In my two previous columns here, I wrote about the governorship of Mariano Perdices, and his bids for election. He was, without a doubt as I’ve belabored in the previous write-ups, a product of his time.
Most of the politicians during the time of Perdices were not as half the man that he was – a man of integrity and competence, indeed a paragon of a public servant.
The current crop of politicians can only look back, and try to learn from the ways of Perdices for the betterment of their constituents.
With the advent of social media, people nowadays can easily speak with contumely against politicians who they believe are inept and corrupt.
Admittedly, not a few of them are as such today. What they can do, however, is to learn a thing or two from history, and the great deeds of their predecessors.
Thus, let me retrace the rise in politics of Perdices, and talk about his early years as a government leader until the Japanese Occupation of Dumaguete, as this could help our readers better understand how Perdices became the indomitable figure that he was when he ran for governor of Negros Oriental.
Perdices had all the characteristics of a good public servant – he was very affable and really walked the talk in all the things that he did. His initial entry to politics was rather fortuitous as he became municipal councilor of Dumaguete as a result of the unexpected death of his father-in-law, and incumbent councilor at that time, Dr. Eduardo Miciano – who died on 21 April 1932.
He then served as councilor of Dumaguete from 1932-1934, and from 1939-1941. Aspiring for a higher post, as he believed he needed more influence to do more for his constituents, Perdices then decided to run for mayor of Dumaguete against incumbent Mayor Don Pedro Teves, a seasoned politician who started as mayor of Dumaguete in 1903, and later from 1934-1940.
This would evince that Perdices was a risk-taker – an attribute that he continued to practice as he gradually climbed the political ladder. His gumption to take on a veteran politician is indeed admirable; back then, however, he had nothing to lose – it was all or nothing for him in the 1940s elections.
In the end, Perdices defeated Don Teves by a slim margin of 78 votes – receiving 1,393 votes, while Teves got 1,315 votes. Narciso Infante then won as vice mayor against Felipe Pastor, with a difference of almost 500 votes.
The Councilors who won, in order of the number of votes received, were: Lorenzo G. Teves [who later on became Perdices’ partner in the Nacionalista Party of Negros Oriental], Deogracias Pinili, Dr. Eduvigio Ruperto, Dr. Genovevo Absin Sr., Calixto Degamo, Sra. Magdalena Garcia, Sra. Hermenegilda Gloria, and Sr. Buenaventura Zamora.
The following year, however, Perdices faced a herculean task – one that would test his political adroitness. December 1941 marked the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, and it only took a few months after that by May for the Japanese occupying forces to arrive in Dumaguete.
In retrospect before the Japanese arrived in Dumaguete, some Dumagueteños pondered on the notion that the town should be burned, perhaps following the example of Russia during the Napoleonic epoch. After hearing these plans, Mayor Perdices, who was completely opposed to the notion, met with Silliman President Arthur L. Carson, and voiced his disagreement with the plan.
Perdices requested Carson for a possible postponement of the plan to give time for him, and perhaps other municipal officials, to warn the people, and bring them to safety — which was his primary concern.
He found it futile, if not devastating, to burn the town as he thought “…the only people to suffer from a burning policy would be the Filipinos.”
In the end, Perdices’ request was granted, and it proved to have been beneficial for the Dumagueteños as some of them – those who escaped to the hinterlands – started to gradually return to their houses when the Japanese arrived in Dumaguete. This was caused by Japan’s policy of attraction – with the help of local collaborators. Perdices, therefore, practically saved the town from being impractically burned down.
When the Japanese forces arrived in Dumaguete on 26 May 1942, they called on Perdices to return to the town proper, and report to them, eventually telling him that he would continue to serve as local town mayor under the supervision of the Japanese occupying forces.
He accepted this position not because he sided with the Japanese forces, but because he wanted to be able to have at least a modicum of influence to help his constituents go through the Japanese occupation.
He became their cushion to mitigate their suffering. And undeniably, he succeeded in doing this role by playing the double game; this was shown in his efforts to send vital information to the guerrillas in the hinterlands, and vouching for some of his constituents who were working in the underground movement in town.
In reality, Perdices and the other officials did not exercise any form of power under the Japanese forces. They were simply used to help in the pacification campaign – to convince civilians to return to the towns; their influence was somehow capitalized by the Japanese forces as they thought the civilians would listen to them more than anyone else.
One of the many good things that he did as mayor, however, was his advice to do away with blacklist mission of Major Juan Dominado, an intelligence officer in one of the guerrilla units assigned in Negros Oriental.
Dominado would go back and forth to Perdices’ house in San Jose St. to confer and coordinate with him. Also, Perdices would send medicines to Dominado to give to his compatriots in the hinterlands. This act alone was punishable by death.
Eventually, Dominado suggested to Perdices that he and his men were planning to do a “blacklist” mission, which would foment violence against Japanese collaborators in Dumaguete.
Perdices, however, told Dominado that the supposed collaborators in the list, which included informants, members of the Bureau of Constabulary, and other political collaborators, should not be harmed or killed.
Perdices reprobated the purported plan because insofar as he was concerned, they were still his constituents. Furthermore, although Perdices understood the sentiments of the guerrilla forces, he still believed that it was not the right way, nor was it the right time, to attain justice. Indubitably, this plea of Perdices saved a lot of lives – especially those who had collaborated with the Japanese forces.
As a result, some of the people living in Dumaguete during the war were witness to the magnanimity of Perdices, and the risk that he took just to ameliorate the situation in his town. One of these individuals was Silliman President Arthur Carson.
In his book, Sa Kabukiran, Carson recalled that of all the collaborators, it was Mariano Perdices who “tried to make the best out of the bad situation.”
As Carson asseverated: “No doubt he tried honestly to carry out reasonable instructions of the conquering power, but his loyalty was to his own people. He resolutely refrained from any unnecessary activities that might have pleased the conquerors. When he was asked, for example, to help round up the Americans, his reply is reported to have been something like this, ‘Where the Americans went, I do not know. Some disappeared in this direction, some in that. Undoubtedly, they are somewhere in the mountains, but I am a man of the lowlands. I know nothing about the mountains. You must go there yourselves.’”
Carson continued his praise for Perdices: “There was no time that we did not respect Mayor Perdices, and we came to have deep admiration for him when he later was found to be risking his life daily to act as a link the resistance chain of intelligence. At each step he remained true to the people who had elected him and to the duties of the office which he had been chosen to fill.”
The statements of Carson on Perdices’ courage during one of the most difficult times in Philippine history is a testament that Perdices was indeed viewed as a local hero in Dumaguete.
Stories of his heroism, without a doubt, would reach the other people in Negros Oriental, and this, I would infer, led to his success in the local political arena of Dumaguete, then later on Negros Oriental.
Who would have expected a young man, who fortuitously became a municipal councilor at the age of 25, to become a Wartime mayor at the age of 34?
At that young age, he helped a lot of his constituents, and played a dangerous game – a dual collaboration – with the Japanese forces and the guerrilla forces – just so that he can help mitigate the suffering of his constituents.
His decision to risk his life for his family members, friends, and constituents was not left forgotten among the Dumagueteños and Oriental Negrenses.
And this is why he became one of the most beloved politicians of his time. Suffice it to say, the naming of Dumaguete’s main thoroughfare as Mariano Perdices St. is befitting of his selfless love for the people of Negros Oriental.
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Author’s email: [email protected]
