Surallah, South Cotabato

The Municipality of Surallah is located in the Southwestern quadrant of the Province of South Cotabato. A landlocked area in the Upper Valley Area which serves as converging point of surrounding Municipalities for both commercial and Agro-Industrial activities.

HISTORY OF SURALLAH

The Municipality of Surallah was created by virtue of Republic Act 3420 on June 18, 1961 as later amended by RA 3664 on June 22, 1963. Its history is generally reckoned with the influx of settlers coming from their abilities under the settlements Programs of NLSA; RPC-NDC; NARRA and LASEDECO.

Surallah started as 6^th Class Municipality with 26 barrios and a population of 26,162 settling in a vast land area of 97,000 hectares. The rapid growth of its cluster barrios made the support of the new town. The creation of the Municipality of T’boli in 1964 making six (6) barrios integrated in thus, reducing the total land area to 31,200 hectares. Subsequently, three (3) Barangays were created from their mother barangay; hence, the municipality has 23 officials barangay.

Lately, the booming tourism industry in the south made to be the primary factor of the birth of the new Municipality of Lake Sebu in 1982, causing the reduction of the total land area and population of Surallah from 31,200 to 31,110 hectares and from 52,703 to 42,467 respectively. The separation of Lake Sebu into Municipality made another reduction in the number of barangay from 23 to 17.

The influential leadership of the municipality triggered the tremendous growth development from a small span of years from its creation up to 1990. First, the administration of the Hon. Jose T. Sison who served the Municipality from 1963-1978 until the election for regional representatives caused Mayor Jose T. Sison to become the Assemblyman of Region XI. Former barrio treasurer of Libertad, Federico Magalona, Jr. was appointed to assume the office until the Local Election of January 31, 1980. The concluded poll gave the mayoralty seat to Conrado P. Haguisan to serve from seat Hon. Lorenzo Delmo until November 21,1987 who vacated the post to run in January 18,1988 election. From December 1, 1987 to January 31, 1988 former OIC Councilor Fransisco Sodusta served as OIC Mayor. The election in January 1988 gave back the local leadership to former Assemblyman Jose T. Sison as Municipal Mayor of Surallah who served for three terms until May 1998. The race for Local leadership in May election proved to be competitive among aspirants who had eventually won by Hon. Romulo O. Solivio. The new leadership brought necessary changes in the administration more specific on a gradual shift from traditional type to a more conventional way of governance by re-inventing new techniques thru dynamic participative approaches.

There is no official source of information regarding the origin of the name of the place according to pioneer inhabitants, they called the place “Scherazade Allah” Scherazade is an Arab word which denotes something beautiful. The Christian settlers later modified the word into “Surallah” Which means South of Allah. The origin inhabitants of the area are the tagabilis, a mountain tribe people who moved inward after the arrival of the Christian settlers from Luzon and Visayas. The latest census of May 2000 gave Surallah the Officials population count of 66,208.

On July 1991, Surallah was reclassified from fifth class to third class Municipality being considered as one of the most progressive municipality in the province of South Cotabato. Subsequently in 1993, it became a second class municipality and later in July of 1997 it was reclassified as first class municipality by the Department of Finance

Banking on the Potentials for Agro-industrial and commercials developments, the administration geared its program toward making Surallah as the Agro-industrial and commercial center for Upper Valley Area where vision is specifically addressed to.

As economic activities flourished in the area, more people especially businessmen settled into the place which contributed much to faster pace of development.

The Municipality’s vision as an Agro-industrial and Commercial center of the Upper valley Area for the coming years continues as it directs its mission towards providing infrastructure developments, economic supports services and facilities to attract and encourage growth of investments in the municipality. Aside from these, the improvement of the social services, the conservation of the natural resources and protection of the environment are also priority development objectives of this fast growing municipality presently serving as the economic center of the Upper Valley Area.