Municipality of Dapa
The municipality of Dapa lies south of Siargao Island. It is 36 nautical miles east of Surigao City. A few nautical miles from the town is the famous Philippine Deep.
The early village along its sea coast are the barangays of Cambas-ac, Union and Dolores.
Sometime in the early part of the last century of the Spanish regime, Moro piracy was rampant in the southeast coast of Mindanao. Pirates occasionally swept down the coastal village of Siargao Island and left behind them destruction and death. Natives were often taken as captives and slaves.
Due to these frequent raids, the villagers abandoned their homes and sought haven in Taghaligue (now Dapa) which was then a lust timberland and protected from the shore with a thick formation of all mangroves.
From this vantage position, it was then easy for them to run cover. They usually lay prone on the ground (hapa) behind the huge tree trunks.
Thus, Dapa, corrupted from the vernacular word Hapa, was adopted by the natives as the permanent name of their settlement in lieu of Taghaligue, to constantly remind them of those vicious Moro raids.