Manuel A. Roa was born to an old merchant family in Cebu City in 1872 and one of the first to enjoy the Pensionado Act as a student sent to the United States for education.
It also took the lives of 396 people, wrecked over 21,000 houses, ruined 96 municipal buildings, public infrastructures, and properties, and caused the loss of crops and livestock.
The biggest challenge in his first year as governor was to help the province recover and address the destruction brought about by the typhoon,[3] with total damages estimated to be between two and four million pesos, through relief and rehabilitation efforts.
[1] Under his governorship, Compostela was recognized as a municipality and no longer part of Liloan[4] and University of the Philippines opened a Junior College of Liberal Arts in Cebu on May 3, 1918.
The governor general ordered the investigation to continue and in the end, Roa was only given a reprimand and asked to pay the cost of postal service in delivering the official telegram.