Lubuagan, officially the Municipality of Lubuagan is a 4th class municipality in the province of Kalinga, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 9,323 people.[3]
Lubuagan Municipality, once the seat of the National Government from March 6 to May 17, 1900, during the time of Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, was among the eight (8) municipalities of the new province of Kalinga. It is located at 800 metres (2,600 ft) above sea level in the southern part of Kalinga and in the heart of the Cordillera. It has a land area of 23,420 hectares (57,900 acres). Some of its younger generation have migrated either in the lowland plains of Tabuk or in other provinces in search for income and employment opportunities.
Spanish Rule was never established in Lubuagan during its 300 year occupation of the Philippines. However, Emilio Aguinaldo, president of the erstwhile First Philippine Republic made Lubuagan the seat of government for 73 days, from 6 March to 18 May 1900, before his escape and eventual capture at Palanan, Isabela, on 23 March 1901.[5][6]
Upon the assumption of the United States of America as colonial power over the Philippines. The Township of Lubuagan was established in 1905 and administered via the sub provincial government of Lepanto-Bontoc sub-province. Lt. Governor E. A. Eckman, an American ex-soldier was the Chief Executive of the sub-province.
In 1907, Kalinga was separated and organized as a distinct sub-province from Lepanto-Bontoc. Franklin Walter Hale was appointed the first Lt. Governor to establish a civil government in Kalinga.
Bulanao, a thriving community of Tubog at the time, the site of which is the present homestead of Abe Umao was the target of Hale as the center of his administration in Kalinga. But shortly thereafter, a cholera and malaria epidemic broke out in the latter part of 1907 and continued in 1908 which almost wiped out the populace. Hale himself caught malaria so that he and his family were forced to leave Bulanao.