Sogod (IPA:), officially the Municipality of Sogod (; ), is a 1st income class municipality in the province of Southern Leyte, Philippines. According to the 2024 census, it has a population of 48,815 people.
Sogod is located along the Southern Leyte section of the Pan-Philippine Highway, south of Tacloban City, the regional center of Eastern Visayas. Rugged mountains envelop most of the town's northern terrain with numerous river systems flowing throughout the southern lowlands. Known as the center of trade, commerce and industry in the south-central region of Leyte, Sogod is also home to Southern Leyte State University (SLSU) Main Campus and Saint Thomas Aquinas College (STAC).
Etymology
The name of the municipality originated from the Cebuano word sogod, meaning "to start." Founded as a Catholic mission station by Jesuit priests in 1601, Sogod became a regular municipality on June 10, 1853.
History
The dearth of resource materials brought difficulty in providing a complete historical account of Sogod from the pre-Hispanic era up to today. Most of the references identified in the account were chronicles written by Spanish missionaries – the Jesuits, the Augustinians, and the Seculars (the Franciscans were assigned to parishes of northeastern Leyte and Samar) – who administered the town. At the forefront of colonization, the islands of Leyte and Samar were neglected by the Spanish colonial government which brought short-term revolts and insurrections to the region. In addition, it is worthy to attribute the Catholic Church's influence in the islands which further improved the shaping of cultural, political, economic and spiritual dimension of the people of Sogod.
Pre-Hispanic period
Early annals account that Sogod was first located near the mouth of the Subangdaku River. It was then a satellite territory under the domain of Seilani, which comprises the areas from Bontoc and Sogod to the island of Panaon. Around 1544, due to unfavorable winds, a Spanish expedition headed by Ruy López de Villalobos arrived at the eastern town of Abuyog, Leyte where an aged inhabitant informed Garcia de Escalante Alvarado, the chronicler of the expedition, on the presence of trading posts found in the archipelago:"I asked him [writes Escalante], whether there was a big town anywhere on the island of Abuyo [mistakenly referred by the Spaniards as Leyte] and he said yes, on the other side of the island to the north-west [south-west?] there was a big town called Sugut whither Chinese junks come every year and where there are resident Chinese who have a house for their merchandise. He said that what they buy there is gold and slaves..." On September 6, 1571, Leyte was established as an encomienda with Tandaya as the command post of the Spanish colony in the island.Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, the first Governador-General of the Philippines, assigned Juan de Trujillo as the first encomendero, or land trustee, of Tandaya. Miguel de Loarca, one of the first Spanish conquistadores to arrive in the Philippines and conducted one of the earliest census in the country, affirmed that Sogod was already drafted to the encomienda system in 1582. However, the town was pronounced as Tugud or Tugut:"Island of Baybay". About three (3) leagues [fourteen (14) kilometers from Camotes] farther east lies the island of Baybay, or Leyte, as it is also called. It is a large and well-provisioned island, although the people dress in medriñaque [a fiber from the sago palm in the Philippines]. Leyte is thickly settled; it may have a population of fourteen or fifteen thousand (14,000-15,000) Indians, ten thousand of whom pay tribute because that has been a people hard to conquer. There are twelve (12) encomenderos; but his Majesty owns none of the Indians. This island is about eighty (80) leagues in circumference, and fifteen (15) or sixteen (16) wide. Its principal settlements and rivers are Vaybay, Yodmuc, Leyte, Cavigava, Barugo, Maraguincay [a river and a current village in Tanauan, Leyte (barangay Malaguicay)], Palos, Abuyo, Dulaque, Longos, Bito [a lake bordering the towns of MacArthur and Abuyog in Leyte], Cabalian, Calamocan [the old name of Inopacan, Leyte] and Tugud. This island possesses neither mines nor gold-placers; the only cloth it produces is medriñaque, which, as I have said before, resembles calico, and is made from a kind of wild banana."
The early years of Jesuit evangelization The missionaries of the Order of Saint Augustine (OSA) were the first to Christianize Leyte in 1580. But because they were lacking in number, the mission was given to the care of the priests of the Society of Jesus (SJ) in 1595. The Vice-Provincial of the Jesuit mission in the Philippines, Padre Antonio Sedeño, chose four priests, Pedro Chirino, Antonio Pereira, Juan del Campo, and Cosme de Flores, and one lay brother, Gaspar Garay to reopen the mission of Leyte. Of the five, Padre Chirino was the superior of the expedition. The missionaries arrived in the town of Carigara on the morning of July 16, 1595, the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, from Zebu. They introduced themselves to the encomendero of Carigara, Cristobal de Trujillo, and presided an assembly for the construction of the mission residence there. While the rest of the Jesuits studied Visayan and catechize the natives to the Faith, Padre Chirino and Padre Pereira crossed the central Leyte valley towards the eastern Pacific coast and founded the town of Dulac. Within a span of two years, the Sons of Saint Ignatius of Loyola founded five permanent mission stations: Carigara (July 1595), Dulag (September 1595), Palo (October 1596), Alangalang (May or June 1595) and Ogmoc (1597).
