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BY JUN AGUIRRE
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KALIBO, Aklan – Former Aklan congressman Allen Quimpo has died of pancreatic cancer Wednesday, Dec. 14. He was 71.
His niece, Dan Salas, announced Quimpo’s passing in a radio interview.
Salas said his uncle, also a former mayor of this capital town, succumbed to the disease around 2 a.m. in hospital in Manila.
Relatives said the body was set to be cremated Wednesday.
Quimpo was survived by wife Marianne and children Ma. Alma, Aileen Frances, Allan Angelo, Andro Julio, and Adrian Joshua Lao, a graphic uploaded on the former congressman’s official Facebook page stated.
A wake will be held from 3 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 15 until Friday, Dec. 16 at the Christ the King Parish in Greenmeadows Avenue, Quezon City. The remains will be transferred to Kalibo the following day, the graphic stated.
Interment would be on Dec. 22, Allan Angelo said.
Aside from being a political figure, Quimpo was also a known environmentalist who founded the Kalibo Bakhawan Eco-Park.
The Eco-Park is now one of the most distinguished tourist and environmental destinations in Aklan and the region.
When he was still congressman in the ’90s, he forged an agreement with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources for a massive mangrove planting at the wetlands in Barangay New Buswang.
Around that time, Quimpo also authored the measure that led to the conversion of the Aklan State College for Agriculture — noted for excellence in agriculture education in Western Visayas — into Aklan State University.
In November Quimpo complained about the presence of illegal structures in the coastal barangay of Pook.
Such illegal structures, including a two-storey house at the “natural reclamation” in a mangrove area, put Kalibo at risk of flooding, he said.
“Some elected provincial and municipal officials were behind” the illegal structures, he claimed without naming names.
As a politician, Quimpo founded Tibyog Party, considered a major local political group in the province to this day./PN
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