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?😄

Philippine History: E.B. Magalona's Sitio Guintabuan and Elias Magbanua

If you're familiar with the topography of the highway between the municipality of Enrique B. Magalona and the city of Silay in the province of Negros Occidental (in the Philippines), you'd notice a statue of a man holding a sword on his right hand and a pistol on his left. 

With the green sugarcane leaves as his backdrop and the tall electrical posts as his companions, he stands gallantly day and night, rain or shine, with or without any vehicular traffic. At night, without any light, he slumbers in the dark; during the day, he captures the attention of all passers-by.

I once rode a public transport from Bacolod City going home to Victorias City and asked aloud whose statue that was when the bus was passing by it.  One passenger from E.B. Magalona told me it was the statue of E.B. Magalona himself. Of course, I didn't believe him; E.B. Magalona was a senator, not a soldier.

Fortunately for me, thanks to Wilson, Tita Helen's driver, who accommodated my wish, I was able to stop by the monument, read the marker, and took photos. And the research began.

The monument, it turned out, is a marker to commemorate the heroism of a group of  Negrense and Ilonggo soldiers led by Elias Magbanua who fought against the American forces on August 19, 1899. The soldiers from Iloilo Province crossed the Iloilo Strait and joined their Negrense brothers in Saravia (the old name of the municipality of E.B. Magalona) in their fight for independence against the Americans. (During those years, it was normal for Ilonggos to find love and fortune in Negros, one of whom was the young Felix Lozada Montinola of Jaro, Iloilo, who married the daughter of Saravia's mayor in 1897. Read his story here.)

Although they might not have successfully fought off the Americans, their bravery and gallantry are now part of the island's history, just like the other uprisings in the other parts of Negros Island. 

And now that I finally know who he is and what is monument stands for (pun intended), I shouldn't be asking anyone else about it when I pass by that spot. And so, if Silay has its historic Cinco de Noviembre,  should E.B. Magalona also have its own Diez y Nueve de Agosto?

So, every time we pass by this monument, let's remember that, more than 120 years ago, a group of brave Negrenses and Ilonggos risked and sacrificed their lives to fight for their rights, independence, and the future of Negrenses.

And even though this is probably not celebrated or taught at any local elementary schools just like the other bits of our region's history, this marker reminds us a bit of our history we might not even know.

Now, we do.

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Photo: Elias Magbanua basks in the late afternoon sunlight, looking to the west and awaiting the impending sunset on his beloved motherland. 

He raises his sword to remind his fellow Negrenses passing by that fighting for independence goes on and that the memories of their armed struggled against foreign colonizers should live on every time we pass by his monument.

By the way, I'm wondering whether Elias was left-handed because the pistol is on his left hand, and not on the dominant right where it should be if you're righthanded. Or maybe he ran out of precious bullets. Or maybe the sculptor just wanted a dramatic pose.😊