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RUFINO BOMASANG

• 61 years old

• President of PNOC-Exploration Corp.

• Hometown: Mountain Province.

• He was turned down twice when he applied for his first adult job, as a janitor.

• He had the Teachers Camp of Baguio not rejected his job application, who knows where
fate would have taken the stocky, bushy-browed young man with an ever-ready smile.
He finally became a houseboy to a Baguio doctor when he was in high school.

• He was valedictorian of his elementary school in 1953 and a


salutatorian in high school, Bomasang faced a dead end when his parents could no
longer afford to send him to college. The University of the Philippines took him in on a
scholarship program for national minorities, during which he met a quiet Muslim and
fellow minority scholar named Nur Misuari.

Bomasang obtained a mining engineer’s degree, and topped the board


examination in 1964. But he eschewed prestige jobs at established mines like Lepanto,
Philex, Atlas and Benguet, choosing instead to work as shift manager of a Proctor and
Gamble oil mill in Tondo.
There were limited career opportunities for Filipinos in mining prior to
the repeal of parity rights in the 1970s, he explained. Americans owned many of the
mines, and foreigners held most of the senior positions.

“Filipino mining engineers were bring discriminated against in their own


country at that time. We could only reach a certain level,” he said.

A former professor finally convinced him to join the mining sector in


1964, as mill superintendent of a mercury operation, the Palawan Quicksilver Mine. Its
owner, Marsman and Co., was then in the process of “Filipinizing” its operations, he
said.

When Bomasang flew to Palawan to take the job, it was his first ever
plane ride. He wondered if there was a dress code, so he donned a coat and tie. But
was the only one with such an outfit in the plane.

He also mistook his future boss, Feliciano Adorable, for a baggage hand. When
Adorable told him he led the Marsman operation there, Bomasang sheepishly removed
his coat.

It was in Palawan that he met his future wife Madelene, a schoolteacher.


They got married in 1970 and had two daughters. The first is now a
successful doctor, and the second, holder of a master’s degree in public
policy at a prestigious Japanese university, now works with a consulting
firm in the United States.

Bomasang, who later joined Itogon-Suyoc Mines in Benguet in 1967,


remarked that most people in his profession tended to marry only two kinds of women,
either medical workers or teachers.

• the marriage broke his father’s heart - the family was eyeing an
arranged marriage with a Besao nurse, whose name would later became synonymous
with Cordillera garments and handicrafts. Dad complained that he had wed a “mere
lowlander”.

But his wife’s kin also complained, he recounts lightheartedly. Her


grandmother grumbled that she married an Igorot, he said.

By the early 1980s, Bomasang’s name was a byword in the Asian coal
industry, “coal boy” in industry parlance. Recently, Graeme Robertson, the president of
Adaro, Indonesia’s largest coalmine, said he has played tennis with Boomy.

• Bomasang’s long career in the energy industry began in 1976 when he left the mining
sector to join the team of then Energy Secretary Geronimo Velasco, who had the
daunting task of developing indigenous energy sources after the shock of the first oil
crisis. Velasco wanted somebody with an extensive mining background to develop from
scratch the country’s coal resources.
• “Boomy” became the coal and uranium division chief of the then Bureau of Energy
Development in 1977, while being seconded as a senior manager of Petrophil Corp., the
precursor to the Filipino oil refiner Petron Corp.
During his years in the business, he became known throughout Southeast Asia as the
country’s foremost expert on coal. He traveled extensively around the world to learn from
mature industries in other countries. His work helped in the development of Semirara
Coal Corp., the only major coal mine in the Philippines today.
In 1986 he became president of PNOC Coal Corp., and as the country reeled through an
energy crisis several years after the downfall of the Ferdinand Marcos regime, he was
named acting head of the presidential Office of Energy Affairs, the precursor to the new
Energy Department. When the new energy act came to law in 1992, he was named
undersecretary of energy under Delfin Lazaro.

