1. History
Laya is the heart of the valley first known as the “Gamonang country”, the first people who inhabited the vast valley. These people were said to be unfriendly and hostile to other tribes. This attitude caused the ire of the other Sub-tribes living on the western and northern hillsides who formed a pact among themselves to wage war against this unfriendly tribe. With their joint efforts, they staged relentless raid against Gamonang Tribes in the valley killing their men, running away with their women and burning their houses. Those who escaped death fled to faraway places leaving the valley desolate to become heaven of wild deer, wild pigs, and wild carabaos.
In the early 1920s, the Provincial Government of the old Mountain Province recruited from Lubuagan and one was recruites from Tobog Sub-tribe by the name Gullit. These recruites chose to settle the heart of the valley and established their common camp beside a creek where they found a grass whose leaves when crushed smelled like ginger or “Laya” (luya in Tagalog). So these early settlers called the settlement Laya.
The five recruits in Lubuagan all perished one after the other from malaria, leaving only Gullit from the Tobog Sub-tribe to continue tilling the area. Sometime later he went to Balawag, his former residence to take his family to stay with him in the settlement in Laya. He became the father of the late Kapitan Arsenio Baac and Antonia Baac Tubban.
When Public Land Survey Party No.3–A came to subdivide the valley, they called their activity “LAYA PLAIN SUBDIVISION, PLS–93”. The government’s campaign for settlers successfully attracted people from many lowland provinces to come to the valley, a great number of them to choose to settle in Laya where a complete elementary school was established.
Sometime in 1960, a strong typhoon hit Tabuk making the Chico River to over flow its banks and caused flood which inundated a wide portion of Barrio Laya. These caused many of the residents to seek refuge in higher places like Sitio Dilag which a part of Barrio Laya. As residents of sitio Dilag and sitio Riverside increased tremendously through the coming in more settlers, the people in these areas clamored for their places to be created into separate, distinct and independent local government units to facilitate the delivery of basic services to them. In response to the clamor, the Municipal Council of Tabuk in 1962 adopted a resolution recommending to the Provincial Board of Mountain Province the creation of Barrios Dilag, Laya East and Laya West of the old Barrio Laya. The Resolution lacked basic important requirements for which reason the Provincial Board returned without action for compliance with requirements. However, when the resolution was received by the Secretary at the time, he kept in his filing cabinet instead of presenting to the Municipal Council for appropriate action.
With the change of the local government administration in 1972, the new Municipal Council Secretary unintentionally came across the resolution which was returned by the Provincial Board of Mountain Province ten years earlier. Only then it was discovered that Barrios Dilag, Laya East and Laya West were not legitimately created, yet they have their complete barrio officials who were appointed by the Municipal Mayor shortly upon adoption of the recommendatory resolution for the creation of these Barrios.
When the Municipal Secretary presented this discovery to the Municipal Council, the council took action with dispatch and adopted a Resolution reiterating the creation of the local government units, giving the actual metes and bound of each barrio which were missing in the original Resolution and which caused its return without action. On receiving the Resolution, the Provincial of Board of Kalinga-Apayao took immediate favorable action adopted Provincial Board Resolution No. 15, dated January 26, 1973, creating Barrios Laya East, Dilag and Laya West. Then did these barangays begin to legitimately exist as separate, distinct and independent local government units.
Those who served as local chief executives of the place from the time it was a single Barrio were: Mr. Mamauag (one name), Mr. Dawadao (one name), Mr. Alberto Sangdaan, Mr. Baruzo and Mr. Felix Putic who also served before World War 11. After the war came in Mr. Severo Bullongan, a respected leader of the TOBOG Sub-tribe, who served for three consecutives terms. He was succeeded by the following: Mr. Genaro Daodaoen, Arsenio G. Diego, Francisco Belandres, Pedro Bodanio, Cesario Domingo, Manuel A. Credo and Daniel Pagtud, the present Barangay Chairman.
II. Creation – January 26, 1973
III. Land Area – 3.55 sq. km.
IV. No. of sitios/puroks – 7 sitios
V. Population (2007 NSO census) – 2,530
VI. Major Products - Rice
