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Thursday, August 28, 2003
Perez: A tribute to Melina Villegas Paras
By Joy Perez
SHE would have been 85 years old on September 28 next month, but death stopped her well-lived life, active in both civic and religious organizations.
It was on Friday, August 22, that her body was brought by plane from Manila to Dumaguete City. And from Dumaguete City to the Municipal Hall of Guihulngan, Negros Oriental early Friday evening for a two-day vigil.
(On the third day, the body was brought to the family house in the town proper and the following day, it was brought to the family's ancestral home in barangay Hibaiyo. Interrment was shecduled Tuesday, 2 p.m. in Tabon Cemetery.)
People trooped to the municipal hall to pay their last respects to this former mayor of Guihulngan, Melina Moales Villegas-Paras, who served the town from 1960 to 1963 popularly known as Inday Meling or Tia Meling.
Inday and Tia were terms of endearment said by the people before mentioning her nickname Meling.
Melina M. Villegas-Paras was the first and only woman mayor of Guihulngan, the biggest town in Negros Oriental in both area and population. It is located 116 kms north of Dumaguete City. Her most remembered project, still sustained until today, is the provision of the municipality's safe drinking water.
Widowed for a number of years, she was a hardworking landowner and sugarcane planter concerned with the welfare of her tenants. She was active in both civic and religious organizations in San Carlos, Negros Occidental, Guihulngan and Dumaguete City. She was president of the Charismatic Movement in the diocese of Dumaguete and served as president of the Catholic Women's League of Guihulngan. She had written booklets on catechisms and distributed them for free among catechists.
Paras' heritage was rare. Her family lineage came from the province's two remarkable centennial heroes as great granddaughter of Don Diego de la Vina recorded as the liberator of Negros Oriental, and great grandniece of Pantaleon Villegas, popularly known as Leon Kilat, the province's revolutionary folk hero.
She was a politician in her own right, a distinguished woman and a well-respected mother of Negros Oriental's two leaders, Jerome Paras (former congressman) and Jacinto Paras (incumbent congressman representing the first district of Negros Oriental).
Inday Meling finished her elementary schooling in St. Paul College, Dumaguete City in 1931. She graduated high school at St. Catherine in Carcar, Cebu in 1934. She finished college (two years Associate in Commerce) at St. Therese, Manila.
In 1938, Inday Meling married Dr. Jose Paras (a medical doctor from Barili, Cebu) who was then assigned in Guihulngan as a rural health doctor since 1936.
The marriage produced five children: Jeannie ( a medical doctor now deceased), former Cong. Jerome Paras, incumbent Cong. Jacinto Paras, businessman Jose Ismael Paras, and Negros Oriental Board Member Joselito Paras. All four sons are married. Enday Meling left eight grandchildren aside from her sons.
(August 27, 2003 issue)
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