The 1914 elections crowned Pablo Bueno the second lieutenant governor of Siquijor. Unfortunately for the people, he was nowhere near as capable as Fugate and left his predecessor’s work to decay. In 1922, when Governor-General Leonard Wood visited Lazi, there were no doctors or trained nurses on the whole island, and its few so-called sanitary inspectors were essentially untrained. Fishermen were allowed to dynamite the water because of a mix of government neglect and apathy, depleting the local fish stocks and leaving the townsfolk without any fresh fish. They were forced to subsist on canned salmon. Wood called Bueno a “poor type of rather cheap class of politician” and lamented that “nothing [had] been done.” This was several years after Bueno left office, proving just how long-lasting the impact of his negligence was.

 

In 1919, the entire country suffered from a bout of economic disruption because of the fallout from World War I. Prices for many products, such as Siquijor’s coconuts, remained low. Political activity festered as well. Siquijor, however, provided a rare exception to this trend: Vicente Villanueva, a resident of Talingting (which, at this point, comprised Larena’s easternmost barangays) who was elected lieutenant governor that same year by a large majority.

 

A major change to Siquijor’s municipal landscape took place during this time in Talingting. Cholera repeatedly plagued the island, once in 1903 and then in 1918 (see Society). Talingting was hit particularly hard, and the severity of the latter outbreak pushed its residents, who wanted to control their own political affairs, to clamor for independence from Larena. The village’s most prominent residents, led by Rafael Maglangit, formed a committee to bring the issue to the attention of Oriental Negros’s authorities. After that, a proposal was presented in the Philippine Legislature, and in April 1924, the Municipality of Enrique Villanueva was born. The reason why it was not named Talingting was that the man who gave his name to the town steadfastly supported its independence in his capacity as governor of Oriental Negros. Maglangit served as the inaugural mayor.

 

In 1925, Marcial Pal-ing, Vicente Villanueva’s brother-in-law and another son of Talingting, became lieutenant governor. He continued his predecessor’s projects, particularly the ongoing renovations and improvements at the port of Larena.

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1932 saw the election of the most consequential lieutenant governor since Fugate: Sergio G. Jumawan. A lawyer who was originally from Siquijor but moved to Larena, Jumawan embarked upon an ambitious plan to revitalize the island’s infrastructure. He improved the Siquijor Circumferential Road, which Fugate had originally laid out, and further developed the port of Larena. More schools were built, and all towns were connected by telephone line to the central station in Larena.

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