Editing Dingalan (section)

==History==
[[File:Administrative Divisions of the Philippines (1899).svg|thumb|350px|{{center|Map of the district of Infanta where Dingalan was formerly located in 1899.}}]]
Early settlers recounted that Dumagat tribes inhabited the territory now known as Dingalan. The names of most landmarks and places in this municipality were said to have been given by these first inhabitants. It is believed that the name “Dingalan” is a Dumagat word which means “by the River of Galan” because the territory straddles fifteen (15) rivers and streams which show the abundance of water.

It is also believed that there were two Dumagat brothers named Ding and Allan who were hunting animals in the forest. They were shouting at each other’s name as they went astray away from each other hence the name DINGALAN.

In the early 1900s, settlers from Quezon, [[Nueva Ecija]], and [[ilocos Region|Ilocos]] started to migrate to Dingalan. They were generally lowland cultivators in search of arable land. In-migration heightened in the 1930s when Don Felipe Buencamino started his logging and sawmill operations. Soon after, inter-marriages among Tagalogs, Ilocanos, Pampangos (Kapampangans), and Bicolanos enriched the cultural stock of settlers.

During World War II, Dingalan was occupied by the Japanese imperial forces. The Japanese took over the operation of sawmills and cut timber to construct their barracks and garrisons. The Dingalan-Gabaldon highway was originally built (1942-1945) as a logging road. On the verge of defeat in 1945, the Japanese used Dingalan Bay as an “exit point” when they retreated.

The strategic location of Dingalan Bay for military purposes was rediscovered after the RP-US Mutual Defense Treaty of 1951, when the municipality became the Training Ground in 1957 for the South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) as well as the United States Seventh Fleet. Dingalan also became a site of the RP-US Balikatan Military Exercises for three (3) consecutive years from 1982-1984.

Dingalan was recognized as a municipal district on June 16, 1956 under Republic Act 1536 with an initial population of 2,000 residents. Prior to that, Dingalan was merely a sitio of Barrio San Luis, Municipality of Baler, Tayabas (now Quezon) Province. Dingalan became a regular municipality on June 16, 1962 by virtue of Republic Act No. 3490.

From the 1930s to 1990s, logging was the main driver of Dingalan’s economy and the principal magnet to migrants. In the 1970s, three logging companies operated in Dingalan namely; Dingalan Wood Industries Corporation (DWICO), South Eastern Timber Corporation (SETIC) of Mr. Roberto Gopuansoy, and Inter-Pacific Forest Resources Company. They obtained a combined allowable cut of 169,416 cubic meters of lumber per annum, roughly equivalent to 4,500 fully loaded ten-wheeler trucks each year.

Because of relentless logging between 1930 and 1995, Dingalan today has only 2% of its original old growth dipterocarp forest. More than 10% of the area is denuded or devoid of trees. Its rate of deforestation is faster than the country’s average of 1.4% per year. The brownish color of Dingalan’s river channels reveals the extent of soil erosion and siltation resulting from the loss of adequate tree cover upstream.