HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Members of the public gathered Thursday morning during a state funeral at the Guam Congress Building in Hagåtña to honor the legacy of former Yigo Commissioner John F. Blas.
Members of the Guam Legislature, followed by representatives of the Mayors’ Council of Guam and the former commissioner’s family, escorted John F. Blas’ casket, draped in the Guam flag, into the legislative session hall for the solemn ceremony.
John F. Blas died Aug. 10 at the age of 60 after a total of 27 years of service to the government of Guam. A legislative resolution recognizing the accomplishments of the late commissioner was presented to his family on Thursday.
John F. Blas was born the third-oldest child and oldest boy of 10 siblings to Juan Guerrero Blas and Clotilde Finona on Jan. 31, 1963. In 1998, he was elected commissioner of Yigo, a title that’s since changed to mayor, at the age of just 25. He served in various roles in a total of 10 different terms at the Guam Legislature between the 1980s and the 2010s, including as chief of staff for the late Vice Speaker Ted Nelson.
John F. Blas also sat as the executive director of the Mayors’ Council of Guam and the Guam Election Commission through the 2000s.
Outside of government work, John F. Blas was known for his talent as a musician, performing as a vocalist and bass guitarist, most notably with the band Local Brew. And he passed on his musical talent, working as a music teacher for Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic School.
“I can feel John saying, ‘Miguel, can you keep it upbeat?’ Because that’s the way John was — keep it upbeat,” fellow musician and longtime friend attorney Mike Phillips said during the eulogy.
John F. Blas’ roles as commissioner and in politics didn’t provide the complete picture of the man, Phillips said. He read to the gathered crowd the lyrics of “Out in the Country” by Three Dog Night, one of the many songs John F. Blas – evidently the better musician of the two of them – had taught him over the years.
“Whenever I feel them closing in on me or need a bit of room to move. When life becomes too fast, I find relief, at last, out in the country,” Phillips recited.
Phillips said John F. Blas passed too quickly and distinguished himself by winning the support of both former Gov. Ricky Bordallo and former Gov. Carl Gutierrez during the 1988 election for commissioner. John F. Blas’ uncle, the sitting Yigo commissioner at the time, had died in the months leading up to the election and John F. Blas had quickly managed to win the necessary support from the two Democratic powerhouses to run as a candidate.
At his young age, John F. Blas “went from bass player to candidate for commissioner,” Phillips said.
But besides being a “caballero,” a statesman and a gentleman, John F. Blas also was a “lancheru,” slaughtering hundreds of pigs over the years on his family pig farm, a craft he had learned from his father.
When watching John F. Blas perform the act one day, Phillips recalled, “I noticed the pig didn’t cry. And John said, ‘The pig is not supposed to cry, Mike, if you do it right.’ And so it was like an obligation to the pig to do it right.”
And that compassion carried over into his work as a musician, Phillips said. When composing the song “Nåna,” about the hardship CHamoru women had experienced during World War II, John F. Blas made it a point to ask Phillips for permission to use the emotion he had seen in Phillips’ mother as songwriting material.
“That was the foremost thing on his mind — making sure that he didn’t hurt me.”
Pointing to John F. Blas’ time in public life, Phillips said, “very few people can do that and then go kill the pig correctly, make band practice, hit the recording studio and tell the head of Mount Carmel School, ‘I’m not coming to rehearsals because I’m going to play guitar with my boys.’ That’s John Blas.”
John F. Blas is survived by his wife, Catherine T. Castro Blas, their five children and three grandchildren.
John Finona Blas
