BARANGAY  V

        Since the founding of the town in the 16^th century, all the adjacent portions or premises surrounding the parish church and municipal hall were then called ‘Poblaciones’, which is the urban district of the pueblo (supra, at page 6). However, the Poblacion was later divided into six ‘puroks’ (or ‘sitios’) where the territorial boundaries were determined following the religious blocking system adapted by the parish church for its campaign for the black rosary and procession inside the Poblacion. In the early sixties, it was made a ‘Barrio of the Poblacion’ with the apportionment into districts for purposes of elections by precinct pursuant to RA 3590 (1963, The Revised Barrio Charter, supra, at page 9).  PD 86 (1972, where citizen assemblies were created in barrios, supra, at page 10) transformed it as a ‘Zone’; and later, by virtue of PD 557 (1974, where the ‘barrio’ and citizen assemblies created under PD 86 became barangays, supra, at page 11), it was renamed and now called as Barangay V.

          It is here where institutional structures of the town can be found such as the St. Augustine Parish Church, Belltower, Diego Silang Park (the town plaza, at page 30-31, supra), Municipyo (town hall), Central schools, Quirino Stadium, Provincial Offices of Governmental Agencies (DepEd, NBI, Dept. of Agriculture, etc.), the Govantes dike and   the three main roads leading to ancient Vigan, the provincial capital. Evidently, it is the urban core and most prominent among poblacion barangays, being along the National highway, the center of trade and commerce and the biggest in land area.  It has a registered voters of 400, an estimated population of about 950 and where business establishments thrives and abounds such as gasoline stations, restaurants, lumberyards, banks, service shops, auto supplies, variety stores, commercial complexes and parking terminal. Undoubtedly, it is the barangay where the municipal government collects the largest amount of taxes and revenues due from business establishments as well as the residents, mostly of whom are professionals. Many of its residents are fond of cooking and it is believed that it is in this barangay where the best of local delicacies could be found such as pinipian, bagnet, ladek, namuli-a-cacao’ (supra, at page 32) and where the lingo foods as ukilas (pigskin cracker), mullo (dinardaraan), warek-warek (the ilocano version of ‘sisig’) and yosi (lumo-lumo) were coined. During the early times, some are engaged in goldsmithing, blacksmithing and leather craft.

          It is bordered on the south partly by a brook (connected to the mestizo river that surrounds Vigan) where, in ancient days, people have to navigate or ride a raft in traversing Ciudad Fernandina, then considered an islet. A makeshift wooden bridge was constructed linking Vigan and Barangay V of Bantay to facilitate going to and coming out of Ciudad Vigan, later-on, the bridge was made into a dike (‘govantes’) that stretched approximately one kilometer connecting Bantay from Vigan, but was renamed to (his honor) Isabelo de los Reyes dike.