“A leader must be a terror to the few who are evil in order to protect the lives and well-being of the many who are good” – President Duterte Source: http://mindanaoexaminer.com
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EDGEDAVAO
VOL. 9 ISSUE 89 • THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 2016
www.edgedavao.net
Serving a seamless society
SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT ON THE inauguration OF
His Excellency, Pres. Rodrigo R. Duterte
DUTERTE’S GENEALOGY This Mindanaoan President has a pedigree By Antonio V. Figueroa
B
efore Davao City mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte hit the national headlines when he declared his presidential bid and eventually won as the 16th president of the Philippines, nobody knew much about his family lineage, not even in his home turf, Davao City. In an age when members of the so-called ‘XYZ generation’ prefer more the history of technological gadgets than knowing the grandparents of Daddy and Mommy, it looks like appreciating one’s family history has been relegated to the baul. In fact, ask any kid today who has not lived with the grannies who the parents of their Dad and Mom are, chances are they will mumble a few audible names then turn to their parents to ask for confirmation if they were correct with their hunches.
Cebu roots The Dutertes, one of the political clans in Davao Region, historically come from Cebu. Oral tradition points out there were actually two Duterte clans in that province, one from the south and the other from the north. But the lineage indicates they could have come from similar roots. The Davao lineage, accordingly, traces its roots to northern Cebu, to couple Facundo Duterte and Zoila Gonzales whose marriage bore five children, namely: Ramon, Sr. who was married to Rosario Regis of Carcar; Mariano tied the knot with Salud Calvo; Soledad wedded Epifanio Rodis; Jorge married Estefania Dacayana; and former Davao governor Vicente, fondly called ‘Teti’ but known as ‘Nene’ in Danao City, became the husband of Soledad Roa, mother of President Rody. A half-brother, the illegitimate son of Facundo, was Adolfo Enriquez, who took the surname of his mother but adopted his father’s surname as middle name, as was the practice then. He lived in Cavite. Ramon, born on Dec. 23, 1901 in Danao City, was fondly called ‘Lolo Banawa’; he earned his Bachelor of Laws from the Philippine Law School
in 1925. Three decades later, he was elected vice mayor of Cebu City, with Sergio “Serging” Osmeña Jr., his running mate, as mayor. He took over as city chief executive (Sept. 13, 1957-Dec. 31, 1959) when Osmeña resigned to run for Congress. Aside from becoming a judge of the Court of First Instance, Ramon was also a Law professor at the University of the Visayas (UV) and the University of Southern Philippines (USP). A Cebu City street was named after him by virtue of City Ordinance No. 719, signed on August 5, 1971. His son, Ronald, would become city mayor of Cebu (1993-96). Vicente’s marriage to Soledad Roa, a former teacher of Cabadbaran City, Agusan del Norte, produced five offsprings: Eleanor, Rodrigo, Benjamin, Emmanuel and Jocelyn. Rodrigo, the seven-time city mayor of Davao, sired three children with spouse Elizabeth Zimmerman (Sarah, Paolo and Sebastian) and a daughter, Veronica, by nurse Honeylet Avanceña. Durano lineage The Dutertes are also related to the powerful Durano clan of Danao, who are descended on the maternal side from the well-known Mercados of Cebu City.
Ramon, one of seven children of couple Demetrio Durano and Bibiana Mercado, married Beatriz, fondly known as ‘Ati’, the third child and daughter of Severo Duterte, a member of a political clan in Danao and brother of Facundo, and Felisa Ypil. Beatriz is the second-degree cousin of Vicente, the future Davao governor, Rodrigo’s father. Interestingly, Elisea, sister of Ramon Durano Sr. and one of three daughters of Demetrio and Bibiana, married Paulo Almendras, a scion of another political family who served as municipal president and mayor of Danao. The marriage produced four sons, namely: Priscilliano, Jovenal (OIC mayor of Danao during the first Aquino administration), Josefino and Alejandro (governor of Davao, senator, Cabinet secretary during the Garcia administration, and assemblyman and congressman before his demise.) Today, the heaviest concentration of Duterte surnames can be found in Danao City and in the towns of Compostela, Carcar, and Liloan, in Cebu Province. Dutertes of Danao Michael Cullinane, an Associate Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies of University of
Wisconsin, USA, has made an impressive and thorough research on the Duterte lineage, something that provides us a clear picture the Dutertes of Cebu were actually part of the alta sociedad o high society establishment, and are descended from a Spanish bloodline who married local lasses. Rodrigo’s super lola, so to speak, was Dionisia Duterte, also known as Francisca, which could be attributed to the old practice of changing names during infancy if the child contracted illness and had a difficult time recovering from it. Based on scanty records, Dionisia remained unmarried but bore a son, Isabelo Duterte Veloso in her relationship with Maximo Veloso del Rosario, a Chinese mestizo who belonged to Cebu’s landowners whose real estate interests reached as far as Binondo, Manila. The use of Duterte as middle name instead of surname was an old accepted practice when the father recognized his child born out of wedlock. Isabelo, with the help of his father’s wealth, migrated north and acquired properties in the towns of Danao and Carmen in the last quarter of the 19th century and later married a Danao maiden named Damasa Buot, recognized in oral tradition
as a landed gentry or haciendera. The Isabelo-Damasa marriage bore several children, one of them was Facundo Duterte, who married Zoila Gonzales. The union also produced several offsprings, one of whom was Vicente Duterte, who migrated to Davao region and went on to become governor and secretary of the Department of General Services (DGS) during the first term of the Marcos administration. Durano vs Duterte Unlike the Dutertes, the Duranos ‘were neither wealthy nor landed.’ Cullinane, in An Anarchy of Families (1994), wrote: “Ramon’s [the elder] father appears to have been an itinerant merchant—trading local products and operating a fleet of small sailing vessels that plied the inland seas between the north coast of Ceby and the west coast of Leyte… “[His] marriage to Beatriz Duterte provided another important link. The Dutertes had long been a significant political family in Danao, one with strong roots in Cebu City. The father of Beatriz, Severo Duterte, was politically active and competed for the mayorship before the
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