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BACOLOD CITY: Negros Occidental Vice Governor Isidro Zayco took his
oath as governor, and Sangguniang Panlalawigan Member Emilio Yulo
III as vice governor, of the sugar-producing province shortly before
9 a.m. Friday at the Provincial Capitol in Bacolod City, reported
the Philippine News Agency.
Governor Joseph Marañon passed away Thursday
night at his residence at Sta. Clara Subdivision in Bacolod after
five years of fighting a liver disease.
Zayco and Yulo immediately took their oath
before Judge Renato Muñez of the Regional Trial Court Branch 60 to
avoid a vacuum in the leadership of the provincial government.
Marañon, before his death, said the province is
in good hands under his vice governor, now Governor Zayco.
Zayco vowed to continue the programs started by
Marañon. He said would run the province in the same fashion as the
late governor did for the past seven years, saying he has great
respect for the governor who worked hard for the province with
unmatched achievements.
Gov. Marañon died of cardio-pulmonary
complications on Thursday, which was six days short of his 74th
birthday on March 19.
Marañon had asked to be buried at the family
mausoleum in Barangay Palanas, Sagay City, his hometown north of
Bacolod.
His body lies in state at the Carmelite Church
and later at the Provincial Capitol. Instead of flowers at the
necrological service, Maranon had told his staff to accept donations
for various humanitarian institutions.
His family said Maranon, a well-loved governor,
was already prepared to meet the Lord. “It was his wish that no
attempt to install, to incubate or to revive him shall be made when
his time to rest comes. He wanted to go peacefully.”
“He is loved by everybody because of his
generosity and openness. He would never turn-down any request for
projects,” a close friend said.
His wife, Aida Lopez Marañon, and children
Maria Lourdes Yopangco, Sagay City Councilor Joseph Gerard Marañon
and Ma survive him. Therese Ledesma.
Maranon was diagnosed with liver cancer about
five years ago and was recuperating. But he contracted pneumonia in
the May 2007 elections and slowly degenerated despite treatments in
Hongkong and Manila. He refused to be in hospital.
The governor was on his third term as governor.
Before politics, he was a private businessman
and sugar planter, giving scholarships to children of his employees
of his hacienda in Sagay City. Even household helps were sent to
school for higher education.
The governor earned his Bachelor of Science in
Commerce degree from now De La Salle University in Manila.
He served three terms as vice mayor of Sagay,
then three terms as mayor and saw through its becoming a chartered
city before eventually becoing governor of the country’s premier
sugar-producing province.
On his second term as governor, he brought back
the provincial government offices at the old Provincial Capitol
Building.
Even when he was already ill, Marañon was
building a Learning Center at the Paglaum Stadium in Bacolod for the
English Proficiency Training and Computer Literacy for public school
teachers.
He wanted to put up an Irrigation Highway in the
province using its big rivers.
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