Philippine History: Chapter 21 - President Ramon Magsaysay and His Victorias Connection

Chapter 21 - President Ramon Magsaysay and His Victorias Connection

Walking through Magsaysay Street one afternoon while taking photographs of a religious procession, I realized there was a historical trivia somewhere along the way, literally.

This two-lane, cemented road, that's about 390 meters along, starts from Osmeña Avenue (formerly Calle Real) and ends at Quezon Street of Victorias City in Negros Occidental, Philippines. 

So, I did some digging. Historical digging, that is.

I discovered that the Magsaysay Street was just a cleared path purposely made so that there would be a road from the Catholic church straight to the old cemetery in Malinong. When this path was finished, it was just a dirt road back then with tall trees and shrubbery lining its sides.

And at the other end of the path was the old cemetery. Yes, the Fer-Mont Village, or Malinong Village used to be a cemetery in Barangay 7. It was probably called 'malinong', the Hiligaynon word that means serene or peaceful, because the place was exactly that: serene, quiet and peaceful. 

Well, that area was malinong as it became the final resting place for all the Victoriahanons who died sometime in the 1934 until the 1960s when a new site for a public cemetery located at the northern outskirts of the town was donated by Sr. Gonzalo Ditching and Sra. Simeona Jingco. 

The decayed coffins, human remains, and the sacred soil they were laid on were all transferred to the public cemetery on the donated land. But I heard, after all these years, during certain excavations, some skeletons were still being unearthed in Malinong.

(Locating Magsaysay Street in Victorias City

using Google Earth)

But going back to Magsaysay Street, do you know the history on how it was named after the late President Ramon Magsaysay?

Simple. He had a good friend in Victorias.

As I have written blogs about the Montinola family's personal interactions and relationships with the past Philippine presidents, from Don Felix Montinola and President Manuel Quezon who helped build the município in the 1930s to Don Benito Montinola, Sr. (mayor from 1950 to 1953 and from 1956 to 1959), and President Diosdado Macapagal, there's another piece of history that's worth sharing.

In 1953, when Ramon Magsaysay was campaigning for his presidential candidacy, he came to Victorias to court its voters. He was then running against the incumbent president, Elpidio Quirino, who was seeking another term. After all the votes were counted for the November 10, 1953 elections, Magsaysay handily won over Quirino.

And when Ramon Magsaysay was already president and Benito Montinola, Sr. just finished his first term as mayor, their paths crossed in 1954 in Iloilo. That was when and where they both became good friends. President Magsaysay even inspired Don Benito to run again as mayor of Victorias in 1956; he won.

Sadly, on March 17, 1957, President Ramon Magsaysay was killed when his plane that was en route to Manila crashed at Mount Manunggal in Cebu Province, shocking of the whole nation and plunging the Filipinos into grief, including his friend in Victorias. President Magsaysay was known as the Champion of the Masses.

And to honor the late president, in 1958, during the mayorship of his friend, Don Benito Montinola, Sr., the town council of Victorias named that road from the parish church to the old cemetery as Magsaysay Street.

And to honor a friend, Don Benito named his youngest son Ramon, who was born the day the late president died.😋

(Former mayor Don Benito Montinola, Sr. 

with President Ramon Magsaysay at Iloilo City sometime in 1954)
(Photo credit: The Family of Don Benito Montinola, Sr.)

Here's the campaign jingle used by Magsaysay's team during the 1953 presidential elections. Note its catchy tune and witty lyrics, which were way better than the ones used by the local candidates during the 2019 elections.😆

Chapter 22 - Victorias City was almost Toreno City

Complete history blog: "Ang Kasaysayan sang                         Victorias"

A Victoriahanon History: President Diosdado Macapagal Visits Victorias

I have always said that the black-and-white photographs tell the most colorful of stories. And my Mother's 'ba-ul' is full of them! ('Ba-ul' is the Hiligaynon word for a big, wooden treasure box where one keeps valuables, and I loosely use it to figuratively mean the places where these treasured photographs are kept. These days, the ba-ul's you'd see are mainly sold at antique shops.😓)

The last time I rummaged through my Mom's photo albums, I discovered the belles of the town in their diamond tiaras, and Ramon Valera and Toti Evangelista gowns during the time when the fiestas in the Negros Island (in the Philippines) traditionally invited the mestiza daughters of haciénderos to be their muses or reinas (read blog here).

