Manuel A. Roa (born in 1872) was a Filipino

Visayan Visayans ( Cebuano: ''mga Bisayà'' ) are a Philippine ethnolinguistic family group or metaethnicity native to the Visayas, to the southernmost islands south of Luzon, and to a significant portion of Mindanao. They are composed of numerous di ...

politician from

Cebu Cebu ( ; ), officially the Province of Cebu (; ), is a province of the Philippines located in the Central Visayas region, and consists of a main island and 167 surrounding islands and islets. The coastal zone of Cebu is identified as a ...

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

. He was elected governor of Cebu and served from 1912 until 1922 and served twice as member of the Cebu Provincial Board (1909-1910 and 1937–1940).

Early life

Manuel A. Roa was born to an old merchant family in Cebu City in 1872 and one of the first to enjoy the

Pensionado Act The Pensionado Act is Act Number 854 of the Philippine Commission, which passed on 26 August 1903. Passed by the United States Congress, it established a scholarship program for Filipinos to attend school in the United States. The program has ...

as a student sent to the United States for education.

Career

He was part of the electoral board in 1906 when

Sergio Osmeña Sergio Osmeña Sr. (, ; zh, c=吳文釗, poj=Gô͘ Bûn-chiau; September 9, 1878 – October 19, 1961) was a Filipino people, Filipino lawyer and politician who served as the List of presidents of the Philippines, fourth president of the Ph ...

won as governor. Roa then served as councilor and then as municipal president (equivalent of mayor) of Cebu and then was appointed as member of the provincial board in 1909. He was governor of the province of Cebu for three terms from 1912 until 1921. As a candidate for Partido Nacionalista, he was elected on July 4, 1912, and assumed the office in October 16. On the day he was sworn, a typhoon struck the province and caused parts of the city to be submerged in one to two meters of water. It also took the lives of 396 people, wrecked over 21,000 houses, ruined 96 municipal buildings, public infrastructures, and properties, and caused the loss of crops and livestock. The biggest challenge in his first year as governor was to help the province recover and address the destruction brought about by the typhoon, with total damages estimated to be between two and four million pesos, through relief and rehabilitation efforts. Additionally, he worked to improve efficiency in tax collection, health, education, public works, and law enforcement. He would serve two more terms by being reelected governor in 1916 and again on June 3, 1919. Under his governorship, Compostela was recognized as a municipality and no longer part of

Liloan Liloan, officially the Municipality of Liloan (; ), is a municipality of the Philippines, municipality in the Philippine Province, province of Cebu, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 153,197 people. Making it t ...

and

University of the Philippines The University of the Philippines (UP; ) is a Higher education in the Philippines#State universities and colleges, state university system in the Philippines. It is the country's national university, as mandated by List of Philippine laws, Re ...

opened a Junior College of Liberal Arts in Cebu on May 3, 1918. An investigation was initiated in relation to the electoral fraud of 1919. He was involved in the controversy by a telegram he sent to then Senator

Celestino Rodriguez Celestino Rodríguez y Lasala (May 11, 1872 – 1955) was a Filipino lawyer and politician from Cebu, Philippines. He served as member and deputy in the Philippine Assembly (1907–1912), as senator (1916–1922), member of the 1st Nationa ...

to delay the investigation until "consultation" had been done with then Congressman Osmeña. The governor general ordered the investigation to continue and in the end, Roa was only given a reprimand and asked to pay the cost of postal service in delivering the official telegram. Upon the end of his term in 1922, he was replaced by Arsenio V. Climaco as provincial governor. In 1937, he was part of the first city council and the first presiding officer (equivalent of

vice mayor The deputy mayor (also known as vice mayor and assistant mayor) is an elective or appointive office of the second-ranking official that is present in many local governments. Duties and functions Many elected deputy mayors are members of the loca ...

) when Cebu was declared the third city of the Philippines, after

Manila Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the Capital of the Philippines, capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City, with a population of 1,846,513 people in 2020. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on ...

and

Baguio Baguio ( , , ), officially the City of Baguio (; ; ), is a Cities of the Philippines#Legal classification, highly urbanized city in the Cordillera Administrative Region, Philippines. It is known as the "Summer Capital of the Philippines", ...

. On December 29 of that same year, he was elected to the provincial board and briefly took over as governor when Buenaventura P. Rodriguez died on December 9, 1940.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roa, Manuel A.

Governor of Cebu The governor of Cebu () is the chief executive of the provincial government of Cebu, Philippines. The first governor appointed by the Spanish Crown was Miguel López de Legazpi, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, and during the history of the Philippines ...

Members of the Cebu Provincial Board Member may refer to: * Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon * Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set * In object-oriented programming, a member of a class ** Field (computer science), entries in ...

1872 births People from Cebu 20th-century Filipino politicians Cebuano people Nacionalista Party politicians 1940 deaths People from the Spanish East Indies