“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he dies, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” —John 11:25–26
MANUEL Macalma Cabie, an award-winning agricultural and fishery official of Gonzaga, Cagayan, died today in his hometown, his family announced. He was 81.
Born in Pinili, Ilocos Norte on Dec. 23, 1943, he and his siblings were brought to the at-the-time thickly forested area of Gonzaga in the 1950s by their parents Leoncio and Felicitas to seek better opportunities and promising activities for landless farmers under the land program of then President Ramon Magsaysay.
He is survived by his five children: Mia Mirella Mae (Judge Ramses Peralta); Dr. Rriscilla Ida (Police Capt. Joey Gaygay); Zena Gail (ship Captain Diminic Jay Jacinto); Eva Corazon (Scotch Crowley); Charms Flores; and eight grandchildren, his sister Julia (Dionisio Soller), several nephews and nieces, both in Cagayan and in Ilocos Norte.
His wife, the former Zenaida Bucaneg, who preceded him in August 2021, was a former full professor at the Cagayan State University Gonzaga Campus.
He is the nephew of Honor Blanco Cabie, Opinion Editor of Manila Standard, published in the metropolis.
Cabie finished his intermediate education at the Baoa Elementary School in Gonzaga as valedictorian, duplicating that feat when he finished secondary at the Cagayan Valley Agricultural College High School department in the old capital of Lallo.
He studied liberal arts in economics in college in his home province and went immediately into agricultural activities and programs, becoming chairman of Gonzaga’s Municipal Agriculture and Fishery Council, earning for himself an Outstanding Award.
He was also conferred the Most Outstanding Municipal Agriculture and Fishery Council Gawad Saka from the province of Cagayan.
His daughter Ida, speaking on behalf of her siblings, defined their father as prudently strict but a judicious elder and particularly patient with his nephews who often followed his footprints in the farms.
This same sentiment was echoed by his nephew Avelino Soller, who described Manning, his nickname among close relations, as a “patient and tolerant kin as well as a good friend, but has a jar of jokes dished out at the right time.”
Funeral arrangements are being prepared by the family.
