Vicente Rama
The Father of Cebu City

Writer, journalist and senator Vicente Rama, 1917

As the Cebuanos annually celebrate Cebu City’s Charter Day Anniversary every 24th of February, people feel with nostalgic fondness for the late Vicente Rama, the man who gave color and luster to Cebu politics. His legacy as a shrewd politician and model statesman has been handed down from generation to generation. Vicente Rama landed in the limelight in Cebu’s political history when he authored Act No. 58 creating the Cebu City Charter in 1937. This move put him in a pinnacle and earned for him the honor as the “Father of the City of Cebu”. This legacy lives forever and is being well remembered in the annual celebration of the City’s Charter Day Anniversary.

He gained the reputation as a formidable politician in 1916 when he was elected councilor while running against the most popular party then, the Partido Democrata, headed by the late grandfather of the former president Cory Aquino, the late senator Juan Sumulong. As an elected Councilor of Cebu City, he garnered the highest number of votes, even higher than that of the elected mayor Fructuoso Ramos.

Some of the memorable events in his political career occurred in 1922 when Partido Democrata picked him as its standard bearer for the third congressional district of Cebu fighting against the party in power, the Partido Nacionalista headed by Don Sergio Osmeña. As an opposition, his party defeated all the candidates of the party in power. He was then appointed by Pres. Quezon as Mayor of Cebu City in 1938, the era when Cebu’s progress and stability started. In November 1940, Rama won as Senator of the Republic of the Philippines up to 1949.

The Charter of the City of Cebu was enacted through Commonwealth Act No. 58 by the Philippine Congress on October 20, 1936. It was principally sponsored by the then Sen. Vicente Rama. The City Charter was inaugurated in front of the pre-war City Hall on February 24, 1937.

Extracted from an article by Carolina Saligumba-Farol