Daoas – ex- mayor, education icon, laid to rest in Sagada

By Gina Dizon

SAGADA, Mountain Province -- A necrological service for former Sagada mayor Ignacio Daoas was held at the grounds municipal hall here attended by the family of the departed and  hundreds of townspeople before the body was carried to church for the burial ceremony afternoon of March 3.  

 The occasion reiterated the good deeds and example the former mayor has done for the community when he served then as mayor of the town 16 years ago. Commitment to public service was a major remark by a number of persons who attended the four day vigil since February 26 when he died after a prolonged illness. He died at  88.

“That’s my dad,” David Daoas, lawyer and former National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) chief  referred to his father, a much appreciated leader who led the town like a good father of a family and  good father of the town when he was the mayor 1988-1992.

Speaking during the necrological service, Daoas urged consultation as one value that  guided his father’s leadership especially at the time when the town was  at the height of a bloody  conflict between New Peoples Army insurgents and  government soldiers in the late 1980s eventually leading to the town people unilaterally declaring the town as a peace zone in 1988, and eventually Sagada declared as one of six special development areas of the country in 1993.

 The call for demilitarization of the town did not just come from the mind of one person. Daoas stressed that his father consulted officials, church and community leaders, elders and the community on what to do. A municipal peace council was created to this effect. The call  to demilitarize the town from both the hesitant New Peoples Army and the Armed Forces of the Philippines was the consensus of the people, he said.

Sagada as a peace zone came in the midst of the death of three children-one caught in the  crossfire and two died from the  bullets of drunken government military soldiers who were then playing with their guns at the market compound.

Key peace zone leaders who supported Daoas then included former  St Theodore’s Hospital medical doctor Dr Andrew Tauli, St Mary the Virgin then priest in-charge  Fr Alexander Wandag,  St Mary’s School  faculty Ms Soledad Belingon and former Sangguniang Bayan chairman and Vice  Mayor Thomas Killip.

The  call for consultation comes in the midst of  current problems  experienced by the tourist town of  Sagada as noted during the necrological service including issues on traffic jams, illegal parking, and waste management. This to add to and infrastructure projects that does not go through consultations.

 Traffic jam is a yearly problem for quite some time with no visible  solution on how the current leadership addresses the crisis. Cars are parked wherever and even on areas where there are No Parking signs. Cars especially during the  tourist peak seasons on Christmas, fiesta, Lent, and special holidays clog the already narrow streets of Sagada leading to major traffic jams, a perennial issue especially in the previous years when  tourist arrivals have increased. To date, three children suffered  injuries due to vehicular and traffic issues last year.

 The church also has opened its grounds for a materials recovery facility but nothing has progressed since a space was opened three years ago  and a structure  was built by the LGU to house the MRF  while the Calvary hill protested by  church leaders then, still is the site where the  LGU dump truck dumps its garbage.

Projects  are programmed and implemented without consultation. The Office of the Presidential Assistant on Peace Process (OPAPP) monitoring team noted the lack if not absence of consultations, a major finding with PAMANA projects not having been informed or discussed with people before these were programmed and implemented.The people of Tanulong barangay  in their resolution called for the pay back  of their P10 million farm to market road fund  as they were not  informed nor consulted where the money has gone. The  amount of P10 million from a P15 million PAMANA-OPAPP  fund granted for the Tanulong-Madongo farm to market road implemented by the Department of Agriculture and the Local Government  Unit  has been realigned to three other road projects namely  Engan, Kanip-aw, and Angtin located within the town. In said realignment, the Sangguniang Bayan was ignored leading the legislative body to question said transfer. 

 “Mamapke tako,” (let us be united) is a rallying cry of  Daoas  for a community to progress as one with consultation making this happen. Daoas noted the cultural practice of  ‘inayan’ akin to the Golden Rule  and ‘lawa’ (moral prohibition) to be applied in local governance.

 He also called on the need for protected areas of the town as tax declarations even as communal areas have already been registered by individuals.

 Former Sagada mayor Ignacio Daoas retired as a district schools supervisor of the Department of Education –Mountain Province in 1986. In Sept. 21,1998 his family was awarded the Centennial HuwarangPamilyang Pilipino at the Provincial and Regional level; and one of the four finalists at the Gawad Gina Lopez Bayaning Pilipino Awards – Pamilya category in 1999. He is married to Veronica Agpad Daoas and are blessed with seven children and many grandchildren.