Bua has a low marshy terrain easily flooded during the rainy season, so some people thought wisely to leave and settle to a higher land at the foot of the Sumagang, a mountain east of Bua. Sumagang or Mt. Asog (now Mt. Iriga ) in the Bua dialect means “sunrise” and in Bikol language “agang sumirang,” meaning “early to rise”. This came to be called Iraga, which historians claim that it was called because Iraga being a frontier land had large tracts of land available for cultivation suitable for settlement. Iraga is Bikol word, a contraction of Igwa (there is ) Raga (land or soil).

Father Felix de Huertas, the then parish priest advised the farmers to move to I-raga (donde hay tierra or “where there is land) where they can plant their crops without fears of being flooded. The flood victims of Bua who moved earlier and followed the suggestions of their parish priest were the fortunate beneficiaries of the harvest of their agriculture plantation coming from the rich and fertile soil of I-raga, more so, those who planted at the foot of Sumagang Mountain (Mountain of the Rising Sun, now Mt. Iriga), said to be nature’s given symbol of the Iriguenos lofty ideals and noble visions.