Silay

Silay City is a 2nd class city in the province of Negros Occidental, Philippines. According to the August 1, 2007 census, it had a total population of 120,365 people. It has a sizable commercial and fishing port and is the site of the new Bacolod-Silay Airport, which replaced the Bacolod City Domestic Airport.

Silay had been often referred to as the "Paris of Negros" due to its large collection of perfectly preserved heritage houses. More than thirty of these houses have been declared as historical landmarks. Silay is the second Philippine city to have been declared a museum city, next to Vigan in Ilocos Sur.

Etymology

The appellation Silay is derived from the name of a tree which grew abundantly in the area. The Kansilay is the city's official tree.

The legend of Princess Kansilay

A local legend tells of how Silay City got its name. It is said that in the days of the datus and rajahs, there once lived a princess named Kansilay. An attack on the settlement by pirates was thwarted when the princess bravely led the people in the village's defense. The fight was furious and the princess fought like a seasoned warrior. Murals that used to grace some of the city's public buildings depict her as a fierce fighter wielding a huge talibong, a short native single-edged sword. The pirates were routed, but at the cost of the princess' life. Her paramour arrived in time to see her die. In grief, the people lovingly buried her. To their surprise, a tree grew right over her grave, the first Kansilay tree, a final gift from the brave princess.

History

Spanish colonization

Silay was first settled in 1565 under the name "Carobcob", which means "to scratch" in Kinaray-a. In early writings, the settlement was also referred to as "Calubcub", "Caracol" and "Caraco".[1] The last two variations mean "snail" or a "spiral" in Spanish; the villagers mostly engaged in harvesting tuway shells from the beaches. Carobcob was built near the mouth of a creek; nothing is left of the village today. Carobcob was granted as an encomienda to Cristobal Nuñez Paroja, one of the 17 soldiers of Miguel Lopez de Legaspi on January 25, 1571.

In the second half of the century, pirate raids escalated in the island, forcing the Corregidor of Negros to adopt the policy of flight rather than resistance. People left their homes sometime in 1760 and settled in a new location between two small rivers, Matagoy and Panaogao. A paloisades or estacada (Spanish for "fortification") was constructed to protect the populace from Moro pirates. The place is now known as Sitio Estaca, its name derived from the Spanish word estacada.

Cultural and political aspects

Silay City had been known in the past as the "Paris of Negros" and the "cultural and intellectual hub of Negros" due to the residents' love for knowledge and works of art, and its collection of heritage mansions built during the height of the Philippine sugar industry's success, of which Negros was the center. Most notable among these houses is Balay Negrense, the mansion of the son of the first Negrense sugar baron, Yves Leopold Germain Gaston.

Silay became a chartered city on June 12, 1957 by virtue of Republic Act 1621.

On June 7, 2003, Silay City became the first local government unit in the Republic of the Philippines to hold a referendum through a People's Initiative approving the 2003 annual executive budget.

Today, Silay City is listed by the Department of Tourism as one of its 25 tourist destinations in the Philippines. It is considered the seat of arts, culture and ecotourism in Western Visayas.