Gumbay Piang

Born in 1910 to the Moro leader Datu Piang, Datu Gumbay Piang was trained as a pedagogist at the (then US Administered) Philippine Normal School in Manila. Gumbay worked his way through the bureaucracy where he served for different school boards of his province.

When the Second World War erupted, Gumbay Piang, along with fellow Moro leaders such as Salipada Pendatun, organized the famed resistance group named the Moro-Bolo Battalion. The insignia of the group was the bolo and the kris, the respective weapons of Christian and Islam populations, respectively, symbolizing a united front against the Japanese aggressors.

He was forced to retire from the resistance as a prisoner of war as he suffered chronic asthma attacks. When the Philippines was liberated from the Japanese forces, Gumbay Piang ran for congress in the First Republic of the Philippines. In 1946, he succumbed to death due to asthma, and his death marked the quiet exit of the Piangs from national politics.