'Manlambus: The Festival is Back
The town was known as Manlambus, a Visayan term meaning to strike with a club because its coastal waters were then abundant with fish, catching them could simply be done by using a club or lambus. It is believed that Escalante was inhabited since 11 th A.D. per artifacts unearthed by Siliman University Anthropological Team in 1975-76. It was created a municipality on November 28, 18 56 on orders of Gobernador Manuel Crespo, with Nueva Sevilla (now Old Poblacion) as the seat of government. In 1860, Fr. Cipriano Navarro, the first Spanish Missionary assigned to the place renamed it to Escalante, after his hometown in Spain. Escalante was then a very big town with population bigger than that of Bacolod until 1939. However, Toboso, one of the biggest barangays of the town was separated from it in 1948 to be a Municipality by virtue of Executive Order No. 141 by President Elpidio Quirino decreasing its area and population. The seat of the Municipal Government was transferred fro...