Draft:San Pedro

San Pedro
Country	Philippines
Region	Eastern Visayas Region VIII
Province	Southern Leyte
District	Lone District of Southern Leyte
Municipality	Sogod
Time zone	UTC+8 (PST)
PSGC	PSGC unknown

The barangay of San Pedro is one of the forty-five (45) barangays in the municipality of Sogod, province of Southern Leyte, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 1,867 inhabitants.

Hipgasan, the primitive name of barangay San Pedro, was formerly the site of a high school administered by the Augustinian friars from 1774 to 1785. Four years after Sogod was made an independent municipality on 1853, the sitio became a barrio with Selverio Biliza, Victoriano Catajoy and Esteban Rana as the cabezas de barangay.

There exist two narratives portraying the etymological origin of the name "Hipgasan." The first account states that the term was a namesake of the river passing through the village. Accordingly, the village site was then the “Hugasan,” a place where the settlers washed their spears, bows and arrows and their hunted animals. A village chief came to this place for hunting and killed a number of wild animals. As soon as the chieftain dipped the carcasses to the river for cleaning, a maiden appeared, warning him not to kill the animals in the area. The fairy also cautioned him not to dirty the water with blood. To his surprise, the chieftain ran away and warned his people not to go to the present-day Banat-e spring, the source of the river, where the maiden dwells. Hence the name “Hipgasan” is an evolution of the Cebuano word, “Hugasan.”

Another account was based on the acronym, “Hipno nga gawi ug pamatasan.” The name came to be since the settlers of the village were hospitable to the visitors bathing in the river. It was through the combined efforts of teniente del barrio Alberto Linga and the residents that the bathing site in sitio Banahaw, now called Waling-waling, was developed and preserved. Thus, the expression, “Hipno nga gawi ug pamatasan” – “HipGaSan” – was attached to the identity of the people of barangay San Pedro.

The population of barrio Hipgasan increased when the Boholanos migrated the area in the 1920s. Raymundo Carpiz and the clan of Felipe Vistal, Sr., whose offspring bore the Capilitan and Damalerio clans, were recognized as the earliest recorded inhabitants of barangay San Pedro. Sooner, a couple of Cebuano families migrated in the area and prospered before the World War II. Demetrio Angcoy, who hails from the town of Argao, Cebu, married a Sogodnon, Cirila Vargas. The couple was to be the main bearer of the Angcoy and Albert families in Sogod.

By 1955, through the efforts of teniente del barrio Dionisio Logronio, the name of the barangay was changed after the village’s patron saint, San Pedro Apostol. A native of Bohol, Logronio married Eulalia Diola, a native of this settlement. Presently, barangay San Pedro is politcally subdivided into four (4) puroks and a sitio.

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The 1950s map of the municipality of Sogod showing its constituent barangays. The villages of Casao, Lawgawan, Pangi, Santa Cruz, Taa and Tuburan were ceded to the municipality of Bontoc on July 14, 1960