(Entered Eternal Life: September 8, 2026)

(A Man for All Seasons: Writer, Thinker, dear friend and beloved Family Man)

By Atty. Arthur C. Yap

Former Agriculture Secretary (DA), Director-General of the Presidential Management Staff (PMS), 3rd District Representative and Governor of Bohol; Representative, Murang Kuryente Partylist

(September 18, 2026, St. Peter’s Chapel, Taloto, Tagbilaran City, Bohol)

To my dearest Joy and Donald’s beautiful children, Tweety and Rom, Puddy, Benny and Karen, Mia and Dr. Khan, Baby Daffy who is now with his Papa Donald in Heaven, Daphne and grand-children. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of this tribute for Donald.

To passers-by, they are thinking that there must be a big businessman or politician that is lying in state in this chapel because the whole week, so many people from near and far, have come to pay their respects to Donald.

But the man we remember tonight bore no official or professional honorific in life. He was not an honorable this or his excellency that. He was simply Donald. But there was nothing simple about him. He showed that you need no positions to help those in need nor to matter in the lives of so many.

He was grounded and yet his mind was lofty. Rene Relampagos, my partner in the Capitol was the one who told me that Donald was a Mensa. What is Mensa?

Mensa is a high-IQ society. It is an intellectual club for people who score very high in an intelligence exam. In a word. Donald is a “genius” and he showed this early in life.

Donald was valedictorian twice, in elementary at Holy Spirit, and in high school at Immaculate Heart of Mary seminary. He was a scholar in the United States. While studying in Velez, as intimated by his own classmates, he was the only one who perfected an examination given by an old professor. The professor was so astonished and over-joyed that he cried when Donald scored perfect in his exams. His own classmates concede even today he would have made a great doctor.  This fierce mental ability never left him. On his deathbed, just a few weeks ago, fighting to live, he commanded one of his desperate doctors, who did not know what medicines to prescribe anymore, to: “think outside of the box.”

If his mind was lofty, filled with politics, history, religion, business, and economics, he had a big heart to match that mind. A big heart for his family and friends, and a big and faithful heart that loved God and his native Bohol.

In the last week, I re-read many of Donald’s published articles. What a thinker and analyst he was. Long before President Digong Duterte decided to run for president on an anti-drug campaign in 2016, Donald wrote a masterful article on drug trade in the Philippines and in Bohol, which was published in the Sunday Post on August 31, 2014, or twelve years ago. He was deeply bothered about how drugs was destroying our community. A situation that we are still confronting today.

He talks about the consequences of a failed narco state, and how a nation gets there. He discusses the economics of the drug trade, and the criminal justice system. He includes governance, and even the church.

He emphatically said, “there are no pushers if there are no users.” He said: “We have to understand why people resort to drug use and we must address our inadequacies as parents to our kids. It is in this basic unit of society, the family, that our values are shaped and formed. Strong family ties and support strengthen our children’s character and make them invulnerable to the temptation of drugs.”

What I admired was how Donald looked at the problem from the perspective of the family and the perspective of our children. He goes back to challenging parents to teach their children the right values. He clearly loved the families and children of Bohol.

This great love for Bohol, led him to me.

Many know, that once upon a time, we were bitter political opponents. Despite us meeting on the field of battle as fierce combatants in the 2019 Gubernatorial elections, he reached out to me in 2020 during the Covid 19 crisis.  For his love of Bohol, he was humble enough to share his ideas on how to keep Bohol safe. When we first met, we did not know how to react to each other understandably. But awkwardness ends where love for Bohol begins. We shared ideas and he helped rally support for me where it was needed. In his mind, he was not supporting me as Art Yap. He was supporting the Governor of our Province.

In time and after long personal conversations, we realized we believed in the same things.

In public service, Donald believed in performance and competence when it comes to our leaders. He did not respect politicians who just danced and sang on stage as a way of fooling the people.

In an article entitled: “GRAPPLING WITH REALITY (September 14, 2014 Sunday Post)”, he laments that “appeal and popularity” determines the winners because the electorate is mass based and for them, personality is more important than issue or governance.

He writes: “A candidate for public office may be smart, intelligent and laden with all the impeccable credentials but if he fails to capture the masses’ fancy then he falls short of victory. Thus we see, come election time, candidates singing and dancing and doing all sorts of crazy things to endear themselves to the public.”

And I later found out, he never danced and sang, when he ran for Board Member in 2019.

“He wrote that not only do we have to accede to the majority, but often those votes are bought, is a fact.”

Twelve years ago he asked questions which remain relevant today:

“Despite the high costs of running for office, why then do people aspire for key positions in government? Is it public service or the lust for power? Hunger for material gain and security and a life of privilege? What drives them to spend significantly for an office that pays less?”

We love complaining about our leaders but listen to what Donald said: “We deserve the leaders we chose that we now suffer and complain about. But whatever the situation, we only have ourselves to blame.”

Up to his death, Donald was challenging leaders to be sincere and competent. He wrote about graft and corruption. He was shocked by the buying and selling of government projects. He wanted the flood control mess to be settled where the guilty must be punished even if the cases come to Bohol. On January 25, 2026, in The Bohol Tribune, he wrote: “A FIGHT TO THE FINISH”, where he writes that the answer to how we will solve these controversies depends on “how we want our children and their children’s future to be.” Again he challenges us from the perspective of our children. For their sakes he said, we must stand our ground and fight to the finish.

For Murang Kuryente Partylist, he was one of the first to convince me to accept the challenge of this advocacy. In truth I was so emotionally spent from politics, and I told him, I was happy to retire. But he continued to convince me I still had something to offer our people. I was touched, I thought and prayed hard and accepted the challenge. He campaigned hard for me because he believed that power was basic to the development of our nation. In March, as the Iran situation was turning bad, he already knew that the oil price shocks would affect Filipinos badly. He called me to suggest ways to soften this blow and first on top of his suggestions was correctly, lifting the VAT and excise taxes for consumers. On April 26, 2026, he declared in the Bohol Tribune: “Let’s re-write the Script”. To date, that is what we are doing. Re-writing the script of the EPIRA so we can amend the law and remove, among others systems losses and other pass through charges on our bills.

In death and in closing, what does Donald say?  On January 18, 2026, he wrote in The Bohol Tribune a piece entitled: “COINCIDENCES HARD TO DISMISS?” Here he writes about the death of three people very close to him: Governor Rolly Butalid, Madame Equet Butalid and Jojo Enerio, and how they died coincidentally on days of significance. Governor Rolly died on the birthday of his eldest daughter while Jojo died on the birthday of his son Daffy. Madame Equet died within hours of the death of Joy’s mother Tita Benita, in the same hospital. Well you can add my mother to the list because Donald died on September 8, the birthday of my dear mother Natividad, who was born on the Feast Day of our Holy Mother. You must know that by now Donald, because I prayed to my mother to meet you in Paradise.

Donald said: “When people close to you pass away, they leave indelible marks in your memory that are forever etched in time.”

“Those closest to us may leave this earth but they just don’t disappear physically but make their presence felt as their memories linger deep in our hearts.”

“And this is the beauty of life. We may not fully understand its mysteries nor do we seek to fathom it. We just have to accept what comes along in the moment.

Not in sadness, not in grief but in the thought that beyond all these, there is joy in the memories we cherish in our hearts.

“For death is not the end but a transition to a joyous rebirth in God’s Holy Kingdom. “

Donald you can be very sure that as there will be sadness when we miss you, there will be joy in the memories we will share of you. These memories will be etched in our hearts forever.

Thank you for everything. I love you my dear friend.