Calamba’s Banga
15. Nov, 2010 
6 Comments
One of the itinerary when tourists were taking their trips in visiting Calamba was to visit the city plaza.
Within the city plaza are Rizal’s house, St. John the Baptist Church and the instituted water jar or commonly called “banga”.
The “banga” is built in middle where one can easily identify it. The names of the barangays of Calamba were written all over its surface. Most of the people who came over would go upstairs near the banga and take a picture as their part of souvenir.
The name Calamba comes from the legend of banga.
Reference: Wikipedia
During the early time of the Spanish period in the country, two “guardias civil” or soldiers were lost.
The soldiers met a young lady who came from a river carrying a jar of water and a wooden stove. The soldiers unwittingly in Spanish language and in authoritative tone, to conceal the fact that they were lost, asked the local maiden the name of the place they were in.
The lady, who speaks only her native language, naturally thought she was being interrogated about what she was carrying and nervously uttered “kalan-banga”, meaning “clay stove” (kalan) and “water jar” (banga).
Because the Spaniards could not pronounce it properly, the town has been called Calamba supposedly since then.
For this legendary story, the “banga” becomes Calamba’s city seal which I also use in representing my posts here in calamba-online.
If ever you visit our city plaza, take photographs as you capture the moments how this banga means to the people of Calamba.
Rediscover Nature at its Best,
calamba laguna is a nice place like a manila i like the banga of calamba do you know of any record on who were the makers of the banga i was told by my elders that my grandfather was one of them.can you please shed some light to this story.thank you.
Sorry Roy. I do not have that kind of record.
ms.umali, do you know of any record on who were the makers of the banga.i was told by my elders that my grandfather was one of them.can you please shed some light to this story.thank you.
found your site on del.icio.us today and really liked it.. i bookmarked it and will be back to check it out some more later
Yah go ahead…It has already a watermark of calamba-onlie..Just do not crop it and help me out to link back to us..
I will be adding more pictures of banga…
could i use your photos? thanks.. i’m getting it now..