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Edge Davao 7 Issue 01 - Araw ng Dabaw Special

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Edge Davao 7 Issue 01 - Araw ng Dabaw Special, March 16-17, 2014
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If our local police are a class in themselves, ask every man and woman in blue uniform the moving inspiration of a man whose name is etched not only within the corners of their fenced barracks, but in their hearts and minds as well. At one corner of Camp Domin- go Leonor, the official name of the Davao City Police headquarters, stands a monument of a brave young soldier who owns the rare distinction of being the first ever home-grown Provincial Command- er of Davao during the American occupation of the Philippines from 1927-1931. Captain Domingo Leonor’s sto- ry is as colorful as his military ex- ploits. Captain Domingo E. Leonor was the son of Francisco and former Miss Encarnado of Taal, Batan- gas. He was born to a poor family in August 2, 1885. As a young boy, Domingo was forced to seek em- ployment as sacristan in the an- cient Taal Cathedral at the age of 10, earning a measly seven pesos a year from the church. He has been always enchanted with the military khaki uniform—a burning passion that he carried inside him as he si- lently vowed to one day become a soldier himself. At 15 years old, Domingo left the church with his meager savings to enlist in the Philippine Constab- ulary in 1900. Standing five-foot-six and athletically-built, he was taken as a bugler of Company “B” Expe- ditionary Battalion under Captain Ralph W. Jones and was immediate- ly sent to train in St. Louis, Louisi- ana in the United States. Although there are no records retrieved from his files of his stint [email protected] By NEILWIN JOSEPH L. BRAVO FTHROWBACK, 2 EDGE Serving a seamless society DAVAO 77th ARAW NG DAVAO SUPPLEMENT THROWBACK The Davao of old and the legacy of Captain Domingo Leonor Davao City’s policemen, not as ballyhooed as their counterparts in Manila, are a gallant lot. Silently doing their job as law enforcers under whosever command they may be at a given time. Of late, Davao’s cops have slowly but surely progressed in their reputation as fine men and women not only in carrying out police functions but more significantly, taking extra steps towards community service. AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN. Captain Domingo Leonor. OLD CITY HALL. This is the old Commandancia in San Pedro Street where the Provincial Commander holds office. Note the vintage cars and the flags of the United States and the Philippines. ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF MR. FRANCISCO LEONOR, SR..
Transcript
Page 1: Edge Davao 7 Issue 01 - Araw ng Dabaw Special

If our local police are a class in themselves, ask every man and woman in blue uniform the moving inspiration of a man whose name is etched not only within the corners of their fenced barracks, but in their hearts and minds as well.

At one corner of Camp Domin-go Leonor, the official name of the Davao City Police headquarters, stands a monument of a brave young soldier who owns the rare distinction of being the first ever home-grown Provincial Command-er of Davao during the American occupation of the Philippines from

1927-1931.Captain Domingo Leonor’s sto-

ry is as colorful as his military ex-ploits.

Captain Domingo E. Leonor was the son of Francisco and former Miss Encarnado of Taal, Batan-gas. He was born to a poor family in August 2, 1885. As a young boy, Domingo was forced to seek em-ployment as sacristan in the an-cient Taal Cathedral at the age of 10, earning a measly seven pesos a year from the church. He has been always enchanted with the military khaki uniform—a burning passion

that he carried inside him as he si-lently vowed to one day become a soldier himself.

At 15 years old, Domingo left the church with his meager savings to enlist in the Philippine Constab-ulary in 1900. Standing five-foot-six and athletically-built, he was taken as a bugler of Company “B” Expe-ditionary Battalion under Captain Ralph W. Jones and was immediate-ly sent to train in St. Louis, Louisi-ana in the United States.

Although there are no records retrieved from his files of his stint

[email protected]

By NEILWIN JOSEPH L. BRAVO

FTHROWBACK, 2

EDGE Serving a seamless society

DAVAO77th ARAW NG DAVAO SUPPLEMENT

THROWBACKThe Davao of old and the legacy of Captain Domingo

Leonor

Davao City’s policemen, not as ballyhooed as their counterparts in Manila, are a gallant lot. Silently doing their job as law enforcers under whosever command they may be at a given time. Of late, Davao’s cops have slowly but surely progressed in their reputation as fine men and women not only in carrying out police functions but more significantly, taking extra steps towards community service.

AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN. Captain Domingo Leonor.

OLD CITY HALL. This is the old Commandancia in San Pedro Street where the Provincial Commander holds office. Note the vintage cars and the flags of the United States and the Philippines.

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF MR. FRANCISCO LEONOR, SR..

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in the US, young Domingo was believed to have taken part in the US Cuban cam-paign where a lot of Filipinos died. He first arrived as a soldier ranked private in Davao in 1902. He got his first pro-motion as a private first class on July 19, 1904 and was stationed in Fort Cavite where he earned commendations for his role in battling insurrection in San Fran-cisco de Malabon.

In November 5, 1905 he was again promoted to first sergeant and was as-signed to the District of Mindanao--this is how Mindanao and eventually, Davao, became Domingo’s new home.

Domingo’s date with history came when he and three of his men killed the most notorious Moro bandit leader of his time named Jikiri in an encounter with Muslim rebels at Tung Talon, Bi-laton, Sulu. For this, he was elevated to Sergeant Major in July 20, 1909.

Despite his heroics in Mindanao, Do-mingo dreamed beyond the fields of bat-tles. Despite limited education, he prac-tically climbed his way up the ranks of commission in the Philippine Constabu-lary. His English was said to be grossly erratic but it was not his tongue but his attitude that catapulted him to a clerical position where he honed his language proficiency. After his field tour of Mind-anao, he returned to Luzon and worked under the staff of Lt. Col. John Gallant, senior inspector general of the Philip-pine Constabulary in July 20, 1912.

He entered the Philippine Constabu-lary Academy (now the Philippine Mil-itary Academy) in 1914. He struggled

in English and Mathematics and even went to the extent of requesting for a special class in those subjects in order to keep himself in the Academy. At that time of the American occupation where proficiency of the English language is a requirement for being commissioned, it was almost impossible to get a special class needing at least an act of Congress. Somehow, Domingo plodded on and hurdled the Academy where he received his diploma on February 29, 1915.

Now a 3rd Lieutenant, Domingo was assigned to Davao under 1Lt Walter E. Guthrie. 3rd Lt. Leonor scraped through the coastline of Davao Gulf on foot leading a patrol of seven men, mostly Americans, in a pacification drive that run through as far as Davao Oriental and Davao del Norte. His pacification drive paid off well gaining the support of the natives of Davao’s southeastern area with his civic projects earning for him the appointment as Governor of the Monkayo and Saug (Gov. Generoso) District which actually comprised the entire Davao del Norte and half of Davao Oriental under the old Davao province. With an honorarium of P600 a year, his appointment was signed by Eulalio Causing, first provincial governor of Davao province and attested by Poncia-no Reyes (in whose honor the Ponciano Reyes Street of today was named after), acting Department Governor.

He assumed Provincial Commander of Agusan in June 20, 1918 up to January 18, 1926. It was during that stint where

FTHROWBACK, 11

THROWBACKFFROM 1

THE OLD MILITARY BARRACKS. This is the old Constabulary headquarters , now the Davao City Police Office’s home which was named after Captain Domingo Leonor.

Captain Leonor with two native warriors.

The military officers. Captain Leonor receives visiting American military officials.

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4 activist teachersI don’t know who Pare

Pecto was in the Three Musketeers, though -- whether he was Porthos, Athos, Aramis, or D’Artag-nan. What I know is that sometime in the eventful year of 1969 in Davao City, towards the end of the first term of the late Mayor Elias B. Lopez, there appeared in the Davao scene, four activ-ist public school teachers, all known to me personally. They were Alibin, Bienveni-do Cuizon, Jesus Basuil and Romeo C. Chan.

