05/05/2023
THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT ALBAY, SEGMENT 87
--Abdon M. Balde Jr.
THE MUNICIPALITY OF TIWI is a 1st class municipality in the Province of Albay. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 56,444 people in 10,975 households spread in 25 barangays in an area of 105.76 square kilometres or a population density of 530 persons per square kilometer.
Tiwi is the northeasternmost town of Albay. It is on the fringes of Mount Malinao. Its shores face the Lagonoy and Albay Gulf and beyond it, the Pacific Ocean. The many names of the town were Tiwi, Tiui, Tigui,Tibi, Tigbi. Tigbi was derived from a plant, its name was corrupted by the Spaniards as Tibi. Tigui was the name of a fish. Tiui was the local description for a winding, uneven road. Marcos de Lisboa’s Vocabolario de la lengua Bicol of 1754 and later 1865 described Tigbi as “un frutilla de que se pueden hacer cuentas, lo mismo es carizal, que da las frutillas”: a small fruit which they make into necklaces, also called carizal which yields small fruits. Another Lisboa entry: Tiue as “un arbol asi llamado, que da unas flores blancas llamadas Tamboroc (a tree called by such name which produces white flowers called tamboroc)
There are unconfirmed stories that in ancient times the waves of the Pacific Ocean reach the slopes of Malinao Volcano. There was an islet that floated near the volcano. When the volcano erupted, a land mass was created that linked the islet to the fringes of the volcano, thus creating the barangays of B
