The Cagayan Valley
Region II is defined by the Cagayan River. The Province of Cagayan occupies the
lower course of the river and the northeast corner of the island of Luzon (with
a few offshore islets). Cagayan's area is 9,003 km². Its population was 952,000
(by the 2000 census) in 29 towns, of which Tuguegarao is the capital.
Archaeology
indicates that the Cagayan Valley has been inhabited for half a million years,
though no human remains of any such antiquity have yet appeared. The earliest
inhabitants are the Agta, or Atta, food-gatherers who roam the forests without
fixed abodes. A large tract of land has lately been returned to them. The bulk
of the population are of Malay origin. For centuries before the coming of the
Spanish, the inhabitants traded with Indians, Malays, Chinese, and Japanese. In
the nineteenth century the prosperity found in tobacco cultivation caused many
Ilokano to settle here. Tobacco is still a major factor in the economy of
Cagayan, though a special economic zone and free port has been created to
strengthen and diversify the provincial economy.
Cagayan has much
to offer visitors: beaches, swimming, snorkeling, skin-diving, fishing in the
river and the sea, hiking in primeval forest, mountain-climbing, archaeological
sites, the remarkable collection of the provincial museum, the Callao Caves,
and many fine churches. Even here there are fortifications built to protect the
inhabitants from raids by the Mara.
The Philippine
Republic's Region II, Cagayan Valley, contains two landlocked provinces,
Quirino and Nueva Vizcaya. Both are relatively small in size (3057 km2 for
Quirino, 4081 km2 for Nueva Vizcaya) and population (147,000 and 365,000,
respectively, by the 2000 census). They are ruggedly mountainous and heavily
forested. Nueva Vizcaya is the remnant of the southern province created when
Cagayan Province was divided in two in 1839. They are ethnically and
linguistically diverse, with a substrate of Agtas, Negritos who are
food-gatherers with no fixed abodes, overlaid by Ilongots and others in a
number of tribes, some of whom were fierce head-hunters (they have given up the
practice), with the latest but largest element of the population being Ilokano.
Nueva Vizcaya
comprises 15 towns; Bayombong is the capital. Agriculture in both has until
recently consisted of slash-and-burn cultivation of corn and maize, though more
stable cultivation of vegetables and fruits is becoming established. They
produce logs and are trying to manage their forest resources so that production
can be sustained indefinitely. They have deposits of gold, silver, copper,
iron. Nueva Vizcaya has sand and clay.
At Balete Pass in
Nueva Vizcaya the retreating Japanese under General Tomoyuki Yamashita dug in
and held on for three months against the American and Filipino forces who
eventually drove them out; the pass is now called Dalton Pass in honor of
General Dalton, USA, who was killed in the fighting.
Nueva Vizcaya was
probably named after Biscay (English: Biscay, Basque: Bizkaia) province in
northern Spain. In this case there is some vexillological relationship between
them, as the flag of New Biscay bears the arms of Biscay impaled on its seal.
The Cagayan
Economic Zone Authority (CEZA) is in Santa Ana, Cagayan.
The province of
Isabela is the richest in Cagayan Valley. It was the Top 10 Richest Province in
the Philippines in 2011, being the only province of Northern Luzon to be
included in the list.