Before the current political administration in this municipality, Roxas is considered as the TRADE CENTER OF THE SOUTH!
But the wanton disregard of its peoples’ demand for sustainable development peg’s it to remain a 4th class municipality despite of its temendous capability to GO FORWARD!
BACKGROUND PROFILE:
A BRIEF DESCRIPTION
One hundred and forty eight (148) kilometers south of Calapan lies the small but promising town of Roxas. The name was taken from the late President Manuel A. Roxas in whose honor the proposal for the barrio’s separation from its mother town, Mansalay, was first acknowledged.
The present town was once a small settlement along the Tikling River where early settlers and immigrants from Panay and Batangas provinces set ashore. The settlement became the site of the first government of Roxas.
Through Executive Order No. 181, President Elpidio Quirino, in a proclamation dated 15 October 1948 declared Paclasan as a separate town from Mansalay. The order, however, took effect on November 15, 1948. The name Paclasan was changed to Roxas and Roxas was born as a town.
Roxas has 20 barangays – two urban, three urbanizing and fifteen rural, in a total land area of 8,526 hectares. Its present population is 43,202. Farming and fishing continue to serve as main economic activities with trade and commerce continuously gaining importance in its economic growth.
Now serving as a growth center especially of trade and commerce in the southern part of Oriental Mindoro, the Municipality of Roxas, though the smallest, has been classified as a medium town in the province’s classification of its component municipalities under the Province of Oriental Mindoro’s Physical Framework Plan. It evidently plays a significant role in the development of the entire province. Its people’s ingenuity and industry coupled with a clear and strong political will towards people empowerment serves as its major resource and stronghold to development.
