Tandag: from a formidable cotta to an emerging ciudad!

There’s little in Tandag that says it’s now a city. Unless the yellow tricycles that bear the mandatory “Tandag City” imprint on their header and some spanking sports utility vehicles in red plates count for urban indicators.

But this is expected. After all it was only in June 2007 that Republic Act 9392 converted Tandag from a first class town to a fifth class component city, making it Surigao del Sur’s second city after Bislig. And now that the annual internal revenue allotment has leapt from 60M to 218M, Tandaganons expect their officials to implement projects that will boost Tandag’s new status.

Actually things are looking up. From January to August this year, Mayor Alexander Pimentel had issued 820 business permits, up by 16% over the same period last year. The Department of Trade and Industry had also registered 163 firms that generated 50.43M investments and 539 jobs, noting positive growths in the manufacturing (300%), processing (36%), production (1,173%) and service (88%) sectors. Only the trading sector shrank by 42%.

That the service sector accounted for 60% of investments and 40% of jobs explains the mushrooming of restaurants, hotels, resorts, coffee and specialty shops, enterprise and cooperative banks, financial transfer entities, lending investors, pawnshops, couriers, internet and gaming cafes, and other information technology facilities. Construction will continue to boom as most vacant lots carry an “on-this-site-will-soon-rise” sign.

Mayor Ayec Pimentel bared that a dual-structure, two-storey city hall will be erected three kilometers north of Tandag, near the airport in Barangay Awasian, on a 1.6-hectare lot acquired for P8.1M. Construction starts on November this year and ends in 150 calendar days, with Land Bank of the Philippines financing two-thirds of the P62M project cost.

As tourism centerpiece of Tandag, the Esplanade is being constructed. Part of Tandag City’s shore protection project, it stretches to about 2.6 kilometers. So far, only 150 lineal meters had been completed, costing P25.7M.



Tandag is rich in history. One of the three former Spanish military outposts in Mindanao, it was once the capital of the Spanish region known as Caraga comprised mainly of territories extending to the east of Gingoog City and some parts of Davao Oriental. Although early records show that a few Recollect friars settled in Tandag in 1622, there’s evidence that the Spanish cotta called the Real Fuerza de San Jose de Tandag or the Royal Fort of Tandag was established much earlier, in 1609, by a certain Juan dela Vega.

The fort stood where the present commercial complex sits, near the town plaza. Made of piled anapog rocks about five fathoms high, it faced the twin Linungaw Islands, the better to provide the Spanish soldiers with a vantage view of the sea that Moro pirates took as route to attack Tandag. Within this stone wall, a settlement was established from where the town of Tandag rose.

Moro pirates were said to raid Tandag frequently to snatch their brothers held captive inside the cotta. This prompted the Spanish soldiers to fit it with more cannons and reinforce its stone walls. But still the Moro pirates overran it in September 1757. Subsequent raids---in 1758, 1761, and 1767--- however failed because the natives and the Spanish fort defenders fought off indefatigably the Moro pirates. And it was only in the Second World War that the ancient Real Fuerza de San Jose de Tandag was completely destroyed, leaving not a stone in place as developments encroached on its resting place and buried most of its remnants.

Tandag became the designated provincial capital and seat of government of Surigao del Sur in 19 June 1960 when then Congressman Reynaldo P. Honrado authored House Bill 3058, also known as Republic Act 2786, which divided the province of Surigao into Norte and Sur.

As emerging city, Tandag is fast changing its landscape. But traces of Spanish and pre-war architecture can still be seen particularly in the residences near the town hall and the San Nicolas de Tolentino Cathedral.

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(note: On the week that Inquirer was to publish this last year, the Supreme Court handed its decision reverting Tandag to its municipal status. the Inquirer-Mindanao bureau chief told me to recast it; I haven't because my good friend, city councilor/topnotch lawyer/furniture designer/grammar police Andrei Andresan, has yet to provide me with the details of the Supreme Court decision and Mayor Ayec's gameplan.

This article must not be used, in part on in whole, without my permission.)