In line with the week-long celebration of the 71st founding anniversary of our province which will culminate this coming Monday, Vice-Mayor Dante C. Esteban of Calintaan tried to reflect on the Arawatan 2021 theme that reads, “Kulturang Pinagyayaman sa Kasalukuyang Panahon, Nagkakaisang Mindoreño Tayo ay Aahon,” (Culture Enriched in the Present, United Mindoreño We Will Rise Up).
The numerology number 71, by the way, is said to be fixated on the present reality accompanied by introspection and intuition and that could be our driving spirit in this celebration. But before incumbent Vice-Mayor Dante speaks on the province’s 71st founding anniversary, allow me to travel you first down memory lane.
Island’s disunion
The grandest event in Mindoro’s history after World War II was its division into two provinces by Republic Act 505. The Act was approved on June 13, 1950, by President Elpidio Quirino and was finally penned into law on November 15 that same year. The division of the two coasts gave birth to both Oriental and Occidental Mindoro.
The inaugural ceremony was held in Calapan wherein the formal transfer of all official functions did materialize. RA 505 is the fruition of HB No. 640 sponsored by the then lone district representative Cong. Raul T. Leuterio. That was 11 years before the seasoned politician Engr. Dante C. Esteban of Municipality of Calintaan was born in Aguas, Rizal on September 19, 1961. That was decades before my high school classmate Dante graduated at La Salle de Araneta in Malabon, finishing his BS in Agricultural Engineering, and tied knots with Miriam Abellera who gave birth to Kevin Dave, now a general practitioner- physician. The family owns the DMK gas station chain in town. DMK stands for Dante, Miriam, and Kevin.
Place of leeches
In 1894, the early settler of the settlement, from a few kilometers south, saw a woodland suitable for farming. The arable land was adjacent to two big lakes full of leeches during the wet season. “Leech” in Tagalog is “linta” therefore the place of leeches in the vernacular is called “Calintaan”. This is according to local historian Rudy A. Candelario.
The people of Calintaan rallied to local officials of the province that their barrio is created as a municipality. When Congressman Pedro Medalla, Sr. was elected to the Philippine Congress, he filed a bill for the creation of the Municipality of Calintaan. On June 18, 1966, under Republic Act No. 4732, it was separated from Sablayan and created as another municipality.
From 1995 to 2001, VM Dante, a Seventh-day Adventist, served his constituents in this gradually progressing town which he once dreamed of turning into a city-like status, and was proposed to change its name to San Miguel years ago but to no avail.
Dante’s dynamism
The
youth’s dynamism runs in Dante’s blood and it fueled his significant stint as
assistant administrator and at the same time PESO manager of City of Caloocan
and Quezon City, and as legislative staff at the House of Representatives before
he joined the local political fray in 1995. At present, he sits as a member of
the National Board of Directors (BOD) of the prestigious Vice Mayors’ League of
the Philippines or VMLP and vice-president of the league’s provincial chapter.
This hardworking and intelligent Ilocano has been serving as his beloved town’s chief lawmaker since 2016. During his recent watch at the height of the pandemic, VM Dante organized the so-called Bayanihan at Ambagan para sa Bayan benefitting the municipality’s frontline workers and health providers, the TODA members, and its single parents. In partnership with Gov. Eduardo B. Gadiano and the Provincial Government, Calintaan got the highest number of beneficiaries of DOLE’s TUPAD in the whole province pegged at 944 slots. This November, in cooperation with the Philippine Commission on the Urban Poor a Food and Health caravan in Calintaan will already be rolled-out. Around 70 units of water pumps were distributed by his administration as a post-harvest intervention to tillers owning rain-fed farms.
There
are many legislative and oversight actions and functions of the man that cannot
be contained in this write-up for lack of space but showed how Dante’s dynamism
was experienced by his constituents and the municipality he aims to serve in
the future as local chief executive. “As
we move forward as an emerging municipality of the province, we are steadfast
onward our determination for the realization of our dream,” he said,
addressing his people. Yes, the mayoralty position is next to Dante’s pick.
Anniversary message
As a citizen of this province and in celebration of its
71st anniversary, VM Dante Esteban said that our journey tells a lot
about our culture that reflects our faith and celebration of life even in these
challenging times. “Numerous dangers and risks are threatening our culture, but
these could not make us silent and adamant in serving our people-constituents,” concludes the Calintaan
mayoralty aspirant.
He believes that we continue to rise and survive the hardships in the last seven decades because of hard work and the people of Occidental Mindoro endured because they persevered.
“We have reached this far because culture plays an important role in our life, political life included. Not just by the fact that it drives and leads the people to their way of life but it is also the key to our identity,” quips the forward-looking dynamic, culture advocate leader-servant.
True enough, taking a cue from this year’s anniversary theme, politics decides culture at the macro-level while culture decides politics at a micro-level. Understandably, for culture to change positively, politics must be changed in the same manner.
Methinks.
Happy 71st one and all from VM Dante and this lowly storyteller of our local history.
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(Photo: Office of the Vice-Mayor, Municipality of Calintaan)
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