Amidst the turmoil besetting the U.S. presidential elections as well as the calls for Estrada’s resignation, it may be worth recalling one smooth turnover of power that happened in Cebu.

On December 19,1931, in the first ever celebration of Boys Week, all elective and appointive government officials formally relinquished their posts for a week to give way to a batch of young and intelligent boys from private and public schools in Cebu. Eladio Villa of the City intermediate School became the province’s first boy governor, while Demetrio Romanos of Zapatera Elementary School became municipal president, replacing Governor Mariano J. Cuenco and President Fructuoso Ramos, respectively.

One of the first moves of the so-called boy provincial government was the issuance of a resolution calling for “retrenchment of government properties” in which boy auditor Rodolfo Pensorga was praised by a local weekly for recommending to the boy provincial board the public auctioning of the five automobiles owned by the province.

The practice of ceremonially relinquishing local government units to the youth continues today in line with the government’s drug awareness program in the month of November. There is one remarkable difference, however - that of the inclusion of girls who have made significant inroads into a turf where boys used to dominate during the American colonial and early Republican years.

-Ybarra