Esperanza, Masbate
| Esperanza | |
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| Municipality | |
Gawas beach, Esperanza
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 Map of Masbate with Esperanza highlighted |
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.svg)
 Esperanza
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| Coordinates: 11°44′N 124°03′E / 11.733°N 124.050°ECoordinates: 11°44′N 124°03′E / 11.733°N 124.050°E | |
| Country | Philippines |
| Region | Bicol (Region V) |
| Province | Masbate |
| District | 3rd district |
| Barangays | 20 |
| Government | |
| • Mayor | Ian Peter S. Sepulveda |
| Area | |
| • Total | 67.49 km2 (26.06 sq mi) |
| Population (2010) | |
| • Total | 17,357 |
| • Density | 260/km2 (670/sq mi) |
| Time zone | PST (UTC+8) |
| Zip Code | 5407 |
| Dialing code | 56 |
Esperanza is a municipality in Masbate Province, the Philippines, with a population of 17,357 people in the 2010 census. About 60% of the population lives along the coastline, most of whom are fishermen. It is about 4 hours travel south of Masbate City with some roads and highways still undeveloped.
Esperanza has several beaches, among them Gamay Na Baybay Beach, Talisay (Punta) Beach and Manok Manok Beach.
Esperanza is politically subdivided into 20 barangays.
People in the 1970s to early 1990s were heavily dependent on the water resources in the so-called Kapayawan, which means "deep well". It is the only safe water source for the majority of the people living in the area. In 2000, Esperanza was finally connected to the electricity grid supplied by MASELCO which benefited 80% of the households in the area.
In 2006, President Gloria Arroyo defined Esperanza to be the most accessible town in Masbate going to Samar, Leyte and Cebu. That is the primary reason why the National Government constructed the port to serve as a roll-on/roll-off (RORO) gateway.
Esperanza is about Four (4) hours land travel South from Masbate City, the last municipality in the south located between Placer in north-west and Pio V Corpus in southeast and considered as among the smallest in the island. In early days, Esperanza was a former one of the barangay in Placer.
Early 1915, the migrants [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 barrio Alegria, Cataingan, Masbate and converted into a barrio named Esperanza as component barangay of Placer and Pablo M. Conag served as the “Tiniente del Barrio”. [ESPERANZA which means “HOPE”, PAGLA-UM in vernacular and PAG-ASA in Tagalog]
In the mid 1950s, Lawyer Alfonso E. Conag [One of the sons of Felimon Serafin Conag] initiated vigorously and pursued for the conversion of Barrio Esperanza into an Independent Town.
On July 2, 1959 - the set of Municipca Officials starts hold office and Santos Edem Conag, the eldest son of Felimo Serafin Conag became the 1st elected Mayor..
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Wikipedia