Davao may look meekly like it cannot qualify as a ‘killing field’ of politicians. But, an inquisitive look at local history in the last 150 years will reveal that three provincial governors fell in the hands of assassins, with each instance of murder committed by a different group.
Jose Pinzon y Purga, the Spanish governor, was killed by Muslims in 1860, while Edward Robert C. Bolton, an American quasi-civil governor, was assassinated by the natives in 1906. On the other hand, Ramon de los Cientos was tragically killed by the communist rebels in 1986.
Curiously, the killings, which were swift and brutal, were predicated on the alleged abuses committed of the leaders while they were still in office. The assassinations happened in three different locations, namely Tagum City, in Davao del Norte; in Lacaron, Malita, Davao Occidental; and Bansalan, Davao del Sur.
A fourth governor was in the crosshairs over a decade when rebels ambushed him. Then Compostela Valley governor Jose Caballero, while travelling with his convoy, was waylaid by insurgents on Aug. 8, 2001 at Barangay Ngan, Compostela town.
Only one was wounded in the attack; the provincial leader’s life was spared from harm.
Death by deceit
The highest colonial authority to die in Moro hands in Davao was Spanish Jose Pinzon y Purga, Davao’s sixth governor; this took place in 1860. His death had a tragic, romantic twist after his intention to marry the daughter of a datu from Tagum was turned down. Presumably, the request did not sit well with the chief who ordered his treacherous killing of the governor or that a Moro suitor was simply angry at the idea of a foreigner competing for his love interest.
The Jesuit accounts, though, are more believable. Father Quirico More, SJ, in a January 2, 1865 letter written to his Mission Superior in Manila, wrote that the tragedy occurred due to the padre’s plan to establish a big Mandaya settlement in Bincungan, near the mouth of Tagum River. Pinzon was full of energy promoting the plan, and the Mandayas, the recipients of the initiative, were looking forward to seeing the governor inaugurate the new village.
But the euphoria generated by the event did not register well with the Moros who hatched the idea of assassinating him. To keep the plan from being discovered, the Moros pretended to welcome the project by helping the Mandaya finish the resettlement site in time for the inaugural and joined the Mandayas in receiving the governor.
The scheming Moros even invited the governor head to the ranch, pretending to offer another celebration would complement the one prepared by the Mandayas. Someone, though, smelled dead rat in the plan and told Pinzon about it. But the governor set aside the suspicion.
After the celebration, the datus invited the governor to a room where a Moro chief hacked him from behind with a kris, a Muslim bladed weapon. A second datu at once ran up to deliver the death blow by chopping off Pinzon’s head. His body was quartered and divided up to various Moro communities in Davao to provoke antagonism.
Bolton’s tragic death
A New Yorker, Edward C. Bolton, Davao’s first quasi-civil governor, was appointed as civil governor of Davao was made by virtue of Act No. 787. He was recommended by his predecessor for his war exploits and military leadership. But, more importantly, his personal belief that Filipinos could be governed through peaceful means was a departure from the concept of pacification many American colonial leaders embraced at the time.
Bolton’s administration was focused on continuing his predecessors’ initiatives. Even with limited funds, he worked in linking settlements to primary roads. On the side, he attended to his own plantation, and sat down with native leaders to quell tension among disgruntled tribes. In the end, it was his personal indiscretion and the bitter deals and treatment the tribesmen got from plantation owners that contributed to his downfall.
On June 6, 1906, he was by hacked to death by Mangulayon, a Kulaman Manobo chief. His foreman, Benjamin Christian, also an American, died in the same tragic incident that occurred in Lacaron, Malita, Davao del Sur. His death resulted in a bloody vendetta launched by the American establishment. His remains were recovered and sent to New York, arriving there after over two months of transit in a metallic coffin encased in a wooden box.
Insurgents’ vendetta
Before becoming first governor of Davao del Sur, Ramon delos Cientos Sr. was three-time elected mayor (1955-63) of Bansalan, Davao del Sur. Prior to his installation as provincial leader, he was a member of the Provincial Board of Davao del Sur in 1966 when Davao was not yet divided into three provinces.ÂÂ
In 1980, he returned to reclaim his old municipal position, earning a fourth term as Bansalan mayor. But with the popular uprising in 1986, he lost his clout and had to surrender his position to an officer-in-charge who took over the mayoralty. Silently, though, he was preparing for the next elections, hopeful he could return to his position as municipal mayor.
Tragedy, however, struck when on September 29, 1986, armed men jostled him away from the fiesta revelers and brought him to an isolated location where his abductors, later identified as members of the New People’s Army (NPA) shot him in cold blood. The reason for the murder was later traced to agrarian problem involving the former governor’s land.
To his credit, the luminary the townspeople called as ‘The Grand Old Man of Bansalan’ was accorded a hero’s burial, his legacy forever remembered by the people he served.
