JUST like the mythical King Sisyphus who miserably failed to place on the apex the boulder, I feel at times that my hometown of Porac can’t push the "heavy stone" up to the top. The town, these last few years, is scoring so much success. I even predicted that it will become a city in ten or so years. Now this pandemic just as everything good is kicking in. Coronavirus is spoiling the fun, so to speak. Is it because there’s a curse? I am going ahead of my story. For a background. Some few years ago the townspeople were overjoyed because developer Ayala Land Inc.(ALI) poured a hooping P100 billion in their Alviera project, a mixed-use live, work and play community. The once lethargic town where I spent my childhood suddenly became prominent on the map. At last, it became an investment destination.
The Ayalas chose Hacienda Dolores the barangay near the expressway’s toll plaza. The government’s SCTEX highway unlocked the value of the lands in that area. The project was planned as a destination for Metro Manilans who may wish to relocate after the ominous signs that the West Valley Fault may make its movement and a big portion the metropolis will be affected. Repeatedly Rene Solidum, the country's chief volcanologist, made that forecast in several media interviews.
In the mid-fifties, there were only a few people in Porac then, and not a single industry or a manufacturing company in the town. Both sides of the nine-kilometer road stretch from Porac to Angeles was almost planted to sugar cane, the basic produce. In a book written by my friend Ed Sibug, he mentioned that in 1936, Warner, Barnes & Company Ltd, an American enterprise, operated a 24 hour-a-day factory on a 400-hectare farm in Hacienda Ramona (Dolores) and it closed for good even before the war erupted in the early forties due to stiff competition. And also due to the prevailing peace and order condition at that time.
I remember my late mother, Beatriz Lumanla, telling us that during the Japanese occupation, our family evacuated to Sabanilla, a sitio of Hacienda Dolores which in those years was a place so secluded and can only be reached by foot. And that a large hectarage was co-owned by his father Ceferino and siblings Alberto and Ceasaria.
Old documents shared to me by a Nards Angeles, a Cabalen, showed that the biggest landowner holding a title to more than 2,000 hectares were the spouse Don Gregorio and Maria Macapinlac. But later sold to their nephew, Jose C. Macapinlac. And in 1932, it changed hand again and this time, a millionaire from Jaro, Iloilo, Don Francisco Rapide and Maria Lopez Saenz, acquired the property. The Jaro Don appointed the brothers Jesus and Tomas Lopez Saenz as supervisor and administrator respectively. Over the years, the land changed to several hands. The sisters Enriqueta Michel Champourcin and Maria Miche,l who married a Hidalgo for a time, owned the land but the latter mortgaged it for one million pesos to the Overseas Bank of Manila. Somehow in between the ownership was lost. Not much mentioned in the documents.
One of the respected politicians in the sixties was Senator Gil J. Puyat. He comes from a family of traders in the town of Guagua. The Hacienda Dolores land somehow found its way to the vault of Manila Bank Corporation where it was foreclosed and bought by the senator’s family. In turn, the land was tended by lessees. From Maria Guanzon Chingcuangco to San Miguel Brewery to Lazatin, Ayson and Unson group and to the Bacolor Mayor Emerito De Jesus. But in all the ventures dedicated to the Hacienda Dolores, all of them failed. It is said in whispers among the barrio folks that a bad spell was cast in the land because the original acquisition was through deceit. And besides the statue of the Virgin Mary, "Apo Dolores," which was cast in gold and carried a value of more than a million pesos, was taken by a thief and replaced it with a wooden cross. And it is the belief that until and unless the statue will be back on the altar of the church, the spell remains. That was a long long time ago and apparently, the spell was gone with the wind.