Santa Barbara, Pangasinan

File:1299Poblacion Central Santa Barbara, Pangasinan 01.jpg

The early settlers of Santa Barbara, like many Malay communities in Southeast Asia, were riverine people. They established their settlements along the banks of the Tolong and other rivers and creeks in the area. Consequently, before Spanish colonization, the town was known as "Tolong," named after its principal river, now called the Sinocalan River.

Santa Barbara is located in the northern part of the fertile Agno Valley and was once part of the ancient territory of Luyag na Kabuloan, ruled by Ari Kasikis during the Spanish conquest. Due to its strategic location, Santa Barbara was one of the early settlements in Pangasinan organized into pueblos by Spanish conquistadores in 1580. This organization was aimed at expediting the pacification of the province and facilitating tribute collection to support the Spanish colonial administration.

By 1741, the town had a significant Christian population. To prevent new converts from reverting to their old beliefs, a church was established with Santa Barbara as its patron saint. The early missionaries named the town Santa Barbara de Tolong. Over time, the residents adopted the name of their patron saint, Saint Barbara, dropping the original name "Tolong."

During the Filipino Revolution against Spanish rule, Santa Barbara served as the headquarters of Daniel Maramba, a local native and commanding officer of the Katipunan forces in central Pangasinan.{{cite web|url=https://stabarbarapangasinan.gov.ph/about-sta-barbara/|title=About Sta. Barbara|accessdate=July 20, 2024|website=Municipality of Sta. Barbara}}

Santa Barbara lies on a plain terrain in the northern part of the Agno River, at the center of Pangasinan. It is just west of the business center of Urdaneta City, with centuries-old mango trees lining the national highway to Santa Barbara. {{convert|9|km}} further west is Dagupan along Lingayen Gulf, and to its south is the town of Malasiqui and beyond it the City of San Carlos.

Santa Barbara is {{convert|24|km}} from Lingayen, {{convert|200|km}} from Manila, {{convert|9|km}} from Malasiqui, {{convert|9|km}} from Mangaldan, and {{convert|18|km}} from Urdaneta.

Santa Barbara is politically subdivided into 29 barangays. Each barangay consists of puroks and some have sitios.

{{Div col|colwidth=15em}}

• Alibago
• Balingueo
• Banaoang
• Banzal
• Botao
• Cablong
• Carusucan
• Dalongue
• Erfe
• Gueguesangen
• Leet
• Malanay
• Maningding
• Maronong
• Maticmatic
• Minien East
• Minien West
• Nilombot
• Patayac
• Payas
• Tebag East
• Tebag West
• Poblacion Norte
• Poblacion Sur
• Primicias
• Sapang
• Sonquil
• Tuliao
• Ventenilla

{{div col end}}

{{Weather box

|location = Santa Barbara, Pangasinan

|width=auto

|metric first = Yes

|single line = Yes

| Jan high C = 31

| Feb high C = 31

| Mar high C = 33

| Apr high C = 34

| May high C = 34

| Jun high C = 33

| Jul high C = 32

| Aug high C = 31

| Sep high C = 31

| Oct high C = 32

| Nov high C = 31

| Dec high C = 31

| Jan low C = 21

| Feb low C = 21

| Mar low C = 23

| Apr low C = 25

| May low C = 25

| Jun low C = 25

| Jul low C = 25

| Aug low C = 24

| Sep low C = 24

| Oct low C = 24

| Nov low C = 23

| Dec low C = 22

|precipitation colour = green

| Jan precipitation mm = 4.3

| Jan rain days = 3

| Feb precipitation mm = 19.1

| Feb rain days = 2

| Mar precipitation mm = 27.3

| Mar rain days = 3

| Apr precipitation mm = 45.2

| Apr rain days = 5

| May precipitation mm = 153.3

| May rain days = 14

| Jun precipitation mm = 271.3

| Jun rain days = 17

| Jul precipitation mm = 411.1

| Jul rain days = 22

| Aug precipitation mm = 532

| Aug rain days = 23

| Sep precipitation mm = 364.4

| Sep rain days = 21

| Oct precipitation mm = 182.5

| Oct rain days = 13

| Nov precipitation mm = 56.3

| Nov rain days = 7

| Dec precipitation mm = 24.4

| Dec rain days = 4

|source 1 = World Weather Online

{{cite web

| url = http://www.worldweatheronline.com/Santa-Barbara-weather-averages/Pangasinan/PH.aspx

