Place:Compostela Valley, Davao, Philippines

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the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Davao de Oro, officially the Province of Davao de Oro, is a province in the Philippines located in the Davao Region in Mindanao. Its capital is Nabunturan. It used to be part of the province of Davao del Norte until it was made a separate province in 1998.

The province borders Davao del Norte to the west, Agusan del Sur to the north, and Davao Oriental to the east. To the southwest lies the Davao Gulf. The first elected governor was Jose Caballero, formerly a lawyer for a mining group in the province. It was formerly known as Compostela Valley (shortened to ComVal; ) from its inception until December 2019, when a plebiscite ratified the law that proposed to rename the province to Davao de Oro.^[1]

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Davao de Oro, the 78th province in the country, was created out of Davao del Norte Province by virtue of Republic Act No. 8470, signed by President Fidel V. Ramos on January 30, 1998. The new province was officially named Compostela Valley. On March 7 of the same year, the law was ratified through a plebiscite conducted in the twenty-two (22) municipalities of the mother province.

The movement to create a new province by dividing Davao del Norte started in the 1980s during the time of Congressman Lorenzo S. Sarmiento, Sr., himself the author of RA No. 6430. However, this was not realized until his death in the late 1980s. His son, Rogelio M. Sarmiento, who became his successor in Congress, pushed for the passage of the bill creating the province.

Upon consultation with the governor of Davao del Norte, Prospero S. Amatong, the province's other two legislators, 3rd District Congressman Rodolfo P. Del Rosario and 2nd District Congressman Baltazar A. Sator, and other provincial and municipal officials, it was decided that the addition of four municipalities, namely Maco, Mabini, Pantukan, and Laak to the proposed province would be the most ideal and equitable configuration as this would make both provinces on an almost equal footing in terms of area, population, and development opportunities. It was also decided that Nabunturan would be the capital town because of its more central location.

The name originally proposed for the province was Davao del Norte, the former name, or so it was thought, of the mother province. However, the House of Representatives’ Reference and Research Bureau which conducted the research and legal work on the creation of the province found out that the mother province continues to be officially referred to as Davao del Norte in most official documents including the 1987 Philippine Constitution despite the passage of RA No. 6430 on June 17, 1972 renaming it as Davao Province. Tedious technical and legal issues needed to be resolved before the name could be adopted. The proposal was thus shelved and the name finally agreed upon was Compostela Valley, referring to the great fertile plain in the heartland of the province.

The origin of the province’s inhabitants came from the ethnic tribes of the Mansaka, Mandaya, Manobo, Mangguangan, Dibabawon, Aeta, Kamayo, Davaweño and Kalagan. Similar to the history of other Mindanao provinces, most of the present populations of the province are descendants of migrants who came from Luzon and Visayas islands during the pre-war and post war eras. The bigger wave of immigrants came during the time of President Ramon Magsaysay wherein the policy of attraction adopted by the national government was to offer parcels of land to tenant-farmers. Although a virtual melting pot, the Visayans (mostly Cebuano-speaking) are the dominant group in Davao de Oro.

New, as it is, Davao de Oro has achieved a distinction of sorts with the succession of three governors during the first four months of its existence. The first governor of the province was Prospero S. Amatong, the three-term governor (1986-1998) of the then undivided province of Davao del Norte, who held the position only for a day. As provided for in the law creating the new province, "incumbent elected officials (of Davao del Norte) are given option to serve the remainder of their term in Compostela Valley," Amatong took this option and assumed the governorship of the then-Compostela Valley on March 26, 1998. The following day, he resigned and filed his candidacy for the congressional seat of the 2nd district of the new province. The governorship was turned over to Luz M. Sarmiento, by virtue of a presidential appointment.

Luz M. Sarmiento, wife of then Congressman Lorenzo S. Sarmiento, Sr. served the province from March 27, 1998, to June 30, 1998. She was succeeded by Jose R. Caballero.

Jose R. Caballero, a practicing lawyer and former vice governor of then undivided Davao Del Norte (1988-1992) was the first elected governor of Compostela Valley.

Arturo T. "Chiongkee" Uy is the fourth governor of Compostela Valley. He first served the province as member of the 3rd Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Compostela Valley (2004-2007) before he was elected as governor in the May 2007 national and local elections. Among his first acts as governor is the forging of a genuine unity among political leaders and among all sectors in the province in order to have synergy in crafting the province's development and the delivery of public services. He is now serving the province in his second term of office as governor as he ran for the post unopposed during the May 2010 national and local elections.

In 1955, the barrio (barangay) of New Sabonga was transferred to the municipality of Compostela from the municipality of Asuncion.

On June 23, 1957, then President Carlos P. Garcia signed Republic Act No. 2038 which separated Compostela from Nabunturan. The first Mayor appointed by President Carlos P. Garcia was then Mayor Pio P. Galenzoga, one of the pioneer settlers.

In the same year the sitios of Kao, Magkagong, Margosan, Matilo, Magangit, Cabacungan, Tigbatinao and Camanlangan were constituted into a barrio known as Santo Niño.

At the time, Compostela was an incongruous mixture of wooden-roofed houses concentrated along the Agusan River which was properly known as "dungguanan" (embarkation). This area later became its center of trade and commerce or Poblacion.

Change of name

A Senate bill officially renaming Compostela Valley to Davao de Oro was passed in 2019. Provincial officials led by Governor Jayvee Tyron Uy sees this as an opportunity to clear up confusion with its geographic location, with the province's name sometimes associated with Cagayan Valley and the town of Compostela in Cebu, and associate it further with fellow provinces in the Davao Region. They see this also as an opportunity to market the province better for further investments. The plebiscite was held on December 7, 2019, with majority of participants voting in favor of the name change.

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