EDGE DAVAO Serving a seamless society
77th ARAW NG DAVAO SUPPLEMENT
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.
THROWBACK The Davao of old and the legacy of Captain Domingo Leonor By NEILWIN JOSEPH L. BRAVO njb@edgedavao.net
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF MR. FRANCISCO LEONOR, SR.. 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. 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 Domingo 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 Commander of Davao during the American occupation of the Philippines from
1927-1931. Captain Domingo Leonor’s story is as colorful as his military exploits. Captain Domingo E. Leonor was the son of Francisco and former Miss Encarnado of Taal, Batangas. He was born to a poor family in August 2, 1885. As a young boy, Domingo was forced to seek employment as sacristan in the ancient 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 silently 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 Constabulary in 1900. Standing five-foot-six and athletically-built, he was taken as a bugler of Company “B” Expeditionary Battalion under Captain Ralph W. Jones and was immediately sent to train in St. Louis, Louisiana in the United States. Although there are no records retrieved from his files of his stint
FTHROWBACK, 2
AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN. Captain Domingo Leonor.