Santa Maria, Bulacan | Wikipedia audio article
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Date: 07/11/2018

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Santa Maria, Bulacan

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SUMMARY
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Santa Maria, (; Tagalog pronunciation: [ˈsɐnta mɐˈɾija]), officially the Municipality of Santa Maria, (Tagalog: Bayan ng Santa Maria),  is a 1st class municipality in the province of Bulacan, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 256,454 people. representing 7.8% of the population of the province.
Located on the banks of the Santa Maria River, 32 kilometres (19.9 mi) north of Manila, Santa Maria has been a thriving settlement for almost four centuries. It was founded as a barrio of Bocaue in the early 17th century until it was established as an independent municipality on November 26, 1793 by the Spanish friar Francisco Dominguez Javier OFM. Known before as Santa Maria de Pandi (Tagalog pronunciation: [pɐnˈde]), it is named under the patronage of the Immaculate Conception (also known as La Purisima Concepcion). Its administrative center, the Poblacion, forms as the historic core of the municipality. It is surrounded by four rivers and it still largely retains its 2.88 square-kilometer boundaries since the Spanish Colonial Era.
Santa Maria, with a population of 256,454, remains by a significant margin the most populous municipality in Central Luzon, as well as the 5th most populous municipality in the Philippines. Its downtown area, known as the Santa Maria Central Business District, consists of three (3) highly urbanized barangays: Poblacion, Bagbaguin, and Santa Clara. It is one of the biggest and busiest commercial centers in the province as it accounts for more than half of all economic activities in the municipality. It is also one of Bulacan's leading financial centers. According to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (PDIC), Santa Maria's total bank deposits reached PHP 19.82 billion as of September 2017, this accounts for almost 75% of Eastern Bulacan's total bank deposits. Likewise, Santa Maria is the richest municipality in Bulacan with an assets totaling to PHP 1 billion and revenues reaching an all-time high of PHP 560 million as of the 2016 report from the Commission on Audit (COA). It has a relatively high standard of living, with only 4% of the population living in poverty which is one of the lowest in the country (19 out of 1,489 municipalities).In 2015, Santa Maria with a score of 42.1807 was ranked second among all municipalities in the country in the overall Municipalities Competitiveness Index issued by the National Competitiveness Council of the Philippines.Santa Maria was the home town of José Corazón de Jesús, a Filipino poet popularly known as "Huseng Batute", who started composing his verse as a child.  Another native of Santa Maria is Francisco Santiago, a composer who wrote "Nasaan Ka Irog" and other kundiman songs. In the political arena, Santa Maria has produced three Bulacan governors: Jose Serapio (1900-1901), Trinidad Icasiano (1912-1916), Fortunato Halili (1943-1944 and 1946-1951); and two representatives of the second and fourth district: Rogaciano Mercado (1953-1992) and Reylina Nicolas (2001-2010).