BAGUIO CITY, Philippines -- Representative Victor S. Dominguez of the lone district of Mountain Province succumbed Friday to cardiac arrest and complications from diabetes at St. Luke's Medical Center in Quezon City. He was 72.

Mountain Province Governor Maximo Dalog said Dominguez had been sick for sometime.

"The province is deeply mourning his death and his provincemates would like to pay their last respects," said Dalog.

Dominguez served as Mountain Province representative from 1987 to 1998 and from 2004 to present. He was replaced by his wife, Josephine, in 1998.

He ran but lost to Roy Pilando in the 1998 elections. Pilando died before finishing his term.

Dominguez belonged to an influential family in the Cordillera. His father, Alejandro, was a former mayor of Sabangan, the family hometown, while his older brother, Honorio, served as mayor of Tadian town.

A civil engineering graduate of Saint Louis University here, Dominguez started as a gravel-and-sand dealer and contractor.