Cebu City 1st District Rep. Raul Del Mar passed on Monday night at a hospital in Manila at 79.
House Secretary-General Jocelia Bighani Sipin confirmed his passing to ABS-CBN News, but the cause was not disclosed.
Cebu Citizens-Press Council (CCPC) also announced Rep. Raul Del Mar’s passing on Tuesday.
“We extend our deepest condolences and sympathies to the family of former Deputy Speaker Raul Veloso Del Mar. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, and his constituencies in the First District of Cebu City, whom he had served well,” House Speaker Lord Allan Jay Velasco said in a statement.
Velasco honored Del Mar’s 27 years of public service and said he would have appointed the Cebu City lawmaker a deputy speaker under his term.
“Representative Del Mar proved his passion and commitment to public service by religiously attending plenary sessions and public hearings of the House of Representatives in order to fulfill his duties and mandate as a lawmaker. He had perfect attendance for the 27 years that he was a lawmaker,” he said.
Rep. Raul Del Mar of Cebu City passes away
Meanwhile, House Majority Leader Martin Romualdez also mourned the passing of Raul Del Mar, who he called “one of Cebu’s best.”
“Rep. Del Mar will be terribly missed in the halls of Congress, where he devoted most of his public life crafting legislation that aim to improve our people’s living condition,” he said.
“At a ripe age of 79, he never got tired of reporting for work to serve his constituents even at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Del Mar served as the principal author of the Cebu Press Freedom Day law. He was called “Kampeyon sa Medya” or the media champion from his legislative work on media concerns.
“A son of a journalist and manager of a local newspaper for a number of years, he had the media workers’ welfare at heart, helping the collective effort of media and citizens to have a free but responsible press in Cebu and improve the craft of journalists,” CCPC said in a separate statement.
Raul Del Mar is the sixth incumbent congressman to passed away in the current Congress, after Rodolfo Albano, Marissa Andaya, Francisco Datol Jr, Nestor Fongwan, and Maria Bernardita Ramos.