Antipolo

The city was named after the tipolo (breadfruit) tree (Artocarpus blancoi), which was in abundance in the area.

Franciscan missionaries arrived in Antipolo in 1578, and built a small church on what is now Boso-Boso Church. They were soon replaced in 1591 by the Jesuits, who organized the village into a parish. By 1601, The Christian population of Antipolo had grown to about 3,000 as the indigenous Dumagat population dwindled and moved deeper into the interiors.

An uprising of Manila's Chinese residents reached Antipolo in 1602. It led to the razing of the church.

On March 25, 1626, the image now known as the Virgin of Antipolo was brought from Acapulco, New Spain (now Mexico) by Governor-General Juan Niño de Tabora, who relinquished the image to the Jesuits for Antipolo's church.

In 1650, the village was organized into a town and became part of Tondo Province. When the province was divided in 1853, Antipolo became a part of the District of San Mateo de los Montes, which later became the District of Morong.

The Recollects took over Antipolo in 1864. It was during these years that the Virgin of Antipolo gained a following of devotees. Devotees from Manila and nearby towns and provinces flocked to Antipolo on foot or on hammocks, trekking along mountain trails and springs.

During the First Republic, the town served as the capital of Morong, until it was occupied by the Americans on June 4, 1899; the Revolutionary Government then transferred Morong's capital to Tanay. Soon after, the Americans established a civil government in 1901, Valentin Sumulong became the first municipal president. On June 11, 1901, Antipolo was incorporated into the newly established Province of Rizal, which included towns of Morong District and Manila Province. In 1903, Antipolo, Boso-Boso and Teresa were merged. The town's territory was expanded again in 1913 to add the sitios of Mayamot and Bulao; just to lose Teresa six years later to become an independent municipality. The Manila Railroad Company (currently Philippine National Railways) inaugurated a railway service to Antipolo on December 24, 1908.

Long before the Manila Line 2 finally opened its services in Santolan in the Pasig-Marikina border in 2004, steam train services had once served those places in the past, even before World War II.

In Marikina, there is a street named "Daangbakal", also called by the names of "Shoe Avenue Extension", "Munding Avenue" and "Bagong Silang". There is also a similar "Daangbakal" in the San Mateo-Montalban (Rodriguez) area, and on the maps one can notice that the two roads should have been connected with each other. In fact, as the name suggests in Tagalog, these streets were once a single railway line. The two sides of the "Daangbakal" roads were once connected by a bridge in the San Mateo-Marikina border. However, as the railroad tracks have been largely ignored after the Japanese occupation and was transformed into separate highways, the railway connection was abandoned.

The old railroad tracks, called the Marikina Line, were connected from Tutuban station in Manila, passing through Tramo (Barangay Rosario, Pasig) coming all the way to the town of Marikina up to Montalban. On the northern end of the "Daangbakal" road in Montalban is a basketball court. That basketball court which stands today, surrounded by the Montalban Catholic Church and Cemetery, was once the railway station terminus of that particular line.

The present-day Santo Niño Elementary School in Marikina was said to be a train depot. And also it was said that a railroad station once stood in the Marikina City Sports Park.

The Marikina Line was completed in 1906, and continued its operation until 1936. It was said that the Japanese Imperial Army made use of this railway line during the Second World War. These railways were dismantled during the 1960s and were converted into ordinary roads.

Today, the citizens are dependent on tricycles, jeepneys, taxis, UV Express services, buses and AUVs, which contribute to the everyday unbearable traffic of Metropolitan Manila. Even now there is uncertainty concerning the Northrail project, which is to link Manila to the northern provinces of Luzon, owing to corruption within the project's construction.

Aside from the Marikina Line, two other lines have existed before but are now removed permanently. These are the Cavite Line, which passed through Paco, Parañaque, Bacoor and up to Naic, Cavite. Completed in 1908, its operation continued until 1936. The other is the Antipolo Line, which passed through Santa Mesa, Mandaluyong, Pasig, Cainta, Taytay, up to Antipolo near the "Hinulugang Taktak" Falls. Its operation ceased in 1917. There is a street named "Daangbakal" in Antipolo; there, as with the "Daangbakal" roads on Marikina and San Mateo, a railway line once existed. The railroad tracks also passed through what is now the Ortigas Avenue Extension.

Antipolo is in the northern half of Rizal Province, close to its meridional center.[19] It is located on the slopes of the Sierra Madre Mountain Range. Much of the city sits on a plateau averaging 200 meters. It has the second-largest city area in the province, with an area of 156.68 km². The northern and southern sections of the city are in the dense forest areas of the Sierra Madre.[20]

Antipolo is landlocked; it is bounded to the north by San Mateo and Rodriguez, to the east by Tanay, to the south by Angono, Taytay and Teresa, and to the west by Cainta and Marikina City in Metro Manila.

The Bitukang Manok of Pasig—also known as the Parian Creek—had once linked the Marikina River with the Antipolo River. Before the Manggahan Floodway was built in 1986.[21] The Parian Creek was actually connected to the Sapang Bato-Buli Creek (which serves as the boundary between Pasig's barangays Dela Paz-Manggahan-Rosario-Santa Lucia and the Municipality of Cainta), the Kasibulan Creek (situated at Vista Verde, Barangay San Isidro, Cainta), the Palanas Creek (leaving Antipolo through Barangay Muntindilao), the Bulaw Creek (on Barangay Mambungan, besides the Valley Golf and Country Club), and the "Hinulugang Taktak" Falls of Barangay Dela Paz (fed by the Taktak Creek passing close to the Antipolo town square), thus being the detached and long-abandoned Antipolo River.