Following the successful establishment of settlements in northern Leyte, the Jesuits began to move southwards around the early 1600s. One of these pastors was Padre Fabrizio Sersali, an Italian Jesuit from Naples and former superior of Carigara and Ormoc. After founding the mission of Cabalian, he and Padre Cristobal Jimenez, then parish priest of Palo in 1595, planned to established mission stations in the settlements of Limasawa, Sogod [in some narratives, the name was spelled as Sogor], and Panaon. But on arriving at Panaon in November 1602, the Jesuits found the town deserted. Padre Sersali assumed that the natives fled to the mountains because they thought that the missionaries were from Cabalian. He also added, in a letter addressed to Padre Diego Garcia, the vice-provincial of the Jesuits in the Philippines, that the villagers see them as cannibals. After surveying the area, the village temple dedicated to the Mag-anitos was burned and a cross was planted at the site. Only Padre Sersali continued to Limasawa. However, upon arriving there, the Christian datu, Bancao have already left the island and settled in Sogod.
After Bancao accepted Padre Sersali in Sogod, the Jesuit began catechizing the villagers to Catholic Christianity. In one of his classes, he noticed that two of Bancao's grandchildren were gravely ill. He immediately requested to the datu that the Last sacrament be administered to them. Seeing the sincerity of the missionaries, Bancao consented and the Jesuits performed the rite to the children. The next morning, Bancao was very pleased to find out that his children were free from their sickness. In gratitude, the family members of the datu were baptized. Afterwards, an improvised chapel of nipa, bamboo and cogon, located near the shore, was constructed in 1603. Bancao and the leaders of the village wanted the missionaries to stay and live with them, but because of missionary work, the priests refused their offer and proceeded to Cabalian. This significant event laid the foundation of Christendom in the town. [The historians Manuel Artigas and Joaquin Gonzales-Chong put the date 1616 as the founding of the mission and settlement of Sogod].
"Sogod, Sogod!" The dark years of Leyte started at the middle of the 15th and 18th centuries when the Mindanao Muslims plundered the south-western and northern shores of the island. Most of the victims were sold as slaves in the markets of Sulu and some were held as hostages. As a result, these marauders were able to extract money from the Spanish civil officials and the Leyte Jesuits for their release.
Accordingly, it was around this period that Sogod begot its name. Since the settlement was frequented by Moro raids, a baluarte [watchtower] was built to warn villagers against the approach of the raiders. There were no Jesuits stationed in southern Leyte at this time and that all commands came from the datu. In such crisis, Bancao, who was, and until now, revered as Mangkaw, emerged among the populace. The son of a certain Mangaris, his presence in Sogod was explained by some Portuguese chroniclers. Around 1563, some Portuguese from Moluccas raided and depopulated Limasawa, with a fleet of eight (8) praus. Eventually, Bancao and a number of his household managed to escape to Sogod, while his brother fled to Butuan for refuge.
Notorious for his defense against the pirates, Bancao was a known net-fisherman. Already a fishing ground that it is today, Sogod then had houses clustered close to shore around the watchtower. Being an expert in the art of casting the net, Laya, he could send out the casting net in a perfect circle in the sea. As the community grew bigger, the residents agitated for a name for their place. Meetings after meetings were held presided by Mangkaw. But every time a meeting is ongoing, a shoal of fish would form a quick shifting shadow beneath the surface. The eyes of the pondering datu kept stalking it, interfering with the discussion. Satisfying his unequalled fisherman's instinct, he would leave the session unattended. The body language of the datu, which portrays an artful slide of the feet, the legs and the hips, while getting a perfect hold of the fishes through his laya would amaze the attendees from the shore. As a father to the community, he shared his catch with the people for the asking, even by strangers. After which, shouts of "Sogod, sogod!" (vernacular for "to begin") would reconvene the meeting. Thus the word "Sogod" became the name of the town.
Although the name Sogod already existed before the 1600s, the Bancao account remains to be the accepted etymological origin of the name of the town. However, it might be deduced that the first name, which is pronounced as (sú.gut.) fits the Escalante description of Sogod being a bustling commercial town of the pre-Hispanic era. The major means of initiating trade during those days were done by barter, that is "to comply," or "to consent" with the suggested value offered by the merchant to the townsfolk of Sogod. Thus, whenever the buyer and the seller came into agreement on the bartered item, the expression was affirmed in Cebuano, "ming-súgut."
The term Tugud, on the other hand, seems like a concealed version of the former. The Spaniards, as accounted by many town histories in Leyte [such as the case of the town of Barugo, Leyte], have difficulty reading and pronouncing Visayan.
Moro attacks Before the Jesuits could speed up the missionary endeavor, the Portuguese came into Leyte through Mindanao, plundering major settlements known to be in alliance with the Spaniards. The Portuguese already sacked vital trading towns in Mindanao, arousing hostility among the Moros against the Europeans and the newly baptized Visayan Christians. As a result, a fleet of seventy caracoas [rowboats], under the command of Datu Buwisan, raided Palo, Dulag and the towns of north-eastern Leyte in August 1603. The pirates held the Jesuit, Padre Sebastian Hurtado, as captive. Fortunately, a storm prevented the onslaught from sacking Sogod and Cabalian.