Dasol, Pangasinan
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Dasol is a 4th class municipality in the province of Pangasinan, Philippines. According to the 2000 census, it has a population of 25,381 people in 5,092 households. Dasol is a popular town for the production of commercial salts. Seawater is fed into large ponds and water is drawn out through natural evaporation which allows the salt to be harvested. Dasol Bay occupies the whole coastline of Dasol and it is where the town gets its saltwater.
Dasol is a small town in western Pangasinan, situated in a plateau. It is bounded on the north by the municipalities of Burgos and Mabini, the mineraly-rich Zambales mountains in the east, the municipality of Infanta on the south, and the vast South China Sea on the west. It has an area of about 230 square kilometres.
Traversed by the smoothly paved and comfortable Pangasinan-Zambales Highway, Dasol is 288 kilometers away from Manila via Camiling, Tarlac and 88 kilometers from Dagupan City. Taking the opposite direction via Subic and Olongapo City, Dasol is only about 310 kilometers from Manila. Dasol can be reached by bus or jeepney trips from Alaminos and Santa Cruz. Notable bus companies include Victory Liner, Five Star Bus Co., and Philippine Rabbit.
Economy
The basic livelihood of the town includes salt making, small scale fishing, bagoong making, charcoal making, fruitwine making, and farming (mostly rice crops).An average family raises only PhP 5,561.67 and spends PhP 4,506.58 mostly for basic needs.
Majority of Dasol's income came from commercial salt making, with 14 major salt producers in the municipality.
Dasol is rich in non-metallic resources. It has 360,230,000 m³ of limestones and 5,245 metric tons of guano.
About 0.5 km² of Dasol is used for commercial crops mostly for rice and vegetable production. The municipality have several coconut and mango plantations. Since it lie on the Zambales Mountain Range, the municipality have 6,513 mango fruit bearing trees. One of the plantations is the Carolina Farm and Mango Orchard owned by Menardo Jimenez, former GMA Network president.
Most of Dasol's livestock includes poultry, swine, cattles, goats, and carabaos with 6,370 livestock raisers all across the municipality.
Climate
Dasol lies on the tropical zone with an average temperature of 28.12 °C (82.62 °F). The municipality relies much on solar energy for salt making and dry season starts from November until May. Wet season starts from June until October. Average rainfall is 163.60 mm³Festivals
Dasol celebrates the annual feast its Catholic patron Saint Vincent Ferrer every first Friday of Lent (After Ash Wednesday). Dasol follows the tradition of every Filipino fiesta. At sunrise, a thanksgiving mass is rendered simultatenously in all Roman Catholic Church and Philippine Independent Church locations in Dasol. At 9:00 am, a parade of all public officials and government employees are held at Barangay Poblacion public roads. In the afternoon, an open sports tournament sponsored by the Youth Council are held in the municipal hall compound. By the evening, senior citizen organizations and Filipino-American organizations celebrate a cocktail party at the municipal auditorium. Most of the attendants do ballroom dancing.During the months of April and May barangay-based feasts were celebrated.
Tourist Destinations
- Culebra Island (also known as Snake Island).
- For hardened sun-lovers, the island’s beach has no shade. Excellent shoreline, good for snorkeling and diving. It is also good place for sea snake sight seeing.
- Polo Camaso Islet
- Tambobong Beach.
- Osmeña Beach
- Macalang Beach
- Salabusuban Falls
- Rongaab Cave
History
The town got its name from the medicinal herb "dosol" which abound in the locality during the Spanish period. The leaves of this herbal plant are greenish and oval in shape. It is a tuber relatively very low in height. It was commonly used to cure infected wounds, but was found to have the unusual characteristic of miraculously disappearing (abaning its post) for unknown reason never to be located again. Its name was frequently mispronounced as Dasol by the Spaniards, so that when the place was established as municipality in the 19th Century, Dasol became its official name.Secession from Zambales and other Towns
Together with some other towns that now comprise western Pangasinan, Dasol was then within the territorial jurisdiction of the Province of Zambales. Time came when towns from Infanta up to Bolinao, seceded from the Zambales province, owing to allege lack of concern for the towns' interest and welfare by the Zambales provincial government and joined the Pangasinan province. However, for allegedly the same reason, there was a movement to rejoin Zambales, which clamor was aroused by the incumbency of then President Ramon Magasaysay, a Zambales born president in the middle of 1950s. This proposal wipe out completely when Governor Aguedo Agbayani of Pangasinan became the governor.
As early as 1878, Dasol was not as a municipality as it is now, but was part of today comprises the present municipalities of Mabini, Burgos, and Dasol, which at that time were a part of the province of Zambales. There were few people who lived here. The place now called Mabini was the most thickly populated of the then municipality. The people, in their desire for better living conditions, moved to the southwest. They found good fishing grounds and they decided to stay along the coast in the present barrio of Uli, now a barrio of Dasol.
Shortly after the revolution, the town now called Mabini was separated from the group and the towns of Dasol and Burgos were fused as one, which at the time known as the municipality of San Isidro Putot. In the year 1911, by virtue of Executive Order No. 25, Dasol became a municipality separated from Burgos.
Boundary Issues
Ever since is creation, the boundaries of Dasol with the municipalities of Burgos, Mabini and Infanta remain vague, for what the venerable leaders of Dasol had claimed to be the boundaries then agreed upon and as allegedly borne out by records, are no longer respected by the respective officials of said adjoining municipalities. Instead, they have encroached into Dasol's domain. During the incumbency of Mayor Liceralde, he made an attempt to settle Dasol's boundary with Mabini, but even after two separate conferences between the officials of the two towns were already had, each group was adamant in its own version. Considering that there was no visible sign of a probability for an amicable settlement of the dispute, the idea was abaned so as to give way to court battle. He allegedly said that it was time-consuming to gather relevant documentary evidence (parol evidence no longer available due to the death of reliable witnesses) that would clinch the case for Dasol. The same appears to be true with respect to the other boundary conflicts as herein above referred to.
Political History
| Dasol Elected Officials | ||
|---|---|---|
| Position | Name | |
| Mayor | Angelita O. Jimenez | |
| Vice Mayor | Moises V. Alejos | |
| Councilors | Napoleon C. Fontelera | |
| Noel A. Nacar | ||
| Alethea M. Baraan | ||
| Manuel V. Rivera | ||
| Richard B. Garcia | ||
| Manuel Ruben M. Bunao | ||
| Mehemlias L. Vidal | ||
| Perfecto Fernandez Jr. | ||
| Barangay Captains President | Sergio B. Salanga | |
| Sangguniang Kabataan>Youth Council President | Donna Jayne L. Bustria | |
