Kalinga Hero: Camilo Lammawin, Sr.

This is part of my continuing project to make available to the public historical documents about Kalinga written by the late Kalinga journalist, Augustus “Gus” Ulat Saboy (AUS). One of Lammawin’s sons, Milnar was a Judge who some speculated was being groomed to run for Congress at the time, was unfortunately murdered by a fellow Kalinga. Milnar’s younger brother, Camilo Jr., served as the first city mayor of Tabuk] . Originally posted on 12 June 2012.

Camilo Lammawin, 59,

K-A Congressional Candidate Killed

by AUGUSTUS ULAT SABOY (ca. 1969)

Former Kalinga Deputy Governor Camilo Lammawin, one of Kalinga’s established leaders was killed in a vehicular accident in Pinukpuk last Sunday night, according to sketchy reports received in Baguio City last Tuesday. He was 59 years old.

Lammawin was one of the 12 candidates for Congress in the lone district of Kalinga-Apayao. He was running as an Independent candidate. Born on February 24, 1910 at Magnao, Tabuk, Kalinga-Apayao, Lammawin was among the few Kalinga natives encouraged to go to school because of his promising brilliance in grade school.

After his elementary education, he was sent to the University of the Philippines High School in Manila where he graduated in 1932. Subsequently, he enrolled at the Far Easter University for his associate in arts course which he completed in 1936. While pursuing his college course, the late Assemblyman Saturnino Moldero discovered the talents of the young Camilo and later tapped him as his secretary in the Philippine Assembly.

After Moldero’s term, he engaged in business, mainly in mining during the “gold boom” and at the same time assisted government officials in charting plans for the opening of the once wild “Laya Valley,” now Tabuk, the rice granary of the Mountain Provinces.

During the war, he served with the USASFIP, NL as a soldier assigned with the 11th Infantry which fought in the Cagayan Valley and Easter Mountain Province campaigns. After the war, he served first as a military deputy governor for Kalinga and later as secretary of the Provincial Board of the Mountain Province from 1946-1947.

He was again appointed as deputy governor of Kalinga until he was requested by the late Congressman Juan M. Duyan to serve as his secretary in Congress. When Duyan was elected provincial governor in 1967, Lammawin was appointed as provincial secretary until last March 15, 1969 when he resigned to accept the position of Philamlife Insurance supervisor for the province of Kalinga-Apayao.

After unsuccessfully entering the Kalinga leaders convention last August 27 which was held in Balbalan, he was urged by Kalinga leaders to run for Congress. He filed his certificate of candidacy in Manila on September 10, 1969 as an Independent Nacionalista.

Reports received from Tabuk said that he was on his campaign tour to Pinukpuk when he met his accident. Six other companions in the vehicle they were riding were injured, the same report said.

Lammawin is survived by his wife, the former Narcisa Tolentino of Baguio City; children Milnar (16), Evita (15), Fe (12), Camilo Jr. (10), and Florence (8); and his brothers, former Board Member Castro Lammawin and Orlindo, a public school teacher.