[5] Then vicar of the Philippine Revolution Gregorio Aglipay and his Sandataan guerrilla chose the then thickly forested hilly area of Pinili to be his and his guerrillas’ last stand against the advancing American troops who are out to subdue President Emilio Aguinaldo and his followers north of the capital Manila.

Some are romanticizing that it was Aglipay who selected the name Pinili, but in fact it was the area's elders themselves who chose to unite and be one municipality after the Philippine-American War for unity and closer cooperation.

[6] Pinili was made an independent town on January 20, 1920, after then Governor General Francis Burton Harrison signed on Dec. 20, 1919 his Executive Order No.

Later on during the Japanese occupation in the 1940s, bolomen from the town, headed by Mariano Gamatero, with three subordinate officers ranked major, Agustin Cabie, Cecilio Vermudez, and Florencio Tacub, fought guerrilla warfare using military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run tactics, and mobility, to fight the larger and less-mobile Japanese troops.

Poverty Incidence of Pinili Source: Philippine Statistics Authority[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] Pinili, belonging to the second congressional district of the province of Ilocos Norte, is governed by a mayor designated as its local chief executive and by a municipal council as its legislative body in accordance with the Local Government Code.