A Wild Fickle River - the Aklan
by D. I. Ilio Sr.

Part IV

Children bathing at a tributary of the Aklan River in the Malinao side of the alluvial plain. The main Aklan River can be seen beyond - between the sand bar and the vegetation in the Banga side of the plain in the background.

This unpredictable and uncontrollable shifting of the course of the Aklan River between Banga and Malinao towns dicitated the final locations of these two towns as will be told here.

It is said that the original site of the Banga settlement was the present sitio of Opong-opong a couple of kilometers west of the present Banga poblacion and aobut the same distance from another settlement called Malinao which stood on a hillock now called Guinsimbahanan father west. The creek called Banga started from a spring called Dagandan on the east slope of Guinsimbahanan hill and drained eastward to the Banga settlement and probably joined the Aklan to the east which in those early centuries passed along the food of Manduyog hill toward Tigayon and Guicod. The vicinity of Banga creek teemed with banga trees of the same species at the areca (bunga) palm.

But then, through the years, the Aklan kept shifting its course westward, threatening to overrun the Banga community thus the inhabitants moved also westward adjacent to the Malinao settlement and the two settlements became one community. The community grew and prospered with several barrios establishing themselves along the banks of both the Aklan and Malinao rivers.

When the Spanish came to Aklan from Cebu in the late 1560s to forage for food, they met with the native chieftain Malanga who was based at Lagingbanwa. The Spaniards asked Malanga to gather one thousand (sangka libo) of the natives who were baptized into the faith. Thus the community of Kalibo in Aklan was established. Other towns were founded like Ibajay and Batan in the 1600s and later.

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