Our History

The greater Kidapawan area was originally a vast area that covered much of the north- eastern part of North Cotabato. When it was created a municipality, Kidapawan extended from the Pulangi river in Kabacan to the west, Davao to theeast, Bukidnon province to the north, and Buluan to the south.

Kidapawan has its roots in pre-colonial settlements of the Obo  Monuvu,  the indigenous peoples that have lived at the foot of Mt. Apo on both the Cotabato and Davao sides for generations.  The Monuvu in the area remained independent throughout the Spanish colonial period, as the Spaniards were never able to surmount Mt Apo on the Davao side nor penetrate beyond the Liguasan Marsh on the Cotabato side.

The Monuvu settlements, the precursors of many of Kidapawan’s modern day Baranggays, existed autonomously with one another but were ruled by chieftains often related by centuries of intermarriage. The chieftains of different settlements often waged tribal wars against one another, but today few such wars have remained in tribal memory.

Sometime before the coming of the Americans, the different tribal settlements west of the Matanao river apparently fell under the influence of a Datu Ingkal (in some sources he is named Datu Ingkal Ugok), who became paramount chieftain over the different settlements within the Kidapawan area. When the Americans came, they recognized Datu Ingkal’s leadership, and records say he was appointed ‘Capitan’ by a Col. Stevens in 1908, presumably as head of a tribal ward under what was then the Cotabato District of the Moro Province.

By 1913, the map of Mindanao in the Annual Report of the American Governor of the Moro Province shows the areas that would become Kidapawan divided into what seem like three or four different entities. To the north where Kidapawan, Magpet, President Roxas, Antipas, and Arakan are presently there are instead references to ‘Datu Inkal’ and ‘Datu Unot,’ while to what is today the municipality of Matalam and presumably Kidapawan’s border baranggays with it there is instead ‘Ward No. 8, Datu Matalam.’ To the South, where Kidapawan, Makilala, M’lang, and Tulunan are there is instead ‘Ward F, Bilanes Tribe.’

By 1914, Kidapawan would be formed into a Municipal District, one of twenty-seven under the newly created Cotabato Province under the Department of Mindanao and Sulu. Datu Siawan Ingkal, son of Datu Ingkal Ugok, would be appointed Municipal District President. The Cornejo Commonwealth Directory of 1935, published under the newly elected Quezon government, still names Datu Siawan as District President, with Datu Amag Madut as Vice President.

Kidapawan’s establishment as a Municipal District paved the way for settlers from Luzon and Visayas to come over the succeeding decades up until the 1960s. Kidapawan was not a planned colony, but it was surrounded by planned colonies on both sides, thus encouraging individual migration: Davao, a Spanish colony in the late 1800s, Pikit, anagricultural colony set up by the Americans, the settlements of the National Land Settlement Administration (NLSA) in what is today South Cotabato, and much later the colony of Alamada under Magsaysay’s National Resettlement and Rehabilitation Administration (NARRA). The diverse ethnic composition of Kidapawan’s settler population, with Cebuanos, Tagalogs, Ilonggos, Chinese, and Igorots, reflect both the gradual individual efforts of migrants and Kidapawan’s position as the transition area between Cebuano-dominated Davao and Ilonggo- dominated Cotabato

There are conflicting accounts as to where the original center of Kidapawan was before the War. Tribal sources name either Manongol (for a time called ‘Old Kidapawan’) or Lanao as centers, with some settler sources identifying Lanao as the commercial center of the town where the settlers concentrated, with Manongol the seat of Siawan Ingkal’s chieftaincy.

The details of Kidapawan’s arrangements during the Second World War are unclear, but it seems to have been one of the Municipal Districts elevated in 1942 to Municipality by virtue of Executive Order No. 43 of the Japanese-sponsored Executive Commission.

No records attest to it, but informants (primary among them Rosita Blanco Cadungog) names Filomeno Blanco as the local appointed Mayor by the Japanese during their occupation of Kidapawan. There are even less details on the arrangements of the resistance government, but Kidapawan fell under the command of Datu Udtog Matalam, who with his Bolo unit led the Cotabato region’s guerrilla movement. Records indicate that in 1942 Alfonso O. Angeles Sr. had been appointed ‘Mayor of the Upper Cotabato Sector,’ to which Kidapawan presumably belonged. When the War ended, Kidapawan’s administrative status was in limbo, but in all likelihood, it was reverted back to Municipal District. No documents also confirm it, but informants like Erlinda Villanueva Asuelo name Ceferino J. Villanueva as acting mayor after the War up to the election of 1947.