• Eng. Rufino Bomasang, also known as Boomie to close friends and associates, was
among 44 living Filipinos featured as modern day heroes in a book entitled "Modern Day
Filipino Heroes (Values They Live By)" by Maria Rosa “Bing” NievaCarrion-Buck. The
book was launched on November 30, 2008, Philippine National Heroes Day.
• Engr. Bomasang’s selection as a living hero was, no doubt, in recognition of his efforts
towards helping reduce Philippine dependence on imported oil through the development
of indigenous energy resources ( i.e. coal, geothermal, petroleum, and renewable
energy). Coal has displaced oil in most Philippine power plants and in all Philippine
cement plants, while the Philippines is now the world’s second largest user of geothermal
energy, a renewable energy source for power generation next only to the United States.
• Boomie is particularly famous for his leadership role in the “development of the
Malampaya gas-to-power project, considered the largest single infrastructure project
in Philippine history with total investments of 4.5 billion US dollars. The fruition of the
Malampaya project has substantially reduced oil dependence in the power sector, ushered
in the era of clean natural gas, and now contributes about a billion US dollars to the
Philippine economy annually in terms of direct government share and foreign exchange
savings.”
Silvestre Afable

Peace negotiator: Silvestre Afable is the government’s chief peace negotiator with the Moro Islamic
Liberation Front. Afable is an Igorot and hails from Baguio City and is of Ibaloi/Kankanaey/Japanese
ancestry

• Silvestre Afable, who led the Philippine government delegation, was quoted as saying
by the official Bernama news agency that the Manila government was committed to
achieving peace and "very happy that MILF had responded with seriousness and
commitment."
• He predicted that they would reach their goal sooner than expected.
• MILF delegation leader Mohagher Iqbal said their hope of achieving a comprehensive
and durable peace in Mindanao was "getting nearer and nearer".
• He said among the issues to be discussed was a political solution between the two
parties.
• Malaysia has been mediating in peace talks between Manila and the 12,000-strong
MILF, which has been fighting for over two decades to set up an Islamic state in the
southern third of the Philippines.
• The MILF has been demanding that it be granted rights over its "ancestral domain"
or homeland which traditionally means the entire southern island of Mindanao, where
they have been fighting to establish an independent Islamic state.
• Manila and the MILF signed a ceasefire in 2001 and opened peace talks but one of
the stumbling blocks was the rebels' demand for recognition of their ancestral
domain.
Brig. Gen. Pedro Baban, Igorot

Brig. Gen. Pedro Baban


Philippine Military Academy Class of 1940
La Trinidad Agricultural High School 1935 (now Benguet State University)

• La Trinidad, Benguet. Brig. Gen. Pedro Baban dies from heart failure at the age
of 93 on February 2, 2008. Friends, family, colleagues and the military paid their
respect and tribute at the San Jose Parish Church on February 11 and at the
Camp Dangwa, La Trinidad, Benguet where his body was laid to rest.
• Gen. Baban is remembered not only for his invaluable contributions
during the his stay in the service, but for being the first and only full
blooded Igorot (FBI) to be attain the generalship in the military.
• Being a graduate of PMA class 1940, the native of La Trinidad was a
part of the 66th Infantry Regiment – one amongst the units along with
American allies to liberate Baguio City during the Japanese occupation
in April of 1945. This was after he was released from being held
captive as a prisoner of war. His unit was also responsible for the
rescue of families closely watched by the Japanese – the family of then
Vice President Sergio Osmena and Sen. Manuel Roxas.
• Among the honors given to the decorated veteran were the Philippine
and American Defense medal, Distinguished Unit badge, Philippine
Republic Presidential Unit badge, Asiatic-Pacific War Theater medal,
World War II Victory medal and Service medal.
• Upon retirement from the military service, in 1974, Gen. Baban
founded and chaired the La Trinidad Water District from 1979 to 1991.
• An Ibaloi, Baban was a member of Philippine Military Academy Class of 1940
and was one of its first graduates sent to combat when World War II broke out.
• A pilot, he was grounded when Japan invaded the country, forcing him to join the
guerrilla movement. His brigade was the first Philippine unit to enter Baguio after
American planes bombarded the city to drive out the Japanese.
• An American flag was draped over Baban’s white casket.
• His six comrades, who attended the wake, felt the American flag was more
appropriate for the war hero.

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