Cuizon is the father of Fr. Paul Cuizon, parish priest of Sacred Heart Church in Bar-rio Obrero. Ben Cuizon is known to have introduced special education (SPED) to the Davao Region and might have been the first principal of the Davao SPED School in Bangkal. He retired some-time ago from the Depart-ment of Education as a ranking supervisor, if not assistant superintendent.

Basuil, now also retired, was the director of the Bu-reau of Local Government, a bureau of the Depart-

ment of Interior and Local Government when Luis T. Santos, his mentor in politics, became DILG sec-retary during the term of President Corazon C. Aqui-no. Basuil’s latest stint in politics was as chairman of Barangay 11-B, from 2007 to 2009.

Chan is now an active director of the Printing Association of Davao, Inc. (PIADI) cooperative as he had migrated from being a public school teacher, to government employee, news reporter to printing operator. He became dep-uty city treasurer and city press secretary during the martial law years under then mayor Santos. While writing a column in the Mindanao Times and corre-sponding to the Manila Bul-letin, Pare Romy found time to operate a printing press, plant rubber, durian and other crops in Nabunturan, and ventured in bankrolling a small scale mining opera-tion in the storied moun-tain of Diwata, alternately called Diwalwal, which was financial disaster.

All four—Alibin, Cuizon, Basuil and Chan—were teaching in different public schools in the city when the bug of activism, romanti-cized by the so-called First Quarter Storm in the na-tion’s capital, caught up with them. It was the year that Jose Ma. Sison orga-nized the New People’s Army in Luzon and the pe-riod where there was a wild student rally – we called it “demonstration” then –almost daily in Manila. In that time of witchhunting, everybody seen participat-ing in a rally ran the risk of being listed a subversive by the government’s spy orga-nizations led by the dread-ed National Intelligence Co-ordinating Agency (NICA).

In Davao City, the four musketeers in the public school system, led teachers’ rallies almost weekly, dis-rupting classes in the pro-cess. All with the gift of gab, the four mentors attract-ed thousands of teachers who would bravely come in droves and listen to the four harangued them on the burning issues befacing

teachers and the checkered educational system then. Yes, to the consternation of the late Pedro Sanvicente, the superintendent of city schools then.

Audience with Ferdie and Imelda

In a rare pre-Martial Law visit to city then, Pres-ident Marcos and his beau-tiful wife, Imelda, gave the four teachers an audience and listened to them rattle off a litany of complaints about what ails the coun-try’s educational system, including the compulsory contributions, the teachers, with their starvation salary, were made to endure.

The teachers’ rallies added to the chaos in the streets created by almost daily demonstrations by student activists. It was the time when the Kabatang Makabayan, Makibaka and other leftist student organi-zations were introduced to the local school campuses, to the discomfort of Mayor Lopez, a known political ally of Ferdinand E. Marcos, the sitting President who would later proclaim mar-

tial law and establish a dic-tatorship.

Lopez had called the at-tention of Superintendent Sanvicente, his long-time friend and fellow Rotarian, to the embarrassment that the rallies were causing his administration and post-haste asked him to quell the teachers’ unrest.

Romy Torres, the late diminutive media man, might have fanned the fire by headlining and editori-alizing the teachers rally in the weekly Mindanao Mir-ror where he was managing editor, following it up with interviews in the Roving Microphone nightly pro-gram at radio station DXMT of the Manila Times Broad-casting where he was the news director.

Rallies change teachers’ lives

One day, Sanvicente summoned the four “trou-blemakers” to City Hall to talk to them. According to Romy Chan, who was picked up by Col. Frank Pangilan, the police chief then, from the Jose Basti-da Elementary School in Dumoy, Sanvicente shed genuine tears without say-ing a word in that meet-ing. Chan would not reveal what exactly happened in that meeting in the mayor’s office, beyond saying that the teachers’ rallies they led had changed completely the lives of the four muske-teers.

Fast forward to a month after, all became quiet in the teachers’ front.

Chan was already writ-ing press releases for the Division of City Schools and helping put out the Mt. Apo Bulletin, the award-win-ning publication of the Ro-tary Club of Davao, when Sanvicente headed the pub-lication committee of the RC Davao or the “mother club.”

