National Historical Commission of the Philippines(NHCP)

This is in reference to your request for documents containing the history and etymology of the Municipality in Pangasinan for the formulation of its CDP. Based on our research, Mangatarem was originally established as a visita of San Carlos, Pangasinan, in 1827, and was fully separated and reconstituted as an independent pueblo or town on its own right in 1835, eight years later. Don Ambrocio Gutierrez was appointed as Mangatarem's first gobernadorcillo, while Father Joaquin Perez, a Dominican friar, was designated parish priest of the local church, which was dedicated under the patronage of Saint Raymond of Penyafort. Regarding the origin of the town's name, there are two accepted local traditions, none of which are verified: One folkloric tradition states that the name is a combination of the words "mangga" (mangoes) and "tirem" (oysters), whereas another states that it comes from the Pangasinan word to the many wars fought by the town's earliest settlers against the Negritos from the highlands of the Zambales mountain range, with the heads of the casualties severed from their bodies using bladed weapons and impaled on sharpened bamboo stakes. You may look into Rosario Mendoza Cortes' three-volume work on the history of Pangasinan province - copies of which are available in our Serafin D. Quiason Resource Center and databank for a more elaborate and comprehensive history of Mangatarem, as well as its neighboring towns.