Alegria, Cebu: A truly blessed town indeed
The name Alegria was derived from the Spanish word ''alegre'' meaning cheerful. The people of this town, some 115 kilometers south of Cebu (three and a half hours away from Cebu City), the Alegrehanons, smile, laugh, and giggle, especially nowadays when the oil and gas discovery put this town on the world map. Everyone in Manila asks me, being from the seventh district, where in the world is Alegria. This column is my answer. It is bound by Badian in the north, Malabuyoc in the south, the mountains of Dalaguete and Alcoy in the east, and Tañon Strait and Negros in the west.
Alegria is a fourth-class municipality belonging to the newly-created seventh congressional district. It is the luckiest town in the province. We rather call it blessed because, of all towns, an oil and gas deposit of 18 million barrels of oil and 10 billion cubic feet of gas was discovered there. It should be booming soon, with hundreds of workers manning oil fields. Food and hotel businesses shall soon flourish and real estate prices rise like crazy. The happiest person in town is Mayor Verna Magallon, and the people from Alegria are celebrating and thanking God for this blessing.
Congressman Peter John Calderon, who defeated Pablo John Garcia last congressional polls, is a lucky guy. His name is emblazoned in history as the first representative of the newly-created congressional district. Actually, our southwestern part of Cebu is the best tourism destination, with a lot of snorkeling, swimming, mountaineering, and canyoneering attractions. Calderon should bring all the mayors to newly-installed Tourism Secretary Puyat and present a master tourism plan for DRAMBAG M (Dumanjug, Ronda, Alcantara, Moalboal, Badian, Alegria, Ginatilan, and Malabuyoc).
Before martial law, the towns from Alcantara up to Oslob and Boljoon were parts of the old fifth district dominated by the Cuencos, namely Don Mariano Jesus Cuenco, Don Miguel Cuenco, and Don Manuel Cuenco, the forefathers of Tony Cuenco. Sibonga, Argao, Alcoy and Dalaguete were under the control of the Kintanars with Isidro Kintanar who died undefeated. Former chief justice Hilario Davide Jr., a prominent con-con delegate in 1973, was instrumental in creating southern Cebu, with 15 towns as one congressional district, combining the fourth and fifth district as well as Ronda, and Dumanjug. We who supported Davide called it statesmanship. Our political detractors called it Davidemandering. When the second district was split, they called it Camineromandering and Garciamandering, to separate the kingdom of Argao from the sovereign state of Dumanjug.
Alegria, which used to be a small chip in the overall assemblage of political giants, now comes out as the strongest economic mammoth to outgrow Argao, Dumanjug, or Badian. Let us all visit Alegria and see for ourselves the new mecca of black gold diggers.
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