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[av_heading heading=’Ex-city mayor and PN columnist dies ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY MAE SINGUAY
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BACOLOD City – Former mayor Oscar “Oca” Verdeflor, who also used to write opinion columns for Panay News, has died. He was 80.
News about Verdeflor’s death reached the press on Monday in the middle of a news conference with Mayor Evelio Leonardia.
The Philippine flag at the Bacolod City Government Center was flown at half-staff.
Negros Occidental capitol executive assistant Angel Verdeflor, a relative, said the former mayor died around 10 a.m. on Monday in a private hospital here.
As of this writing, he could not say what caused the death, but he knew Verdeflor was admitted on Nov. 19 due to fever and pneumonia.
Verdeflor became mayor in 1998, defeating the incumbent Leonardia, but he was unable to complete his term.
His term’s few remaining months in 2001 was taken over by then Vice Mayor Joy Valdez after Verdeflor was ousted over a citizenship case.
The wake will be at the Verdeflors’ residence in City Heights Subdivision, Verdeflor Street, Barangay Taculing.
Verdeflor authored the “Maverick” opinion column in Panay News, which tackled anything about Bacolod but usually touched on the metro’s woes he wanted solved. He stopped writing a few years after he was ousted as mayor.
General Services Office head Jerome Solinap, a former secretary to Verdeflor, said Bacolod became known as a clean-and-green hall of famer among highly urbanized cities under the latter’s administration.
Angel Verdeflor said the former mayor was known for being “maka-masa.”
Leonardia and Rep. Greg Gasataya extended their condolences to the Verdeflor family. Gasataya said the city “lost a very colorful and frank leader.”/PN
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