South Cotabato ex-guv dies of cardiac arrest, 66

KORONADAL CITY – Former South Cotabato Gov. Hilario L. de Pedro III, who is running for provincial board member, has passed away
Friday due to cardiac arrest, his party mate said. He was 66. South Cotabato
Board Member Vicente de Jesus said de Pedro, a resident of Crossing Palkan, Polomolok,
South Cotabato, is running for the provincial council in the coming 2016 elections
under the Liberal Party-Nationalist Peoples Coalition party.

Radio Station
DXOM-AM in Koronadal City reported that De Pedro was declared dead on arrival
at a hospital in Polomolok, South Cotabato at about 6 p.m.

De Jesus said
the former governor had just arrived from a long travel from Kidapawan City.
Exhausted for the long drive, the former governor went straight to his room and
rest.

His wife tried
to wake him up by knocking on his room at past 4 p.m. but his room remained
locked. They forcibly openedthe door and
found de Pedro unconscious, with a blood pressure monitoring device beside him.

Born on September
13, 1949 in Janiuay, Iloilo, de Pedro became a lawyer in 1980.

A staunch ally
of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, de Pedro served as South Cotabato
governor for three terms from 1992 to 2001.
Before that he served as member of the 8th Congress representing
south Cotabato’s second congressional district from 1987 to 1992.

He was a also member
of the Regular Batasang Pambansa from 1984-1986.

It was during De
Pedro’s governorship when South Cotabato hosted the 1995 Palarong Pambansa, putting
South Cotabato and Koronadal City in the country’s sports map.

In 2010
elections, de Pedro ran again for Congress but lost to Rep. Daisy Avance
Fuentes, later elected as governor of South Cotabato in 2013.

In 2012, then
South Cotabato Gov. Arthur Dodo” Pingoy appointed him as provincial
administrator after Isidro Janita resigned to seek an elective post in his
hometown.

De Pedro was
one of the authors of Campus Journalism Act of 1991.Interment is yet to be announced.