The Gumilas and the Climacos

Today, July 24, 2024, in Katy, Texas, USA, a Requiem Mass will be held for Ramon Lucero Gumila Sr., who passed away on July 13, just nine days shy of his 103rd birthday. While I called him Tio Ramon, he was really my maternal grandfather’s third cousin, and in Cebuano genealogical terminology, I was his apo sa pag-agawan. While never particularly close, we always knew we were relatives and when we saw each other in Argao, always treated each other as family.

While the last person who lived in Argao with Gumila as part of his name, Theodore “Ted” Gumila Villarimo, Argao’s former tourism commissioner, died in 2010, descendants of the family still call Argao home and from time to time visit there. The Gumila Family was the first and one of very few Spaniards to set foot in Argao, Cebu, in the nineteenth century. Although Spaniards, mostly friars and the occasional visiting government functionaries, visited and sometimes lived in town, for most of its history there have been very few Spaniards who made Argao their home. So when the Gumilas first arrived in Argao in the middle of the nineteenth century, they became a celebrated family in South Cebu.

They originally came from Palma de Mallorca, Spain and were mid-level government officials. The earliest Gumila in the Philippines was Don Juan Gumila who arrived sometime in the last quarter of 1828 in Manila aboard the Spanish frigate “Victoria” who had the rank of corporal, together with Spanish friars headed to San Gregorio: Fray José Viguera, Fray Bartolomé Fernández, Fray Francisco Rojano, and Fray Bernardo Daza. Other distinguished passengers included José García Paredes, a lieutenant colonel of the Batallón de Artillería del departamento de Filipinas, Presbiter Pedro de la Cueva, chaplain of the Batallón veterano de Infantería Tercero de línea, corporals Juan Rodríguez, Luis Barbará, and Miguel Blanes, and Manuela Margarita Ramírez and Manuel Olaguer Feliu.

Family lore suggests that he was first assigned to Zamboanga and it was probably there where he met and married Doña Teodora Santana, who was from the Calamianes Islands in Palawan. Don Juan Gumila was later appointed as a visitador of the 3rd District, which brought him and his family to Cebu. Their son, Don Cayetano Gumila, who served as an inspector de obras of the 1st District, married Doña Maria Taguenca-Cabrera y Lucero. One of their children, Don Teodoro Gumila, married his cousin Trinidad Lucero and they were the parents of Ramon Lucero Gumila. Teodoro Gumila served as a vice president (now vice mayor) of Argao. A direct descendant and a daughter of Ramon is Philippine actress Maila Gumila.

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On this day, also, Arsenio Climaco was born in 1870 in Cebu. Arsenio was the sixth governor of Cebu, serving from 1922 until 1930, becoming the second Climaco to be elected governor after his uncle, Don Juan Climaco. During the Spanish period, Climaco was a sergeant of the voluntarios leales, a regidor of the ayuntamiento, the alferez real of the Fendon de Castilla, and was in charge of collecting the dead that were found everywhere along the road. Prior to his election as Cebu governor, he also served as a municipal president (now mayor) of Cebu from 1913 until 1916. In 1916, he was elected as a provincial board member of Cebu. One of Arsenio’s accomplishments as governor was the construction of steel and concrete bridges over the Mananga River in Talisay City, Cebu.

It is interesting to note that Arsenio had married Juana “Juanita” Osmeña y Taguenca-Cabrera, the first cousin of President Sergio Osmeña. Juanita’s mother, Januaria Taguenca-Cabrera y Lucero, was the sister of Maria Taguenca-Cabrera y Lucero de Gumila. A daughter of Arsenio and Juanita was Angeles Osmeña, who was Cebu’s Carnival Queen in 1923 and the last queen to be crowned at the Fuente Osmeña Circle.