And one very special historical photo I found was a 1940 photo of Victorias town's former mayor, Don Felix Montinola (read blog here), taken during his birthday celebration at the Montinola's ancestral home in Victorias City, the house everyone calls 'balay-dako' (big house). He was surrounded by his wife Doña Dorothea Magalona Montinola, former Negros Occidental governor, Valeriano Gatuslao, and Don Jose Gaston, among other guests.

Aside from those black-and-whites, other mementos I stumbled upon were postcards, one of which became a blog that drove one reader to tears; she knew both the mother and the daughter (read blog here). 😂

And recently, I came across one more black-and-white, which is from another era, a generation after Don Felix Montinola's. This one comes from the 'ba-ul' of Don Benito Montinola, Sr. (a son of Don Felix)'s family.

The photograph was taken at 'balay-dako' at the home of Don Benito Montinola (in floral shirt), the municipal mayor of Victorias from 1952 to 1959. The photo shows him and his wife, the late Doña Luisa Campos Montinola, attending to a very special lunch guest, Diosdado Macapagal.

This was during the campaign period in 1961 when he was still the vice president.  Months after this, he won the election and on December 30, 1961, Diosdado Macapagal became the Ninth President of the Republic of the Philippines.

(From left, Doña Luisa, Don Benito, Diosdado Macapagal and Don Jose Gaston)

In the photograph, the late President has just finished his dinner as Lolo Nitong (as Don Benito was fondly called by his grandkids) hands him a glass of water while Lola Luisa is taking away his dinner plate. The other guest with white hair and still finishing his dinner is Don Jose Gaston, the father of Monsignor GG Gaston, owner of the Gaston Mansion at Hacienda Rosalia. Don Jose Gaston's father, Don Victor Fernandez Gaston, built Balay Negrense, Silay City's most famous tourist attraction (read blog here).

As in any special occasion, I see a lot of dishes on the table and I'm counting seven plates with dishes that look like crab relleno and meatballs; the others I couldn't figure out. If the photographer were a food blogger, he would have zeroed in on the dishes first, then to the guests. 😀 Although it would have been fun naming the dishes, I am more interested in the dessert. 😋

The late Don Benito Magalona Montinola, Sr. became the undersecretary of the Department of Natural Resources in the cabinet of President Macapagal and a delegate to the 1971 Philippine Constitutional Convention (one of six delegates representing the 1st District of Negros Occidental).

Lolo Nitong was also a good friend of another president, the late President Ramon Magsaysay, who died in a plane crash on March 17, 1957. That's why Lolo Nitong named one of his sons after the late president who was born a day after the crash (read blog here). 

Lola Luisa, on the other hand, was an educated lady who spoke many languages, including Spanish and Japanese. During the Japanese Occupation, when Japanese soldiers roamed around the Montinola family's haciendas in the Manapla area looking for guerillas and other able-bodied men, Lola Luisa was the one tasked to 'meet and greet' them, offering them water and 'botong-botong', the sweet candy made from sugar, as refreshments for the tired Japanese. This 'friendly' engagement was meant to prevent the Japanese officers and soldiers from being belligerent to the locals and, of course, to take their mind off from hunting down guerillas hiding in the sugarcane fields.    

Aside from the late President Macapagal, the late Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, Imelda, were also welcomed in May 1978 by then Victorias mayor, the late Jesus Fermin, who was a grandson of Don Felix Montinola and a nephew of Don Benito Montinola. 

They were welcomed by Mayor Jesus Fermin at his 'punong' (fishpond) where they probably enjoyed the summer breezes, fresh catch, and some political conversations.  

(Photo courtesy of Victorias, Then and Now - a Centennial Compilation)

It's always fun to dig up black-and-whites and the stories behind them. And the best part is writing about them and sharing them. These photographs and stories are now part of our Victoriahanon history.

So, do you know of any other Philippine president who came to Victorias for dinner?😄