From the early 17th century up to the period of Japanese imperialism, over a thousand Catholic devotees coming from "Maynilad" (Manila), "Hacienda Pineda" (Pasay), "San Juan del Monte", "Hacienda de Mandaloyon" (Mandaluyong), "Hacienda Mariquina" (Marikina), "Barrio Pateros", "Pueblo de Tagig" (Taguig), and "San Pedro de Macati" (Makati), followed the trail of the Parian Creek to the Pilgrimage Cathedral on the mountainous pueblo of Antipolo, Morong (the present-day Rizal Province).

The Antipoleños and several locals from the far-reached barrios of "Poblacion de San Mateo", "Montalban" (Rodriguez), "Monte de Tanhai" (Tanay), "Santa Rosa-Oroquieta" (Teresa), and "Punta Ibayo" (Baras), had also navigated this freshwater creek once to go down to the vast "Kapatagan" (Rice plains) of lowland Pasig. Even the marian processions of the Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage passed this route back and forth eleven times.

The creek was also used during the British occupation of Manila from 1762 to 1764 by the British Army, under the leadership of General William Draper and Vice Admiral Sir Samuel Cornish, 1st Baronet, to transport their troops (including the Sepoys they brought from India) upstream to take over the nearby forest-surrounded villages of Cainta and Taytay. They even did an ambush at the "Plaza Central" in front of the Pasig Cathedral, and turned the Roman Catholic parish into their military headquarters, with the church's fortress-like "campanilla" (belfry) serving as a watchtower against Spanish defenders sailing from the walled city of Intramuros via the Pasig River.

The Sepoys turned against their British lieutenants and sided with the combined forces of the Spanish conquistadors (assigned by the Governor-General Simon de Anda y Salazar), local rice farmers, fisherfolk, and Chinese traders. After the British invasion, the Sepoys remained and intermarried with Filipina women, which explains the Indian features of some of today's citizens of Pasig, especially Cainta and Taytay.

Barangays

Political map of Antipolo

Antipolo is politically divided into 16 barangays. The area where the boundaries of Barangays Dela Paz, San Isidro, San Jose and San Roque meet is the city proper or locally referred to as bayan.

Barangays	District	Population (2015) [3]	Area (ha)	Density (/km²)
Bagong Nayon	1st	45,976	301.34	15,257
Beverly Hills	1st	1,562	28.76	5,431
Calawis	2nd	5,709	5,581.12	102
Cupang	2nd	113,613	568.23	19,994
Dalig	2nd	52,222	406.48	12,847
Dela Paz (Poblacion)	1st	68,946	597.99	11,530
Inarawan	2nd	22,894	959.90	2,385
Mambugan	1st	52,479	368.21	14,252
Mayamot	1st	50,421	540.74	9,324
Muntindilaw[23]	1st	11,644	473.11	2,461
San Isidro (Poblacion)	1st	64,136	479.70	13,368
San Jose (Poblacion)	2nd	103,051	13,787.77	747
San Juan	2nd	8,671	3,327.69	261
San Luis	2nd	53,230	502.99	10,583
San Roque (Poblacion)	2nd	58,840	723.25	8,135
Santa Cruz	1st	62,992	725.52	8,682

Antipolo's population in the 2015 census was enumerated at 776,386 inhabitants. It grew at an annual rate of 4.19 percent from the 2000 figure. Annual population growth rate has slowed relatively remains above the annual national average of 2.04 percent.[27] The 2007 figure is three times the population of the city in 1990.

Residents of the city are mainly Tagalogs. Very minor communities of the indigenous Dumagat people are found in Barangay Calawis and sitios Old Boso-Boso, San Isidro, San Jose and Kaysakat in Barangay San Jose.[28][29]

City hall

Similar to other cities in the Philippines, the government structure of Antipolo is prescribed in the Local Government Code of 1991, and further codified in its city charter. It is headed by a city mayor, who serves as its chief executive and exercises overall supervision of its administrative agencies.

Its second-highest official, the city vice mayor, primarily serves as presiding officer of the Sangguniang Panlungsod and assumes the position of city mayor in the event of its vacancy. As presiding officer of the Sangguniang Panlungsod, the vice mayor does not vote except in cases to break a tie.

Antipolo City downtown

Antipolo is classified as a First Class City as of last local government income classification of the Department of Finance in 2008.[31]  [2] In 2007, the city registered a total revenue of ₱993.1 million, an increase of 5.6 percent from the previous fiscal year; in 2010 this amount has grown to ₱1.56 billion.[9] Its proximity to Metro Manila has continuously spurred the growth of the real estate industry and by 2007, revenue from real property taxes has ballooned by 32.1 percent from 2006 to ₱146.2 million as there are also about 456 residential subdivisions in the city.[32]

The Department of Education maintains a school division in Antipolo, which supervises the 65 public schools (45 elementary schools, 20 high schools) in addition to 193 accredited private schools.

There are three universities/college operating satellite campuses in the city, the state-run University of Rizal System, De La Salle College of Saint Benilde and Our Lady of Fatima University.

• Legislative districts of Antipolo City
• Roman Catholic Diocese of Antipolo
• Antipolo Cathedral
• Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage
• Marikina City
• Town and Country Executive Village

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Antipolo.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Antipolo City.

• Official website
• Antipolo City UnOfficial Site
• Antipolo Profile at PhilAtlas.com
• Antipolo Philippines
• Philippine Standard Geographic Code
• Philippine Census Information
• Local Governance Performance Management System