Jess Basuil went back to teaching somewhere in Calinan. He later ran for councilor under the tick-et of Santos who defeated Mayor Elias B. Lopez in 1971.

Cuison and Alibin were given scholarships in the University of the Philip-pines where they obtained their diplomas in graduate studies.

Cuison mastered in spe-cial education and later in-troduced the concept to the schools system of the city.

After his UP studies, Alibin rejoined Sanvicente who was by then promoted to regional director of the Ministry of Education, Cul-ture and Sports in Region 11. Alibin, a brilliant writ-er and editor of the college paper he graduated from, assisted in the preparation of the doctoral thesis of San-vicente with Centro Escolar University as a student con-sultant.

It was no surprise then that when Sanvicente be-came the first president of the USeP, he brought the highly qualified Alibin with him as secretary of the USeP Board of Regents. When Dr. Sanvicente be-came undersecretary of MECS, Alibin was however left behind to grow with the university.

In USeP, he held the po-sitions of teacher, research-er, director, consultant, dean of three colleges, and vice president before he was eventually named uni-versity president in 2007, which means that he has been USeP president for six years now.

It was his achievements as president of the state university and his “contri-bution to the field of ed-ucation (that) has placed Davao City in the map of the academic world.”

Dr. Alibin “has raised the standard of education of USeP and for that he has received various awards here and abroad,” accord-ing to a statement of the Datu Bago Awards Orga-nization through its chair-man, Dr. Guillermo “Willie” P. Torres Jr.

(When we were young, Pare Pecto and I stood as godfathers to the son of Romy Chan, one of the “three musketeers”.-AMA)

EDGE Serving a seamless society

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the ‘3 Musketeers’

DATU BAGO AWARDEE AS ACTIVIST TEACHER

[email protected]

By ANTONIO M. AJERO

AN episode in the life of Dr. Perfecto A. Alibin, president of the University of Southeastern Philippines (USeP) who is one of this year’s two recipients of the prestigious Datu Bago Award, may be likened to the story of the Three

Musketeers, a classic novel written by Alexandre Dumas about the adventure and misadventures of four, not just three, outstanding swordsmen in 17th Century France.

andPare Pecto

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OVER 200 groups will join the ‘Parada Dabawenyo’ (civic

parade) today, marking the highlight of the 77th Araw ng Davao celebration.

Participants include private companies, schools, local government offices, national agencies, non-gov-ernment organizations (NGOs), and other groups.

The city has allocated P417,000 worth of prizes for winning contingents.

Organizers had provid-ed guidelines for the event to avoid delay or cause tem-porary stoppage in the flow of the parade.

The city government will showcase its new am-bulances and other modern pieces of apparatus used by Central 911.

Senators Ramon ‘Bong’ Revilla Jr. and Allan Peter Cayetano will be in the pa-rade to share in the celebra-tion.

Mayor Rodrigo R. Dute-rte directed government officials and employees to participate in the cele-bration because ‘Araw ng

Davao’ is the sovereign day of the city.

The parade will start at 7:00 a.m. which will begin from Magsaysay Park to Magsaysay Avenue, turning left to C. M. Recto, then right to Bonifacio St. and turn left to Legaspi St., and on to San Pedro St. before exiting to Quimpo Boulevard.

The Traffic Manage-ment Center (TMC) has im-plemented a zero parking policy on major roads of the city during on the streets of parade.

TMC chief Rhodelio Poliquit asks spectators who have cars to park them far from the activity area so they would not be towed away.

Poliquit said he already asked assistance from pri-vate towing companies to remove vehicles cars parked along the route of the parade.

He said that no vehicles should be inside the activity area except police mobiles and ambulances for securi-ty purposes.

President Benigno

Aquino III has declared March 17 as a special non-working holiday in the city in line with the celebra-

tion.Executive secretary

Paquito N. Ochoa Jr. signed Proclamation No. 735 se-

ries of 2014 dated March 13 granting the request of the city government.

