Ibalong

Ibalong was a fishing settlement on the coast of Sorsogon, near the entrance to the waters separating Luzon from the Visayas. Also called Gibalon, it gave its name to the wider Bicol region in early Spanish usage. Local accounts remember the arrival of the friar Alonso Jiménez in 1569 and the baptism of inhabitants here. Coastal raids in the following century disrupted settlements around Sorsogon, and Ibalong did not recover its former prominence.