Esperanza, Philippines

History

In early 1915, a group of first settlers (Conag, Arabis, Pelayo and Serafin families) sailed from northern Cebu using their paddled banca and settled the place. The settlers actively cultivated the area into a productive agricultural community, developing the place until eventually called “Halabangbaybay”. Halabangbaybay means [Long Beach], due to its elongated shoreline and white fine sand. Halabangbaybay at that era was a green-mountainous forest community. It was not recognized as a barrio or even a mere sitio.

In the 1940s, Halabangbaybay became a sitio of the barrio Alegria in Cataingan. Soon after, it was converted into a barrio named Esperanza as a barangay of Placer in 1948 (the year the barrio Placer was separated from Cataingan and constituted as its own municipality) and Pablo M. Conag served as the “teniente del Barrio”. The name Esperanza means "Hope" in reference to the first group of migrants in 1915 who hoped for a better life by settling on the present-day area of Esperanza.

In the mid-1950s, Lawyer Alfonso E. Conag (one of the sons of Felimon Serafin Conag) initiated vigorously and pursued for the conversion of Esperanza into an independent municipality. Esperanza officially became an independent municipality on by virtue of Executive Order No. 337 of May 7, 1959.

From the History section of Esperanza, Masbate on Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0.