The 2025 Hinugyaw Festival celebration of Koronadal City on January 9 focused on giving recognition to the Indigenous Peoples (IPs) of the city.
During the festival, the city also celebrated the “9th Indigenous Peoples Day,” recognizing the contributions of Indigenous communities to its culture, tradition, and history, with an ordinance setting it every January 9.
Hundreds of people from the city’s 12 barangays participated, showcasing the diversity of traditions and heritage within Koronadal’s Indigenous population.
The event also served as a platform for the city government, through its Indigenous Peoples Mandatory Representative (IPMR), to provide an update on initiatives and projects designed to support and uplift the lives of the IPs.
“Mahalaga ang IP community ng Koronadal kasi bahagi kami ng kasaysayan ng lungsod. Hindi naging Koronadal and lungsod kung walang indigenous peoples,” IPMR Antonio Abing said in an interview with the Philippine Information Agency.
(Koronadal’s IP community is important because we are part of the city’s history. Koronadal would not be the city it is today without the indigenous peoples.)
Abing also emphasized the link between the IPs inhabiting the city and Koronadal’s very own identity.
He further cited the long-running presence of Indigenous communities, primarily the Blaan tribe, whose continuous inhabitation of the area has witnessed the growth and become a stakeholder in the city’s own progress.
Abing pointed out that “this journey” began from Koronadal being a small village to its current status as a major city and the regional administrative center of SOCCSKSARGEN.
Data show that the Blaans, including a few resettled Tboli, Tagakaulo, Teduray, and Manobo, consist of 10 percent of Koronadal’s current population.
The Blaan’s historical presence in the Kalondatal Valley dates back to 84 years before the Marbel Resettlement District, a significant milestone in Koronadal City’s development. (SZT – PIA Region 12)
