As the young town no longer faced a threat of it being divided between Saravia and Manapla, the town leaders thought it was time to expand it. Back in 1901, Bridgadier General James Francis Smith already approved its continued existence as a town even though its income was low.
To make the town bigger, they built roads around the areas surrounding Daan Banwa to give more accessibility to and from other areas, and for faster transport of people and goods. That time, they also wanted to move the município to decongest the town center and move it to an area that was more spacious.
And sometime in 1905, during the town leadership of Miguel Azcona (1905-1906) this plan suffered a setback. A certain Señor Leon Montinola took the town to court in order to get back his land that was supposedly taken over by the town to turn into roads and where people built houses. The land in question was the present-day Toreno Heights Subdivision, which is about 400 meters east of the center of Daan Banwa. This subdivision used to be Hacienda Toreno and now, we know it could have been an earlier site, as early as 1905, for an expanded Daan Banwa settlement.
I was able to identify the area by tracing any Montinola property around Daan Banwa. Two sources, one was an 85-year old, told me that Señor Vicente Montinola used to own the Hacienda Toreno.
So, I looked up the ancestry of Señor Vicente Montinola and I found out that his middle name was 'Benedicto'. And after researching further, I found out that Sr. Vincente Montinola was the son of Sr. Ruperto Montinola and Sra. Basa Benedicto, and he was a nephew of Sr. Leon Montinola. Ruperto and Leon were brothers. This confirms that the land in question in 1905 was indeed the area where the said subdivision now stands.
Going back to the Leon Montinola issue, the town council heard that the town would probably lose the case. And so, they would need a new land area to where people could transfer.That's where Señor Alejandro Acuña Yap-Quiña (hereinafter Señor Yap-Quiña) came in.
One day in 1906 when he was at the município and heard about the town predicament, Señor Yap-Quiña, who must have been of Chinese ancestry as he is described by the Jalandoni memoirs as "insic" (Chinese) and "extrangero" (foreigner), offered to donate a parcel of land to the town where the officials could build a new muncípio, an offer he made known during the session with the alcálde and the council on October 2, 1906, a Tuesday (the date which the Jalandoni memoirs stated as "Jueves" - an error?).
During the meeting, they discussed that the people who built homes on the land of the heirs of Don Teodoro Benedicto that had the size of "duha ca pedazo nga duta" (is this equivalent to two kampos?) might have to uproot and relocate their homes or pay rent to these heirs.
Interestingly, during the October 2, 1906 session, the Jalandoni memoirs mentioned that after Señor Yap-Quiña expressed his desire to donate, a council member, Señor Cipriano Jimenez, invited Señor Yap-Quiña to have a private conversation with him at the município's balcony for two hours. Two hours! Is Señor Jalandoni trying to tell us something? Although this detail seems insignificant, it got me thinking. What was it they discussed that it took them that long? Did they talk about how to go about the donation? Hmm.😕 Interesting, indeed.
On October 15, 1906, Senor Yap-Quiña formalized his donation to the town saying, "... vengo por la presente a poner a disposicion del municipio un terreno de veinte hectareas que podriá escoger en la hacienda Guinpanaan de mi propiedad." (Page 12 of the Jalandoni memoirs).
Translation: "I come here to make available to the muncipality a land of 20 hectares that I can choose within my property of Hacienda Guinpanaan".
This is where I got confused. If Señor Yap-Quiña donated 20 hectares of his hacienda in Guinapaan, that area, in Barangay 5 of Victorias, is about a kilometer from the current city center, situated to the north towards the direction of Manapla and 1.5 kilometers away from Magnanud River.
If this was the case, I was thinking Guinpanaan would only be part of the donation. It would only be the site for those houses to be removed from the land of Leon Montinola because, on October 30, 1906, another land was presented to the council as a donation.
On that day, October 30, 1906, an ocular inspection attended by the council members was held and the exact location of the donated 'parcel of land' was pinpointed by a certain Juan Canlas who represented Señor Yap-Quiña in his absence that day.
The exact location of the donated parcel of land described to us by Señor Esteban Jalandoni in his memoirs is as follows:
"sa bagatnan subá sang Magnanud, sa Sidlangan duta ni Sr. Alejandro Acuña Yap-Quiña sa Catundan duta man sang amo nga Quiña cag sa Amihan sapa." (Page 13 of the Jalandoni memoirs)
Translation: To the south, Magnanud River
To the west, land owned by Sr. Yap-Quiña
To the east, land owned by Sr. Yap-Quiña
To the north, a swamp.
Other pages also gave me clues that the land was just next to the Magnanud River:
(Page 15 of the Jalandoni memoirs describes
the donated land as "sa Magnanud sa dutá
nga guin hatag ni Sr. Quiña nga sa caron
guin patindugan sing casa-municipal")
(Page 19 of the Jalandoni memoirs describes the
new município as "casa-municipal de Magnanud")
(Page 20 of the Jalandoni memoirs describes the new município as "ang casa-municipal de Magnanud")
So, is the "parcel of land" donated by Sr. Yap-Quiña the same land where the present-day city hall now stands?
If it's not, where can we find it today?
If it's not, where can we find it today?
Read on.😊
Complete history blog: "Ang Kasaysayan Sang Victorias"
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