It grants city residents

full opportunity to partici-pate in the activities of this year’s celebration with ap-propriate ceremonies.’

EDGE Serving a seamless society

DAVAO S7

FESTIVE. Elementary pupils are seen performing an ethic dance during “Sayawan sa Da’n” along San Pedro Street. Lean Daval Jr.

77th ‘ARAW’:

‘Parada Dabawenyo’ today caps festivitiesBy ARMANDO B. FENEQUITO JR.

[email protected]

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The second Elias I know, and quite inti-mately, is a real person, not a fictional character. He is a lot more remark-able and iconic than the Noli character. He is the late Elias B. Lopez, one of two recipients this year of the Datu Bago Award, the highest accolade the City of Davao bestows on persons whose life achievements had con-tributed immensely to the growth of the city. This Elias is the second elected mayor of Davao City, but the very first Davao City-born politi-cian who held the posi-tion. He is a Bagobo na-tive. (The second Davao City-born mayor is law-yer Sara Carpio (nee Duterte).

Elias defeated Car-melo “Meloy” L. Porras, an engineer from Zam-bales, who had been city mayor for three succes-sive terms. Elias frus-trated Meloy’s bid to get elected for a fourth term.

During the first elec-tion of Meloy in 1955, Elias was the topnotch-er in the city council derby. He was No. 1 of the elected councilors, only 10 for the entire city then. The following election, wherein Meloy Porras was re-elected, Elias topped the race for councillor for the second time. On Meloy’s third term, Elias had become elected vice mayor and undisputed “rockstar” in Davao’s political fir-mament. In 1967, when Meloy ran for a fourth term –a term then last-ed for four years-- Elias challenged him and handily won.

It was an election wherein I had a per-sonal stake. Having just turned 21 years old, it was the first time that I voted and I was an active member of one of the many youth groups that

worked for Elias during the campaign. Fact is the very first words that I uttered in radio was a short campaign speech-in Cebuano rooting for him over DxDC, partic-ularly in the program slot of the late movie actor-commentator Bert Nombrado. I nev-er thought then that I would one day become a broadcaster myself, han-dling 8 newscasts a day, managing a radio station for 10 years and becom-ing chapter chairman of the Kapisanan ng mga Broadcaster sa Pilipinas (KBP), much less make media work as a time-life calling.

Elias was brilliant, multi-talented and defi-nitely a visionary when one considers the leg-acies that he had left behind. For the record, he was the first Mind-anaoan, a lumad at that, to become chairman of the University of the Philippines student council. His preoccupa-tion with campus poli-tics, however, cost him two of his other dreams that would give his fam-ily and Davao City more honors, that of becom-ing editor-in-chief of the Philippine Collegian, and topping the bar ex-ams. He was said to be preparing for a gradu-ate scholarship in the University of Michigan when he received a long distance call from the late Carlos Gempesaw offering him a slot in the council ticket of may-oral candidate Fermin Abella. When at first he declined, Nong Carling convinced him to just come home and talk about it with the group and go back to Manila if he decided against the idea. He was given a Manila-Davao-Manila roundtrip ticket for the purpose. The rest is po-

litical history.Fast forward to his

first year ofbeing city mayor. To the observant, it was clear that from Day 1 of his mayoralty, Elias wanted to do some dramatic things that would drastically change the social, economic, po-litical and cultural land-scape of the city of his birth. He wanted Davao, then also the financial, educational and health capital of the region, to have its own identity.

He established “Araw ng Dabaw,” as a year-ly celebration of the founding of Davao as a chartered city. He asked music teacher Guillermo Anajao to compose a city anthem and request-ed School Supt. Pedro Sanvicente to write the lyrics for what is now “Tayo’y Dabawenyo.” He also instituted the Datu Bago Award, to give hon-or to Dabawenyos who have contributed to the progress of the city. To provide citizens of the city a recreation area where they can go and relax and be entertained with their families with the least expense. He did this by reclaiming the blighted shores of Sta. Ana and built the Magsaysay Park.To exe-cute the plan and design of the park at minimal cost to the taxpayers, he marshalled the resourc-es of the city’s close to a hundred disparate civ-ic groups, professional associations and ser-vice organizations and assigned the plots to develop.The park was finished in no time at all, with everybody involved feeling a sense of own-ership and self-satisfac-tion.

