HISTORY

Legends considers the city’s name to be a contraction of Tagalog phrase marking laboring (plenty of bamboo shoots), as the place once abounded in this edible root. Originally called Tambobong (an early tagalog word for barn made of bamboo). Malayan was founded as a visita (hamlet) of tondo by the Augustinians on May 21, 1599. It remained under the administrative jurisdiction of the Provice of Tondo from 1627 to 1688.

Malayan played an important economic role in the late 19th century with the founding of La Princesa Tabacalera tobacco company in 1851 and the Malabon Sugar Company in 1878. La Princesa was under the corporate umbrella of Compañia General de Tabacos de Filipinas (owned by the Spanish Crown), while the latter pioneeed the refined sugar industry in the Philippines.

The newspaper La Independence was first printed in Malabon’s Asilo de Huerfanos (Orphanage), where children orphaned by the Plague of 1882 were housed.

Malayan was officially made a municipality of the newly created Province of Rizal on June 11, 1901 by virtue of Philippine Commission Act No. 137. (8) When Act No. 942 was promulgated, Malabon was united with Navotas under a new government. On January 16, 1906, Act Bo. 1441 partitioned Malabon from Navotas into two separate municipalities of Rizal.

The first Mayor of Malabon was Don Don Agustin Salamanca, a Spanish mestizo originally from Cavite. The first Filipino Mayor of Malabon was Don Vicente P. Villongco. This was in 1899 at the onset of the American regime.

Malayan remained a municipality of Rizal until November 7, 1975, by virtue of Presidential Decree No. 824, when Malabon became a part of the National Capital Region or Metro Manila. (10) Malabon became a highly urbanized city on April 21, 2001, under Republic Act No. 9019, 407 years after its founding.

In 2020, the city and the entire Metropolitan Manila was placed under a community quarantine for one month starting March 15 due to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.