pot which draws foreign and local students from various parts of the country and abroad. Central Philippine University (CPU), a university founded by American Protestants through a grant of John D. Rockefeller as the first Baptist and second American institution of higher learning in Asia, attracts 15,000 enrollees from different parts of the Philippines and twenty-seven foreign countries annually, the largest for a single campus university in the Western Visayan region. The city's excellent urban planning and the continuing increase in real estate, financing, and business process outsourcing (BPO) demand have been attributed to its being one of the most livable cities in the country with an economic boom. In March 2022, Colliers Philippines named Iloilo among the top locations for the expansion of outsourcing activity outside Metro Manila. According to CBRE Group, by 2025, it is projected to become the third largest hub for the IT-BPO industry in the country. Etymology The name "Iloilo" is derived from the older name "Ilong-ilong" (Philippine Spanish: Ilong̃-ílong̃) meaning "nose-like", referring to the promontory between two rivers (Iloilo and Batiano) where the Fort San Pedro and the 17th-century Spanish port were located. History Pre-colonial period Nothing is known historically about the region prior to the arrival of the Spanish. In Historia natural del sitio, fertilidad y calidad de las Islas e Indios de Bisayas (1668), the Jesuit missionary Francisco Ignacio Alcina (1668) identifies the origin of the Hiligaynon people of "Oton" (Panay) as the island of Leyte, which correlates with the linguistic subgrouping of the Hiligaynon language. Numerous legends and fabrications, however, exist on the origins of the Hiligaynon people. Among them is the epic Maragtas by Pedro Monteclaro (first published in 1907), which describes how ten datu and their families, led by Datu Puti, left the "kingdom of Borneo" to escape the cruel reign of Sultan Makatunaw. They arrived in the island of Panay and negotiated a sale of the lowlands with King Marikudo of the Ati people. The price is said to be a golden salakot for Marikudo and a long golden necklace for his queen, Maniwan-tiwan. A pact of friendship was then forged between the two peoples, and the Atis performed their native songs and dances, which is then said to be the origin of the Ati-Atihan Festival. According to Augustinian Friar Rev. Fr. Santaren recording in the Spanish era of this Pre-Spanish legendary history, that Datu Macatunao or Rajah