History of Tayabas

Tayabas suffered a terrible blow near the end of World War II when it was completely burned to the ground after a bombing raid on March 15, 1945. Prior to that, the old houses of Tayabas rival those of Vigan's Spanish-era structures.

Cityhood

On March 18, 2007, Republic Act No. 9398, An Act Converting the Municipality of Tayabas in the Province of Quezon into a Component City to be known as City of Tayabas, was enacted into law. On July 14, 2007, the municipality held a plebiscite to ratify the conversion of the said act, with the residents voting in favor of the move, although there was a low turnout of voters for the plebiscite.

However, in its Decision dated November 18, 2008, the Supreme Court revoked the cityhood of Tayabas and 15 other cities, and declared their cityhood laws unconstitutional. According to the High Court, the cityhood laws violated Section 10, Article X of the Constitution as well as the equal protection clause. More than a year later, on December 22, 2009, acting on the appeal of the so-called "League of 16 Cities" (of which Tayabas is a part), the Supreme Court reversed its earlier ruling and ruled that "at the end of the day, the passage of the amendatory law (regarding the criteria for cityhood as set by Congress) is no different from the enactment of a law, i.e., the cityhood laws specifically exempting a particular political subdivision from the criteria earlier mentioned. Congress, in enacting the exempting law/s, effectively decreased the already codified indicators."

But on August 24, 2010, in a 16-page resolution, the Supreme Court reinstated its November 18, 2008 decision striking down the Cityhood laws making Tayabas a