Dabawenyos were likewise impressed with the flurry of infrastruc-ture projects that Elias’ administration started.

To augment the mea-ger budget of the city, the mayor would make frequent trips to Manila purposely to seek for al-locations from senators, congressmen and cabi-net members who hap-pened to be his former schoolmates. Another good going for Lopez then was his closeness to President.

Dabawenyos old enough in the late six-ties remember that went out of his way to regularly inform the people of his admin-istration by having a weekly program over television entitled “His Honor, the Mayor, ” sim-ilar but not the same with the “Gikansa Masa, Para sa Masa” program of Mayor Rodrigo Dute-rte now.

He was once of the busiest may-ors Dabawenyos had known. However, during the last years of his administration, his political rivals mounted a virulent propaganda campaign criticizing al-leged lawlessness, un-checked rampant juet-eng and other gambling activities and graft and corruption. The barrage of criticisms against the mayor’s deteriorating personal relationship with barangay leaders, including his own par-tymates and fellow na-tives found their mark, as incidents of him in-sulting barrio lieuten-ants (barangay captains now) and his alleged inaccessibility to the hoi polloi and even to me-dia men went viral. Due to his hectic schedule and heavy workload, he would no longer at-tend socials like fiestas, coronation of barrio beauty queen, accepted invitations to baptism, weddings, and other events especially those

that would rob him of sleep. On top of this, he became easily irritated and quick at scolding people. Not a few for-mer supporters became disappointed and slow-ly distanced from him.

Nevertheless, his defeat to Luis T. San-tos, who was his for-mer chief of police, was generally regarded as an upset especially by Dabawenyos who had the impression that Lo-pez was the best may-or they ever had. (Ten years later, though, Lopez had his taste of sweet revenge when he defeated Santos in their return bout). He returned to City Hall in 1983. Unfortunately, his comeback was cut short by the Edsa People Power, when all incum-bent local officials were replaced with OICs (of-ficers-in-charge) by the revolutionary govern-ment of President Cora-zon C. Aquino.

Elias considered this an injustice to him because he did noth-ing wrong to deserve the ouster. Indeed, it was worse, when one remembers that while he won in 1981 against Santos, he was pre-vented from assum-ing until 1983 due to machinations by the ruling Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL). He told me he was bitter about the fact that not one Dabawenyo stood up to point out this injustice

against him. This is the reason, he said, he de-clined to run for mayor again. When their group led by the late senator Alejandro “Landring” was looking for a stan-dard bearer against then OIC Mayor Zafiro L. Respicio, he polite-ly declined the offer to be the standard bearer. At the time, the group was in search of one who was believed more winnable than OIC Vice Mayor Rodrigo R. Dute-rte, because Rody then was a political newbie and therefore untested, aside from the fact that Rody declared he had no money to bankroll a campaign.

If some people found Elias to have a bloat-ed ego, it is because he had plenty to be proud of. Aside from being an aggressive manag-er, dynamic leader and a visionary, he was a powerful speaker and electrifying orator, who gestured not only with his hand but also with his body, an excellent player of many musical instruments, and a good singer who could sing songs in Japanese, Chi-nese, Bagobo, Pilipino, Cebuano and English. He was also a very good dancer of modern and Bagobo dances. I have never known of a Filipi-no who’s more knowl-edgeable of the life, loves and many talents of Dr. Jose P. Rizal than Elias B. Lopez.

DATU BAGO AWARD CREATOR AWARDED

Elias, the real [email protected]

By ANTONIO M. AJERO

THERE are only two Eliases I know in my 67 summers. The first Elias is the mysterious friend and ally of Crisostomo Ibarra, the leading protagonist in “Noli Me Tangere,” the first of two immortal novels of our national hero, Dr.

