Passi City Hall

The City of Passi is a 3rd class city in the province of Iloilo in the Philippines.Passi is a rice and sugar-rich area and the only component city and the largest in the Province of Iloilo in terms of land area, population and income.

According to popular legend, Spanish conquistadors stumbled on a small hut by the river’s bank where an old woman was fond winnowing pounded rice. One of them asked her, “¿Cómo se llama este lugar?” not knowing the native language of course. Much to the old woman’s surprise and perhaps excitement, she replied without much ado, “Ah, pasi,” which means some of the unhusked rice on her basket held in both hands. She must have thought that they were eager to know what was in the basket and what she was doing, because she could not understand their language. From that time on, the Spanish begun to call the place Pasi at first until it later evolved into Passi. Such legends about name origins are common throughout towns and cities in the Philippines, the core plot being a Spaniard asking the non-Spanish speaking natives what the name of the place is and the latter responding in what would end up eventually as the name of the place.