Municipio de Patillas

Patillas is represented through symbols of its identity, faith, and history. Its flag has four green rectangles in the corners symbolizing its valleys and mountains, a golden cross representing fidelity to the Holy Christ of Health, and an elongated octagonal figure at the center symbolizing an emerald, reflecting its name as the Emerald of the Southeast. The anthem “Patillense,” by Andres Plaud Soto, praises the light of a torch, noble deeds of love, struggles in fields of honor, achievements in learning, and the pride of people born in the town. Its shield shows a raven with bread symbolizing the bird that saved San Benito Abad, the town’s patron saint, from poisoning; a castle with three windows symbolizing the captivity of Santa Barbara, patron saint of Patillas in its early years, and her devotion to the Holy Trinity; a cross for the Holy Christ of Health; two crossed machetes expressing the struggle of peasants in the cane fields and the origins of economic development; three towers showing Patillas’s status as a town; and a watermelon leaf, or patilla, recalling the fruit that abounded west of Patillas and inspired the town’s name. Its motto, “Ora et labora,” means pray and work and comes from the religious order of San Benito Abad.

Patillas, Puerto Rico · United States