Ramon Bagatsing: A legacy brought to light
‘Today, thanks to Nick Joaquin, our National Artist, [he] wrote something for the next generation to be reminded that if you dedicate your life to public service, you can be immortalized.’
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‘Today, thanks to Nick Joaquin, our National Artist, [he] wrote something for the next generation to be reminded that if you dedicate your life to public service, you can be immortalized.’
MANILA Mayor Isko Moreno presented with the book alongside the Bagatsing siblings.
‘BOMBAY: A True-Blue Filipino’ book cover.
SON of former Mayor Ramon Bagatsing, former Ambassador of India to the Philippines and former Congressman Ramon Bagatsing Jr.
Ramon Bagatsing, a hero and the longest-serving mayor of Manila from 1971 to 1986, has a story that has now come to light.
National Artist Nick Joaquin wrote this biography before he passed away, and now, the story is finally published for everyone to get to know him.
Speaking to his son, Ramon “Don” Bagatsing Jr., he said that while he liked what the National Artist wrote, he wished it was more introspective and included more parts of his father’s story that would have established his political will and why he ran for mayor.
“It’s all there in the book, also, as you said, the challenges in his life, Plaza Miranda, what made him proceed to run despite his illness, his wounds. That’s where you can see his political will,” he said in an exclusive interview with DAILY TRIBUNE.
Former Mayor Ramon D. Bagatsing, a politician and military hero, was the 17th mayor of Manila. He served from 1971 to 1986, making him the city’s longest-serving mayor. He was of Indian descent.
Bagatsing was born on 19 August 1916, in Fabrica, Sagay, Negros Occidental, to Dionisia Delaraga, an ethnic Filipino, and Amado Bagatsing, a Punjabi immigrant from British Raj India. His father, originally named Mataram Singh Banga, changed his name to Amado Bhagat Singh, inspired by the famous Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh. Later, Amado changed his surname to Bagatsing, the local Hiligaynon phonetic equivalent of Bhagat Singh. Bagatsing became the family name for future generations.
The book highlights him as a true-blue Filipino despite his Indian heritage. According to his son, Bagatsing Jr., his father was more Filipino, and the very Indian thing about him was his diet, as he was a vegetarian.
He further detailed to me that beyond City Hall, his father was like any other father who would bond with his children — an overall normal family man beyond the walls of City Hall. He would go to Mass on Sundays, and they would have lunch after.
If there was one lesson Bagatsing Jr. learned from his father, it was to persevere because his father achieved so much because of this.
“Nakapagtagumpay sa negosyo, nakapagpaaral ng maigi, etc. So, ‘yun lang, persevere. Pagbutihin mo lahat kung ano gusto mo, kaya mo tuparin lahat (Succeeded in business, was able to provide a good education, etc. So, that’s it — just persevere. Do your best in whatever you want, you can achieve everything),” he said.
Meanwhile, current Manila Mayor Isko Moreno lauded the National Artist’s work as something for the next generation to read and be reminded that dedicating your life to public service can immortalize you in one way or another, whether through a book or a statue.
“Today, thanks to Nick Joaquin, our National Artist, [he] wrote something for the next generation to be reminded that if you dedicate your life to public service, you can be immortalized,” he said.
Moreno further aims to put the book in libraries across the city for the youth to read.
The story of the longest-serving mayor is a testament to how being a public servant, even through hardship, can blossom into a legacy that can never be forgotten — one that deserves to be read by generations to come.