| title = Santa Barbara, Pangasinan: Average Temperatures and Rainfall

| publisher = World Weather Online

| accessdate = 31 October 2015}}

| date=October 2015}}

{{clear left}}

{{Philippine Census

| align = left

| title = Population census of {{PH wikidata|name}}

| 1903 = {{PH census population|1903}}

| 1918 = {{PH census population|1918}}

| 1939 = {{PH census population|1939}}

| 1948 = {{PH census population|1948}}

| 1960 = {{PH census population|1960}}

| 1970 = {{PH census population|1970}}

| 1975 = {{PH census population|1975}}

| 1980 = {{PH census population|1980}}

| 1990 = {{PH census population|1990}}

| 1995 = {{PH census population|1995}}

| 2000 = {{PH census population|2000}}

| 2007 = {{PH census population|2007}}

| 2010 = {{PH census population|2010}}

| 2015 = {{PH census population|2015}}

| 2020 = {{PH census population|2020}}

| 2025 =

| 2030 =

| footnote= Source: Philippine Statistics Authority{{PH census|2015}}{{PH census|2010}}{{PH census|2007}}{{LWUA population data}}

}}

Santa Barbara is populated mainly by Pangasinans with a sprinkling of other ethnic groups led by the Ilocanos.

It is largely a suburban community with much of its population densely concentrated in 29 barangays. By the year 2016, the town's population was projected to have reached 86,269, with a growth rate of 3.75 percent per year for the past seven years, faster than the national average.

A high level of self-sufficiency in food is likewise gleaned in the town's minimal rate of malnutrition of only .50 percent severely malnourished out of 5.12 percent malnourished -pre-school children. The public school system is also proud of having an unusually low drop-out rate in the elementary grades and high school.

{{clear left}}

{{PH poverty incidence}}

File:799Balingueo, Santa Barbara, Pangasinan 20.jpg

More than half of the families or roughly 60 percent are farmers who till the northern part of the rich Agno Valley. The average family income as of the 2000 national census, was a low {{Philippine peso|9,662.67|2000|link=yes}} a year. Maybe because the average farming family does not buy, but produce the bulk of its own food, family expenditures were lower at {{Philippine peso|7,545.42}}. The average Santa Barbaran family has a disposable income of over {{Philippine peso|2,000}} a year, despite statistical data that had shown that a family in the Ilocos region needed {{Philippine peso|14,749.00}} of income per year to survive.

The poverty rate in Santa Barbara is high as the average income is even lower than the regional poverty threshold. But food self-sufficiency has saved its town folks from sliding to the ranks of the very poor.

Although a large part of Santa Barbara is fast getting urbanized, the main economic activity remains to farm. Rice remains its main crop with {{convert|6,662|ha}} or close to all its total tillable lands devoted to rice farming. The second most important crop is mango of which the town is famous as the home of age-old Philippine mango seedling nurseries, a veritable home industry in town.

Rice and mango are the only crops that are raised in all its 29 barangays. The third most important crop in a variety of vegetables followed by corn. Legumes and root crops are grown in small quantities.

Their livestock includes cattle, carabao, hogs, goats, and dogs. They likewise raise native chickens for their food and some poultry farms commercially produce chicken layers and broilers.

Out of the farm produce, Santa Barbara has developed its own food processing industry that includes the making of rice cakes like latik and suman, nata-de coco making, and pickles from different fruits.

It likewise has a highly developed clay tile and pottery industry coupled with non-farm-based processing industries like candle and soap making and the making of hollow blocks for construction. The town has one industrial plant, the Ginebra San Miguel gin manufacturing plant in Tebag West barangay along the national highway towards Dagupan.

The town's business and trading center in and around the public market features a variety of wholesale and retail and other services establishments from farm inputs to construction materials. The market serves as the place where its people buy their needs and sell their produce. Transportation between the commercial center and the many barangays is served by a large fleet of individually owned tricycles.

Santa Barbara's close proximity to Urdaneta City, has, however, constrained the growth of its trading sector.

