The three legal musketeers of Cebu Province

Cebu was about to be obliterated from the map of the Philippines on February 4, 1964 when the Cebu Provincial Board passed a resolution donating 210 of its prime lots consisting of 380 hectares to Cebu City. Were it not for Governor Rene Gandiongco Espina and with the help of a private lawyer who later became a renowned constitutionalist, governor, and congressman, Pablo Paras Garcia, Cebu would have lost its spot as the country’s richest province.

Governor Espina and lawyer Garcia were able to shelf the grand scheme by securing a writ of injunction. But Governor Espina knew that he had to defend the province from another assault, thus in the November 14, 1967 election he chose his warriors well to be given the sacred duty of defending the sovereignty of the Cebu Province from decimation.

Governor Espina sought reelection, with his legal musketeers, mostly political neophytes whose only shield and weapon were their reputation of being honorable and courageous lawyers. The musketeers were Pablo P. Garcia, the private lawyer who helped him save the provincial lots, who in 1992 was elected congressman and authored the “Death Penalty Law” of January 1, 1994 and coined the term “heinous crimes”, he then became governor of Cebu in 1995, finishing three terms in 2004. Next was Valeriano “Val” Carillo of the Carillo lawyer clan of Sibonga, Cebu (a son and namesake, Joseph Val Carillo is presently an assistant prosecutor of Cebu City) and Reynaldo M. Mendiola, a lawyer from Naga, Cebu, who served as its mayor from 1945-1952.

Espina, with his vice gubernatorial candidate Dr. Osmundo G. Rama, and the three legal musketeers, candidates for board members, lawyers Garcia, Carillo, and Mendiola convinced the Cebuano electorate to vote for them with their slogan: Men Not Shadows, Voices Not Echoes. They won and from thereon not a single inch of Cebu Province was ever surrendered to anyone.

Proverbially, the daughter of one of the musketeers, the Bar topnotcher from the University of San Carlos, Pablo P. Garcia, became the first lady governor of Cebu, Gwendolyn Fiel Garcia, daughter of judge Esperanza Fiel Garcia, the Joan of Arc of the cooperativism, faced the same battle her father fought, this time it was called the Sugbuak in 2005, the Iron Lady of Southern Philippines prevailed and preserved the territorial integrity of Cebu, Gov. Garcia, who served the full three term up to 2013, is now back as governor after winning the 2019 election, and is putting Cebu back as the richest province in the country.