Balamban

Balamban, officially the Municipality of Balamban (Lungsod sa Balamban; Banwa sang Balamban; ), is a 1st class municipality in the province of Cebu, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 95,136 people.

Mount Manunggal in Barangay Magsaysay (formerly Sunog), is the site of the plane crash on March 17, 1957 in which President Ramon Magsaysay and 17 of his presidential staff and news correspondents were killed.

History
Balamban became a town "pueblo" in 1745. A Spanish document attests that the community was recognized as a town during Spanish colonial period. The first administrator was Ciriaco Gutierrez, a Spanish captain.

Cityhood
House Bill No. 1574, filed by Representative Pablo John Garcia (Cebu–3rd) on July 8, 2019, proposed the conversion of the municipality of Balamban into a component city in the province of Cebu. However, the bill remained pending for the rest of the 18th Congress.

In the following 19th Congress, Garcia filed another bill, House Bill No. 1018, on July 5, 2022, seeking the municipality's conversion into a city.

Geography
Balamban is bordered to the north by the town of Asturias, to the west is the Tañon Strait, to the east is Cebu City, and to the south is the City of Toledo. It is 49 km from Cebu City.

Barangays
Balamban is politically subdivided into 28 barangays. Each barangay consists of puroks and some have sitios.

Economy
Balamban has industries that mainly focuses on shipbuilding for multinational corporations. The biggest economic driver in Balamban is the West Cebu Estate (WCE), a 540 ha mixed-use development in Balamban. It is owned and managed by AboitizLand and is anchored by a 283 ha industrial park, a Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA)-registered economic zone tagged as the "Shipbuilding Capital of the Philippines". It hosts 11 locators from medium to heavy industries and employs 14,000 skilled workers.

Located in WCE in Barangay Buanoy is Tsuneishi Heavy Industries (Cebu), Inc. (THICI). It builds merchant ships of up to 180,000 deadweight tons using the same high quality shipbuilding technologies and standards as those in Tsuneishi Japan. Also located in WCE in Barangay Arpili is Austal Philippines Pty. Ltd. which caters to market demands for high speed ferries, workboats, fast crew transfer boats, other commercial vessels and defense vessels.

Other locators include Aboitiz Construction, Air Liquide, Linde, Balamban Enerzone, Mactan Rock Industries, Inc. Tsuneishi Holdings, Tsuneishi Technical Services (Phils.), Inc., K & A Metal Industries, Inc. Shillon Global Construction, Inc., Advanced Catamaran Composites and Cebu Marine Industry, Inc.

There are two shopping malls in the municipality, the Gaisano Town Center Balamban and Gaisano Grand Balamban.

A number of banks and financial institutions are operating in Balamban. These include Metrobank, RCBC, Landbank, City Savings Bank, BDO Network Bank and Rizal MicroBank.

The Transcentral Highway (TCH) is a national road running through the mountains between Balamban and Cebu City and connects the two localities. It is popular by road trippers, bikers, and riders for its scenery, cold climate, restaurants, and cafes.

Despite its classification as a 1st class municipality, infrastructure is not that well-developed; as of 2018 its poverty incidence percentage is at 18.90 which was a bit higher than the Philippine national average of 16.70.