{{clear left}}

Also owing to its suburban location and easy access to three nearby cities, Urdaneta, San Carlos, and Dagupan, Santa Barbara has attracted subdivision developers, both for middle-class and low-cost markets. As of mid-2008, it has attracted to its territory eight different housing projects including subdivisions developed by the company owned by Senate President Manny Villar and a pilot Gawad Kalinga housing project for the very poor embarked by the town government and its private sector partners.

{{More citations needed|date=May 2024}}

File:1434Poblacion Central Santa Barbara, Pangasinan 62.jpg

The town has a total of 137.509 linear kilometers of road network classified into national, provincial, municipal, and barangay roads. All the national highways passing through town and those under the town government have been paved. The {{convert|17|km|sp=us}} of provincial roads are about three-fourths paved while more than half (67.10%) of {{convert|92.5|km|sp=us}} of barangay roads otherwise known as farm-to-market roads, needed concreting.

Unlike paved roads, electricity has reached all of the town's 29 barangays with about 80 percent of all households served. Power rates are much lower than in Metro Manila for both households, commercial and industrial users.

The local government-run Rural Health Unit and its 10 satellite barangay health centers, plus seven private medical clinics and one dental clinic serve the basic health needs of Santa Barbara residents.

{{main|Sangguniang Bayan}}

Santa Barbara is part of the third congressional district of the province of Pangasinan. It is governed by a mayor, designated as its local chief executive, and by a municipal council as its legislative body in accordance with the Local Government Code. The mayor, vice mayor, and the councilors are elected directly by the people through an election which is being held every three years.

File:1838Nilombot, Santa Barbara, Pangasinan 20.jpg

Santa Barbara has an extensive public elementary and high school system. It has a total of 26 elementary schools supervised by two school districts plus 7 public high schools. These are staffed by 418 teachers and other school personnel with a student body of over 15,000 children in any given year.

Their healthy teacher to pupil ratio averaging one to 34 in the elementary grades and one is to 41 in high school and there are minimal drop-out rates of two percent in the elementary grades and less than four in every 100 students that enter high school. This was the state of things in Santa Barbara when the local leadership changed in mid-2007.

The heritage Santa Barbara Parish of the Holy Family Church, built in 1716, is part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Lingayen-Dagupan, Vicariate III.

File:SantaBarbaraPangasinanchurchjfddd.JPG|Façade of the Church

File:SantaBarbaraPangasinanchurchjfccc.JPG|Parish Office and Convent Façade

File:SantaBarbaraPangasinanchurchjf3.JPG|Interior

File:SantaBarbaraPangasinanchurchjf6.JPG|Far view of the altar

File:SantaBarbaraPangasinanchurchjfaaaa.JPG|Interior of the Oratory

File:SantaBarbaraPangasinanchurchjf7.JPG|Oratory

File:SantaBarbaraPangasinanjfx.JPG|Town hall

File:SantaBarbaraPangasinanjfd.JPG|Halls of Justice, Municipal Court

File:SantaBarbaraPangasinanjfccc.JPG|Water district tower

File:Maramba2jf.JPG|Façade of the Don Daniel B. Maramba High School

File:Stabarbarajf35.JPG|Santa Barbara Public Plaza

File:Maramba67jf.JPG|Grave of Daniel Maramba

{{Reflist}}

{{Commons category}}

• [https://www.philatlas.com/luzon/r01/pangasinan/santa-barbara.html Santa Barbara Profile at PhilAtlas.com]
• [http://www.competitive.org.ph/cmcindex/pages/profile/?lgu=Santa%20Barbara%20(PS) Municipal Profile at the National Competitiveness Council of the Philippines]
• [http://pangasinan.gov.ph/the-province/cities-and-municipalities/santa-barbara/ Santa Barbara at the Pangasinan Government Website]
• [http://www.blgs.gov.ph/lgpmsv2/cmshome/index.php?pageID=23&frmIdDcfCode=7&fLguType=CM&frmIdRegion=2&frmIdProvince=21&frmIdLgu=298 Local Governance Performance Management System]
• [{{NSCB detail}} Philippine Standard Geographic Code]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20081120024509/http://www.census.gov.ph/data/census2007/index.html Philippine Census Information]

{{Geographic location

| Centre = Santa Barbara

| North = Mangaldan

| Northeast = Mapandan

| Southeast = Urdaneta

| South = Malasiqui

| Southwest = San Carlos

| West = Calasiao

}}

{{Pangasinan}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:Municipalities of Pangasinan