A neophyte lawmaker on Wednesday said he will push for the passage of a bill that restores the original name of Rodriguez, a first class municipality in Rizal province, to Montalban, which it is still known as across the country.
Rizal Rep. Juan Fidel Nograles revealed that during his tenure as assistant provincial administrator and while on the campaign trail, he was frequently approached by Rodriguez residents who requested him to author a measure restoring the name originally given to the town when it was founded in 1909: Montalban.
“It’s fairly common knowledge that everyone still refers to Rodriguez as Montalban, but it was only recently that I learned that so many of my constituents really want the municipality to officially reclaim its original name,” said Nograles.
With an area that covers over a fourth of the province of Rizal, Rodriguez is the most populous municipality in the country, with close to 370,000 residents.
In 1982, the Batasang Pambansa replaced the name Montalban with Rodriguez, after the late Senate President Eulogio “Amang” Rodriguez Sr.
According to Nograles, “it has been close to forty years since Montalban was renamed, but the people of Rizal have continued to embrace and hold on to the original name of the town.”
“The widespread use of Montalban continues to this day. If you ask for directions to the area, you will be referred to signs pointing you to Montalban,” Nograles, a native of Rizal, said.
“In many online resources and documents, it has become standard practice to add the name Montalban in parentheses after referring to Rodriguez so that readers are not confused,” added the Ateneo Law alumnus.
Nograles, who also holds a Master’s Degree in Law from Harvard, stressed that the people of Rodriguez “still feel an emotional connection to Montalban because of the town’s rich history.”
“The fact that tourist sites here still carry the name of Montalban, like the Montalban Gorge, and that even their tourist office is called the Montalban Tourism Office, speaks volumes about what the name Montalban means to my constituents,” the solon said.