Pasig, officially City of Pasig is one of the highly urbanized cities of Metro Manila in the Philippines and was the former capital of the province of Rizal prior to the formation of the grouping of cities designated as the National Capital Region. Located along the eastern border of Metro Manila, Pasig is bordered on the west by Quezon City and Mandaluyong City; to the north by Marikina City; to the south by Makati City, Pateros, and Taguig City; and to the east by Antipolo City, the municipality of Cainta and Taytay in the province of Rizal.Pasig is primarily residential and industrial, but has been becoming increasingly commercial in these recent years. Pasig is one of the three municipalities appointed by the diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines, making the Pasig Cathedral a landmark, coinciding to its township in the year 1573.The city's name Pasig was believed to have come from the old Sanskrit word “passid”, or sand, which refers to the tribal community beside the sandy edges of the river. Some historians believed that El Pasig came from Legaspi (Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, the Basque explorer well known for being involved in the "Sanduguan", and was the first Governor-General of the Spanish East Indies.It was pronounced “mapaksik” by the Pre-Hispanic Chinese inhabitants of Binondo, Manila. “Mapaksik" later became "Pah-sik", and was then changed to what is now "Pasig". It may have also come from the Tagalog word "dalampasigan", which means "riverbank".According to Jose Villa Panganiban, the former director of The Institute of National Language, "Pasig" is another ancient Sanskrit word meaning “ A waterway coming from one body of water to another,” which briefly describes the river because its flow starts from Laguna de Bay, leading to Manila Bay.
