Background
Gumbay Piang was born in Dulawan, Cotabato, in 1905, a son of the Moro leader Datu Piang from his sixth wife, Polindao.
Gumbay Piang was born in Dulawan, Cotabato, in 1905, a son of the Moro leader Datu Piang from his sixth wife, Polindao.
He was trained as a pedagogist at the (then United States 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 during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines to fight the Japanese.
The Moro-Bolo Battalion consisted of about 20,000 men.Gumbay Piang"s Cotabato Moros used Bolo knives to fight the Japanese, and swore that they would "fight to the last".
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 Imperial 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.
