Legendary Zambo mayor remembered

Mayor Cesar Climaco, Zamboanga's greatest.

WHILE MAYOR Beng Climaco never fails to commemorate the birth or death anniversaries of former mayor and lawmaker Maria Clara Lobregat, her son Celso Lobregat, who also served as mayor and congressman, is hardly seen in any important events related to the legendary Zamboanga mayor Cesar Cortes Climaco.

Last February 28 was the 106th birthday of Climaco, the mayor’s uncle who served as mayor for 11 years over three consecutive terms. 

The mayor reminisced the legacy of her uncle or “Lolo Cesar” to children whose lives he touched. He was known to go around Zamboanga on his motorcycle for his candy-giving activities to the kids, who would sing a rhyme about him to the tune of his favorite love song for his wife, “Oh My Darling Clementine” (song popularized by Freddy Quinn) - “Ai si Cesar, ai si Cesar, ai si Cesar Climaco, maskin viejo pero macho (even if he is old but he is macho), ai si Cesar Climaco!” 

Lolo Cesar was well-loved by the Zamboangueño people – both Christian and Muslim alike. In his office, he put up a sign that reads “I’m not a dirty old man, I’m a sexy senior citizen.” 

 Mayor Cesar Climaco confronting President Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, Imelda (Image: Climaco family archive)

Lolo Cesar was a prominent critic of the martial law regime of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos. He was famed for his toughness in governance and colorful personality, having been famous for his refusal to cut his hair until democratic rule was restored in the country.

On the morning of November 14, 1984, Lolo Cesar rushed to the scene of a fire that had broken out along Governor Alvares and he supervised operations to put out the fire, then prepared to leave. As he mounted his motorcycle to return to his office, an unidentified gunman approached from behind and shot him in the nape at point-blank range. The assassin escaped, while Lolo Cesar was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital.

The crowd that attended Lolo Cesar’s funeral was estimated around 200,000 people. Along the 10-kilometer Abong-Abong uphill route of the funeral march, mourners displayed protest placards and streamers, tossed confetti and flowers, and sang songs of defiance and sorrow. It was the largest political demonstration ever witnessed at any time in Mindanao.

Born on February 28, 1916 in Zamboanga City, Lolo Cesar was the third of seven children of Gregorio Borromeo Climaco and Isabel Dominguez Cortes. His father had been municipal councilor of Zamboanga and his mother worked as a schoolteacher and wrote for a local newspaper.

Belonging to a lower-middle class family, Lolo Cesar supported himself through high school as a worker asphalting roads. After graduation he was employed as a timekeeper, messenger, and janitor. Moving to Manila, he continued to be a working student while studying pre-law at the University of Santo Tomas and his law degree proper at the University of the Philippines. He alternated as a domestic house help, driver, and tutor to a well-off family, and a janitor at the Court of Appeals. He passed the bar in 1941 as one of the topnotchers.

The common people regarded Lolo Climaco as their protector and defender and they ran to him whenever they needed help for anything – a son who had been unjustly detained, a farmer who was being ejected from his land, a missing relative or friend. In all of these cases and countless others, Lolo Cesar always stood on the side of the poor, the disadvantaged, and the oppressed.

 “Thank you Uncle Cesar…Lolo Cesar, for your contributions and most importantly for offering your life for the love of Zamboanga and its people,” the mayor said after placing a pot of flowers at his monument at the Climaco Freedom Park in Pasonanca. (Zamboanga Post and Positively Filipino)