01/10/2026
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BEFORE THE PELAEZ SPORTS CENTER BECAME A LANDMARK OF CAGAYAN DE ORO, DON GREGORIO PELAEZ HAD ALREADY PRESIDED OVER A MUCH BIGGER TRANSITION—THE END OF THE OLD PROVINCE OF MISAMIS AND THE BIRTH OF MISAMIS ORIENTAL.
His name is familiar to generations of athletes, students and Kagay-anons who have passed through the Don Gregorio Pelaez Sports Complex. But the man behind the name belonged to an earlier Mindanao—when Cagayan de Oro was still Cagayan de Misamis and today’s Misamis Oriental and Misamis Occidental formed a single province.
Gregorio Aguilar Pelaez, Sr. was born on March 9, 1869, in Catarman, Camiguin, and lived through the final decades of Spanish rule, the Philippine Revolution, the American colonial period and the early years of the Republic. He died on September 24, 1959, at the age of 90.
By the mid-1920s, Pelaez had risen to the governorship of the then-undivided Province of Misamis. He became its last governor before one of the most consequential administrative reorganizations in Northern Mindanao.
On November 2, 1929, the Philippine Legislature enacted Act No. 3537, dividing Misamis into Oriental Misamis and Occidental Misamis, effective January 1, 1930. Crucially, the law provided that the elected provincial officials of the old Misamis would continue governing Oriental Misamis until their successors were chosen. Pelaez therefore crossed a historic institutional divide: the last governor of the undivided Misamis and the first governor of the new Misamis Oriental.
He would later return to the governorship, serving another term in the late 1930s. His political career placed him at the center of the formative years of Misamis Oriental, when the new province was establishing its own administrative identity with Cagayan as its capital.
His work was not confined to political reorganization. A 2026 House bill seeking to formally rename the Pelaez Sports Center in his honor credits Pelaez with promoting the coconut industry, advancing the interests of coconut growers, and helping complete the provincial coastal road network from Gingoog to Initao—infrastructure that connected communities across what became Misamis Oriental. The same congressional record identifies the division of the vast Misamis province as one of the major governance causes associated with his public career.
Pelaez was also closely associated with Medina, where the Pelaez ancestral house became part of the family’s historical footprint. His name survives elsewhere in the province as well, including the Don Gregorio Pelaez National High School in Medina.
His influence extended into another generation of Philippine public life. With his second wife, Felipa Neri, he was the father of Emmanuel Neri Pelaez, who later served as congressman, senator, Secretary of Foreign Affairs and, from 1961 to 1965, Vice President of the Philippines. The Senate’s official biography of Emmanuel Pelaez identifies Gregorio Pelaez, Sr. and Felipa Neri as his parents.
Decades after Don Gregorio’s death, his name became attached to one of Northern Mindanao’s best-known sporting landmarks. The complex in central Cagayan de Oro was built in 1969 and opened in 1970. It later hosted the 1975 Palarong Pambansa—the first staging of the national games in Mindanao—and has since served generations of athletes and major sporting events.
That makes the name PELAEZ more than lettering on a stadium.
It connects present-day Cagayan de Oro to a period when the political map of Northern Mindanao itself was being redrawn—from one sprawling Province of Misamis into two provinces with separate governments and futures.
He governed the old Misamis.
He became the first governor of Misamis Oriental.
And nearly a century later, his name remains embedded in the civic landscape of Northern Mindanao.
This is Don Gregorio Aguilar Pelaez, Sr.
And this is the story beyond the name.
