World War II veteran recipient of Quezon award

LUCENA CITY – A World War II guerilla leader and public official who founded his own high school and college from which he graduated was among the recipients of the Quezon Medalya ng Karangalan awards on Aug. 19 (Quezon Day) in honor of the late Commonwealth President Manuel Luis Quezon.

The late former Lucban mayor Hobart Dator Sr., who became board member, vice governor and acting governor of Quezon province was awarded posthumously in recognition of his public service in local governance.

Oscar Santos, chairperson of the Quezon Day Awards Committee, has informed Dator’s son and namesake, Dator Jr., on the awards night at the Quezon Convention Center to be attended by guest of honor former Sen. Franklin Drilon.

Dator Jr. said his father served as mayor of Lucban where he was elected four times from 1956 to 1971. He then won a seat in the provincial board for 12 years and later was appointed vice governor, then acting governor.

The late mayor then 17, joined President Quezon’s own guerillas and later joined the Sector 43 Anderson Guerillas based in Mt. Banahaw. He was responsible for the establishment of the Lucban Municipal High School, the forerunner of the Southern Luzon Polytechnic College which was converted into a university by Quezon Gov. Raffy Nantes and now called Southern Luzon State University.

Dator Jr. said in 1964 his father founded the Lucban Municipal Junior High School. At that time, he said, his father was being offered a tempting bribe by municipal Judge Mariano Eleazar, himself an owner of a private academy in Lucban. Eleazar allegedly offered the late Dator of P80,000 cash, a lot title at Miramonte Subdivision and a car to dissuade him from establishing the LMJHS.

Dator Jr. said his father turned down the offer and even exercised political will when he expropriated lots for P5 a square meter from irate landowners just so he could pursue his dream of founding his own school.

“At that time, my father just graduated from elementary already a mayor and when his school was founded he enroled and became the first batch of graduates in 1967 with Rene Ofreneo, former labor undersecretary during the Aquino administration, as the class valedictorian,” Dator Jr. said. – Michelle Zoleta