Daguma Mountain Range Lodge No. 244

The Name
            Daguma Mountain Range is located to the southwest of Cotabato Valley and extends for 180 kilometers from Illana Bay and Cotabato City in the Northwest to the Saranggani Bay in the southeast. The northern portion of the range is a plateau with elevations of 300 meters above sea level. This beautiful mountain range, the home of the Tirurays and the B'laans, is named Daguma, a namesake of one of the first settlements nestled upon a plateau, the mid-level of the range.
 

The Lodge
            The formation of this lodge started in May 1979 when thirteen Master Masons and one Entered Apprentice met at the residence of Bro. Maximiliano V. Vijandre to discuss the formation of a lodge in what was then the municipality of Tacurong. Other Masons were invited to join and after all the required
formalities were complied with, thirty-three Master Masons addressed a petition to the Grand Lodge on May 2, 1979 asking for a dispensation to organize a lodge to be known as Daguma Mountain Range Lodge. On August 23, 1979 Grand Master Jolly R. Bugarin issued the dispensation and appointed Bro.
Benjamin C. Duque as Dispensation Master; Bro. Winifredo C. Quevada as Senior Warden, and Bro. Jose P. Lim, Jr. as Junior Warden.

            At the 64th annual communication held in April 1980, the Grand Lodge granted a charter to Daguma Mountain Range Lodge and gave it the number 244. Grand Master Manuel D.. Mandac constituted the lodge on November 21, 1980, after which the charter officers of the lodge were installed into office headed by Benjamin C. Duque, at that time the Provincial Governor of Sultan Kudarat and a retired Brigadier General of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
            On February 8, 1992 Grand Master Jose R. Guerrero, officially presided over the laying of the cornerstone of the Temple of the lodge. Despite the attendant financial difficulties that the lodge encountered, it completed the construction, and on February 2, 1994 held its first stated meeting in the hallowed halls of the newly erected Temple of Daguma Mountain Range No.244.
 

            Location: Tacurong, Sultan Kudarat