a pueblo after five years under Dumangas and 182 years under Laglag. Its first gobernadorcillo in almost 200 years was Don Julio Dator (1823–1827). In 1829, during the tenure of Don Juan Marcelino Dayot as gobernadorcillo and Fray Juan Frayle as parish priest of Laglag, under which parish Dingle still belonged to, construction of the present church made of granite stone quarried from nearby Bulabog Putian mountains commenced. In 1838, the pueblo had 3,736 people. Two of the more notable gobernadorcillos of Dingle who sold some of their vast landholdings to pay for the tributes of their constituents were Don Magdaleno Muyco (1835–1843, 1851–1853) and Don Luís Cantalicio Dayot (1853–1861, 1869–1873), respectively better known to the Dingleanons as Tan Mano and Tan Cantaling.
On November 21, 1849, governor-general Clavería issued a decree requiring Filipinos to adopt Spanish and indigenous names from the Catalogo Alfabetico de Apellidos for civil and legal purposes. Upon the orders of Iloilo alcalde mayor Felipe Combe, surnames with the same initial letters as the initial letters of the corresponding pueblo were to be assigned. As such, surnames starting with the digraphs da- and de- were distributed to Dingle, e.g. Daguro, Dairo, Dayatan, Deaño, Deatrás.
On August 16, 1850, by order of governor-general Urbiztondo, Dingle became a parish independent from that of Laglag, recently renamed as Dueñas in 1845. Its first patron was St. Monica. It was later changed to the Assumption of Our Lady, and finally, to St. John the Baptist. In 1865, Fray Fernando Llorente y Santos ordered the continuation of the construction of the current structure of the Parish Church of St. John the Baptist which was completed in 1886. Fray Llorente, during the time when he was parish priest from 1865 to 1874, had a cemetery with a chapel built under his direction, and two schools for children of both sexes, and formed an orchestra and musical band of 42 boys whom he instructed by himself. Fray Melquiades Arizmendi continued the completion of the church from 1876 to 1887, while Fray Rafael Murillo completed the construction from 1887 to 1893. The construction of the church from Fray Llorente covered the terms of gobernadorcillos Domingo Osano, Luís Cantalicio Dayot, and Santiago and Tomás Sanico. The bell tower, however, remains unfinished to this day. In 1896, the population of Dingle swelled to 12,504.
Cry of Lincud
During the second phase of the Philippine Revolution against Spain during the Spanish–American War, Dingle staged the first armed uprising in the province of Iloilo and in the island of Panay. The leaders of the victorious uprising were Gen. Adriano Hernández y Dayot, Gen. Julio Hernández y Dayot, Maj. Estefano Muyco y Dayot, Maj. Nicolás Roces, Lt. Col. Francisco Jalandoni, and Col. Quintín Salas who fought together with 600 revolucionarios. Now known as the "Cry of Lincud," the revolt commenced at the house of José Dayot in Barrio Lincud on October 28, 1898. Today, this event which started the Philippine Revolution in Iloilo is commemorated as a special non-working holiday. Through Presidential Proclamation 697, October 28, 2024 was declared a special non-working day in celebration of Cry of Lincud.
American occupation
In December 1900, a fire destroyed all the buildings in town save for the stone church. Following the assistance obtained by Don Maximiliano Dayot from the American government in Iloilo, the town was rebuilt, but the structures were of bamboo and nipa owing to the difficulty of obtaining lumber. In the same year, the town was recorded to have a population of 11,000.