Calbiga is a 4th class municipality in the province of Samar, Philippines. According to the 2000 census, it has a population of 18,890 people in 3,889 households.
In 1649, Calbiga was an annex or visita of Catbalogan; later in 1768, Calbiga was transferred to the jurisdiction of Umauas. All through Jesuit times, Calbiga remained a visita until 1772, when it had its first residential pastor, the Franciscan Fray Manuel Rico de Jesus. Calbiga was constituted as a separate unit under the advocacy of the Anunciation. In 1803, Fray Juan Caballero de Brozas built a wooden church but in 1808, a typhoon destroyed this church and was rebuilt by the same Fray Brozas. By 1840, Brozas's second church was in bad state.
In 1853, Fray Francisco Moreno de Montalbanejo had gathered enough material for a stone church. However, Redondo (1884, 217) that the church was wood roofed with thatch.
The Jesuits left no permanent architectural imprint in the town.
The present barrio "Binongto-an (meaning, "once a town) was the original Calbiga settlement. Legend - as recorded by Atty. Singzon - has it that the people of Calbiga originated from two brothers, Calpis and Bituan. Bituan established a village near the mouth of the river while Calpis stayed upstream the exact location of the town today. The descendants of Bituan later abandoned the coastal village to join the descendants of Calpis.
