Felicidad Cendana-Santos, the last of the first Davao City officials elected in 1955, died quietly last Dec. 14 at the age of 95.
Manang Fely, native of Urdaneta, Pangasinan, was a lawyer, graduating from the Far Eastern University college of law in 1947. She passed the bar examination the same year.
For two years, she worked with the House of Representatives as a lawyer in the Legislative Reference Service-Bill Division. That was her first exposure to lawmaking.
She came to Davao City on invitation of her brother Jose and practiced her profession in the undivided Davao province and neighboring areas.
In 1955 when the first election for Davao City officials was held, she ran and won in the ticket of the late mayor Carmelo L. Porras. Before then, the mayor, vice mayor and councilors of Davao City were appointed.
Porras won three times as did Santos, known to close friends as ”Manang Fely.” Very popular among young people and women, Councilor Santos kept on winning elections even after Porras lost to Vice Mayor Elias B. Lopez in 1967 and Mayor Lopez was defeated by the late Luis T. Santos in 1971.
In 1978, Manang Fely was drafted as the only lady candidate for the Interim Batasang Pambansa. That election was held in the three Davao provinces, Surigao City, Davao City, General Santos City and South Cotabato. She again won with nine others and served until 1984.
Out of politics, she concentrated in the country’s Girls Scouting Movement wherein she was a recognized pillar, serving in the Davao GSP Council Board for 46 uninterrupted years.
She left numerous projects, mostly infrastructures, ordinances and laws, as legacies of her half a century of public service.
