Mabalacat is a 1st Class Municipality vying to become the second component city of the Province of Pampanga.  Mabalacat became a town in the year 1712.  It was named after the Balacat tree (Zyzyphus Zonulata Blco.), which is a forth class timber.  The word Mabalacat means “full of balacat”.  Then a settlement of a Negrito tribe headed by a chieftain named Caragan, the area was virtual forest of balacat trees.  Before 1712 Mabalacat was a barrio (barangay) of Bambang now Bamban, in the Province of Tarlac.

    From 1916 up to the present (2008) or a period of 92 years there were 24 Municipal Mayors, elective and appointive, who took turns in running the affairs of the local government.  The incumbent mayor is the Honorable Marino “Boking P. Morales, serving his first term, who was first elected in the May 1995 elections.  Mayor Morales was re-elected in the 1998 elections and again re-elected in 2001.