A BRIDGE connecting Barangays Poblacion 2 and Poblacion 3 in Carcar City, southern Cebu has been named after the late Peary Aleonar, who had written opinion columns and served as judge in the Regional Trial Court (RTC).
Carcar City officials and family members of Aleonar led the unveiling of the Judge Peary Aleonar Bridge marker on Friday, July 7, 2023. The activity was one of the highlights of the city’s 16th Charter Day celebration.
Carcar City Mayor Mario Patricio Barcenas, in an interview with the media after the ceremony, said the bridge serves as a tribute to Aleonar’s contributions as an upright judge and opinion writer that brought pride to the city.
Barcenas said this is Carcar City’s third time honoring residents who have shown exceptional talent and brought pride to the city. He also mentioned that Baracca Bridge, the infrastructure’s old name, had been renamed in Aleonar’s honor because of the presence of his kin in the area.
On the same day, city officials also unveiled the city’s Hall of Fame and recognized former mayors and locals who have excelled in the fields of arts, sports and music.
Aleonar’s daughter, Dina Aleonar, said she is proud of her father’s work both as a writer and judge.
Peary Aleonar had served as a former newspaper editor and columnist, RTC judge, lawyer, teacher and engineering graduate.
He showed his artistic talents from a young age, playing the violin and piano and engaging in creative drawing.
Aleonar wrote a column for The Freeman, “The Questionnaire,” in the 1970s, featuring sentences that all ended with question marks, addressing community problems and giving readers a voice.
In addition to being a prominent figure in the media, he had also served as an engineering college dean and was a member of the Board of the Cebu City Integrated Bar of the Philippines. In 1983, he was appointed as an RTC judge.
The road to the naming of the bridge after Aleonar began as early as 2017, when the Cebu Citizens-Press Council (CCPC), which has requested recognition of outstanding departed journalists of Cebu by their own communities, recommended that a street in Carcar City be named after Aleonar.
In moving for Aleonar's recognition, the CCPC, led by executive director Pachico Seares, cited Aleonar's editing in the 1960s of "The Cebu Advocate," a newspaper that his cousin Cesar Aleonar published in Cebu City, and his subsequent joining of "The Freeman" as columnist, where he wrote mostly to promote good governance and expose irregularities in government.
But even before joining mainstream media, Aleonar wrote in the "Free Press" about the 1949 election fraud and violence in Cebu, for which he was dismissed from his job as public works and highways engineer, the CCPC said.
As Department of Public Works and Highways engineer, Aleonar supervised the rehabilitation of the Carcar-Barili Road, the CCPC noted.
But Aleonar's love for country was already evident much earlier than that when the youth joined the guerrilla forces in 1943 after his 1942 high school graduation, where he would have been valedictorian, was interrupted by World War 2, CCPC said.
CCPC's efforts to have Aleonar recognized spanned two mayors.
Earlier this year, the Carcar City Council approved instead the naming of a bridge, rather than a road, after Aleonar. (CNU interns Angel Leduna and Camille Erica Butas/CTL)