Municipal Goverment of Malita

According to folk etymology, the name “Malita” is derived from the Spanish word “maleta”, which means suitcase. It is said that purportedly Don Mariano Peralta, a retired veteran of the Spanish-American War who ventured to the place, decided to live on the vast, fertile plain across the river. One day, while bodily fording the deep and swift river with his suitcase and other belongings in hand, the force of the current overwhelmed his perilous balance and he got swept by the water consequently losing his grip on the suitcase. His frantic shouts of “maleta, maleta” attracted the attention of the bathing natives who after realizing the situation promptly responded and retrieved the vanishing suitcase. Hardly forgetting the shouts of Peralta, the natives later thought that the word referred to the land he intended long ‘e’ sound for the vowels ‘i’ and ‘e’. How the municipality’s name came to its present spelling and usage maybe attributed to the natives’ prevalent use of suitcase and eventually settled with Malita.

November 17, 1936. Record shows that Malita must have existed long before the passage of the Acts – Laws of the Moro Province that mentioned Malita in Section 1 of Act No 164 dated December 10, 1904. Through the said Act it is presumed that it existed as a barrio long before the coming of the Americans to Davao. Executive Order No. 64 issued by President Manuel L. Quezon officially created Malita into a municipality. Marcelino Maruya, from whom the town of Don Marcelino was named after, was the first appointed municipal mayor.

Malita’s early inhabitants are mostly of the Tagacaolo, B’laan, Manobo, Maguindanao, Sangil and Bagobo tribes believed to be descendants of the second wave of Malays who migrated to Mindanao from other parts of Southeast Asia years before the birth of Christ. Waves of migrants from the Visayan islands, most of whom hailed from Cebu, also settled in the small town. They were later followed by immigrants from Luzon. Even after the destruction brought by World War II by the belligerents, there were still waves of migrants towards Malita and other parts of then-Davao province. This increased its population until it later became the most populous municipality in the province.

In 1909, Governor Leonard Wood sent U.S. Marine Officer Orvil Wood to enforce the Liquor Law in the place. Officer Wood and his troops seated on the south bank of the river dividing the present Poblacion and Barangay Culaman, to establish the first recorded settlement and system of government. In 1912, Mariano Peralta came and worked briefly with Wood as capataz. Shortly, a waver of immigrants from the Visayas, mostly from Cebu, came to Malita. Settlers from Luzon Island also came so with a number from the neighboring provinces of Mindanao.

In the year 1995, the former Mayor Benjamin V. Bautista, Sr., a congressman at that time managed to include Malita, particularly Tubalan-Buhangin and part of Lacaron as areas devoted to Special Economic Zone, per R.A. 7916. 

Malita’s development as a municipality underwent 24 leadership changes under various political situations and official assumptions and titles. The period from 1906 to 1937 saw the local chief executives using the title of President whose assumptions to office were made through appointment. From 1937 to the present, the official designation of the local chief executive was changed to mayor and those who assumed the office were installed either by popular election or appointment.