Mayor Joni Villanueva-Tugna: Servant leader until the end
SOME would say it was plain luck when she won the required threetime coin toss as mayor of Bocaue, Bulacan to break the tie with opponent, Jim Valerio. To others, it was her fate to serve.
The late Bocaue Mayor Eleanor “Joni” Villanueva-Tugna was used to community service when she was in charge of the Jesus is Lord (JIL) Fellowship Ministry’s iCare Ministry at a young age.
“I worked closely with her as volunteer of Bangon Pilipinas since 2004. Joni was really very down- to- earth, no mean bone in her,” JIL member and Bangon Pilipinas volunteer, Andrea Hernandez- Trinidad told the ManilaTimes.
Hernandez-Trinidad said that it was really Villanueva-Tugna’s character to go out of her way to help others. Her last major effort to help her constituents and the farmers of Benguet amid the coronavirus pandemic was something she would always be remembered for.
In April, her last photo taken by theManilaTimes was when she took the time to re-pack the vegetables purchased from Benguet farmers and would be part of the relief goods to be distributed to Bocaue residents.
She admitted in an interview then that she has been ill with an autoimmune disease that attacks most of the vital organs. At age 42, she died at St. Luke’s Hospital, Global City in Taguig on Thursday.
Her brother, Sen. Joel Villanueva tweeted: “Bocaue lost its finest public servant. Mayor Joni was relentlessly serving Bocaueños during this lockdown despite her medical condition, which eventually caused her life. She’s more than a public servant to me, she’s my role model. Will terribly miss her.”
Villanueva-Tugna was survived by husband, Sherwin, children Doreen, Joaquin, Aleeya and Lexi Joy, brothers JonJon and Joel and sister Jovy.
Her death shocked more than six million members of the JIL led by her father, Bro. Eddie Villanueva, as well as the Bulakenyos especially her fellow Bocauenos who are now mourning her early passing.
In a Facebook statement, the JIL had called the Bocaue mayor: “An exemplary leader, a pioneer, a
trailblazer and woman of vision and action.”