Tangub: The Haven of Free Education

By PJTremedal

Tangub City – “My great grand mother is not educated, but she was called the queen of the Chinese “Abacus” in the locality”. Atty. Philip Tan said as he recalls of his Lola. The Chinese abacus is a mathematical instrument used by Chinese businessmen.

Maria Cleofe Dy Tan arrived in Tangub after she followed her husband Don Lorenzo Tan who stayed in Tangub for 27 years earlier. Her life was a heartbreaking experience as she lived in wilderness, she never stop crying of loneliness. But as a loving wife she decided to lived with him.

When she delivered her sixth child, Lorenzo who have been a loving husband and a father, left her not without a home, the ailing husband who later died bought her a tract of land with a “Karomata” for payment.

She lived as a widower but life must move on with her six children. She was uneducated but not unintelligent. Amidst life difficulty she survived with them.

“She was very good in numbers; she was faster than my great grand father in computation using the Chinese “abacus”. Atty. Tan adds proudly.

When the Philippine National Bank of Oroquieta opened shortly before World War II, She was the first borrower for six hundred pesos that time, it was a fortune. Maria earned so much as the war broke out she choose to stay and bought the lands of her neighbors as they flee from the agony of war..

Maria Cleofe Dy Tan was a remarkable woman, her words was more valuable than anything she ever owned. With her six children she single-handedly raised them and educate them with her vision that education must be acquired to be free from bondage and thank to heavens, one of whom is the uncle of Atty. Philip Tan- the late Alfonso Dy Tan whose visions change the course of Tangub City.

Today, as Dep ED Secretary Jesli Lapus had said, “Education is the solution for everything” the Tans of Tangub followed their great grand mother vision, to educate her children and the rest of the Tangubeños. Not because the late Maria Cleofe Dy Tan was never been educated, but her vision says so.

As good leaders and educators, Attorney Philip Tan and wife Jennifer became officials of Tangub. With there agenda for good governance, agriculture, family values and youth development, Tangub is not far from behind other cities in the country.

As an offer for Tangubeños, especially the poor but deserving students, a scholarship grant to anybody who want to finish his or her education in their schools, the Gov. Alfredo D, Tan Memorial College and the North Western Mindanao State College is given free.

Edukasyon Para sa Mahihirap

This is the husband and wife battlecry to help their constituents; because they know that there no other alternative for a better life is to have a good education to counter the nation’s economic problem and unemployment.

Mayor Jennifer Tan, who now seats as the became the mayor of Tangub focused on a free education program for her constituents but not neglecting agriculture as one component for development of the city and its people, second is achieving family values that help and support every family, and development for the youth of tomorrow.

Tangub City, as what John Allen Peterson writes about it, “Tangub is at a unique crossroads of nature and culture. Rich soils, ample rainfall and abundant seafood from the chocolate waters of Panguil bay attracted settlers for many centuries.”

In the 17^th century, settlers from around the country began to trickle in for a variety of reasons. Some came as workers and staff of military forts and Catholic missions. Because of Public Land Act of 1903, large numbers of Cebuanos-speaking settlers from the Visayas streamed in from the provinces of Cebu, Bohol and Negros in the early1900s.

Tangub City then is a barrio of the municipality of Misamis, (now Ozamis City) which had been composed of Tudela, Clarin and Bonifacio municipalities. In 1920’s more and more migrants and a movement to secure socio-economic and political independence for Tangub was born.

Looking back to history, in 1955, from an election protest against Marcelino Alejandro, Alfonso Dy Tan took over the reins of Tangub. As day one begins in his administration, new barangays were opened, and scoured for new schools, built new school buildings, because thru the role of education in community building was not lost to him.

“Uncle Ponso (Alfonso Dy Tan) was a man of exacting standards, just like our Lola Maria (Maria Cleofe Dy Tan), believes in discipline and do not take kindly complacence. He was not open to compromise. And visioned that, Tangub, the land of his birth would one day sit strategically on the cross roads of change” Mayor Tan said.

Tangub has a land area of 16,572 hectares which 63% is devoted to agriculture, and with its 50,000 population scattered through out 55 barangays, education is a must.(Some text were quoted from a coffee table book published by the City Government entitled, Tangub City: On the Cross Roads of Change)

PHILIP JAMES MONGAYA TREMEDAL
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