Jose P. Rizal. “Noli” and its sequel, “El Filibusterismo” depicted the abuses of the Spanish colonizers and clergy in the Philippines. This Elias wants to revolutionize the country and free his countrymen from the abuses of the Spaniards and their collaborators.

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re recorded another mili-tary milestone leading his men to capture and put an end to the atrocities committed by the then dreaded terrorist group “Colorums.”

After his well-docu-mented exploits in Agu-san, Captain Domingo E. Leonor took over his new assignment in Davao as the first Filipino Provin-cial Commander on De-cember 3, 1927. It was on the return to Davao by Domingo, a bachelor who had given most of his young life to military ser-vice, that he was reunit-ed with a native woman whom he had vowed to marry in exchange for his retirement. Her name was Juliana Rasay whom he bore three children—Lourdes, Domingo Jr., and Francisco.

Captain Leonor’s leg-acy did not end at the warfront. When he took over the PC command in Davao, the headquarters was in a small lot in San Pedro Street with not enough place for soldiers to stay. He found a more suitable place at the back of the old Maguindanao Theater (now DBP Buld-ing) owned by a Leba-nese named Awad who also has at that time the only electric light gen-erator for the theater. He thought it was a very strategic place and he wrote the national head-quarters of the Philip-pine Constabulary to ac-quire the land and build an honest-to-goodness military barracks.

With Davao emerging as a blooming hub for ab-aca business, the growing

migration of Japanese la-bor recruits, and at the same time the looming threats of seaborne Moro pirates who wanted to cash in on the rolling

progress, the Philippine Constabulary gave in to the proposal of Captain Leonor. He was also cred-ited for having brokered the subsequent donation of the property to the government, and even-tually, on April 9, 1927 the PC headquarters was inaugurated.

This property is actu-

ally owned by the Bon-leons whose patriarch Leoncio is the father of Filomena, a Bagoba-Chi-nese mestiza who is the mother of Domingo’s wife Juliana.

This is what is now the Philippine National Police’s Davao City head-quarters—a living legacy and symbol of hardwork

and aspirations of a man whose name is synony-mous to the ideals our police force are now car-rying on.

Captain Leonor re-tired in 1931 after a ca-reer running 29 years. He died in Manila on April 11, 1976 and was buried with military honors.

THROWBACKFFROM 2

JAPANESE VISITORS. Captain Leonor receives Capt. HIbino of Japan and his party.

FILIPINO OFFICERS. Captain Leonor (second from left, front row) with some of the Filipino military officers including General Santos (second row, third from left).

Captain Domingo Leonor left a legacy of a very colorful military career.

(Left photo) Captain Leonor with two of his men after conducting foot patrol. (right) Captain Leonor dirrects his men in the attack against Colorums (Outlaw) in Socorro, Surigao in 1924.

Page 12: Edge Davao 7 Issue 01 - Araw ng Dabaw Special

VOL. 7 ISSUE 1 • SUNDAY - MONDAY, MARCH 16-17, 2014

Features and Amenities:

Ilumina Estates builds secure, comfortable, and affordable homes, a sanctuary, where families can also build their dreams and make them a reality. Ilumina Estates is where your family belongs.

A premier project of:

“ The Community Builder ”

ACTUAL PHOTO: ENTRANCE GATE

ACTUAL PHOTOS: 1 STORY HOUSE MODEL ACTUAL PHOTOS: 2 STORY HOUSE MODEL

ACTUAL PHOTO: CLUBHOUSE

ACTUAL PHOTO: ECO PARK

ACTUAL PHOTO: BASKETBALL COURT

• Adecentlyplannedcommunity• Basketballandtenniscourtsforsports-orientedindividuals• Acommunityclubhousewithfunctionhallsfordifferentevents• Fullylandscapedparkandplaygroundforthekids• Awaterwastetreatmentfacility• Aperimeterfence• Anentrancegate

To all Dabawenyos on the 77th Founding Anniversary of Davao City

Where your family belongs.

Congratulations

EDGE Serving a seamless society

DAVAOS12


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