Masinloc is often assigned a founding date in 1572. That year is important to the history of Zambales because it is associated with Spanish exploration under Juan de Salcedo. The sources reviewed do not connect that expedition to the establishment of a town called Masinloc.
Exploration and founding are different events. Passing through a coastline can place a region in a colonial account, but it does not create a municipality, a mission town, or a parish.
Why 1607 is the correct documented year
The academic history of the Augustinian Recollect mission states that Fray Andrés del Espíritu Santo reached Masinloc by sea with Fray Jerónimo de Cristo in 1607. It identifies Andrés as founder of the new pueblo and builder of its first church.
DILG Zambales gives the same sequence at provincial level: Spanish exploration in 1572, followed by Masinloc among the earliest towns established in 1607. Two independent public-facing sources therefore point to the same correction.
What founding means here
The word founding refers to the documented colonial mission town. It does not mean the coast was empty before 1607. Sambal and Aeta communities belong to the history that came before the surviving mission record.
That distinction allows both claims to remain true: Masinloc's documented founding year is 1607, and human life and local culture on this coast are older than the colonial town.
For the documented town, use 1607. For the people who lived here before it, do not invent a date the record cannot carry.
The classroom version
Masinloc was founded as a documented mission town in 1607 by Fray Andrés del Espíritu Santo. The year 1572 refers to Spanish exploration in Zambales, not to Masinloc's founding. Communities already lived on this coast before either colonial date.
See also: how we separate documented history from local memory.