22. CBMS Y ORTIGAS

CBMS y ORTIGAS

Dr. Troy Alexander G. Miano

01 March 2017

Listening to lectures especially after a heavy lunch makes me sleepy. But still I tried my very best to listen attentively on the testimonies of the different local government unit (LGU) of all the regions of the country during the Community Based Monitoring System (CBMS) National Conference for we could re-echo their good practices in the provincial government of Isabela and the other LGUs of the province. Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Gerona-Robredo was the guest of honor and speaker in this three day forum.

                                                     

CBMS is one of the tools developed in the early 1990s to provide policymakers and program implementers with a good information base for tracking the impacts of macroeconomic reforms and various policy shocks. It is an organized way of collecting information at the local level for use of local government units, national government agencies, non-government organizations, civil society and development partner agencies for planning, program implementation and monitoring.

CBMS attempts to build and strengthen the capacity of planners and program implementers at the national and local levels for an improved and more transparent system of resource allocation and governance. A major objective of CBMS is to assist in poverty reduction. The conference, organized by the De La Salle University and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), was held at the Crowne Plaza Manila Galleria situated at the Ortigas Center where I am also billeted for three days. Ortigas Center is a financial and central business district located at the boundaries of Pasig,  Mandaluyong, and Quezon City in Metro Manila. With an area of more than 100 hectares, it is Metro Manila's second most important business district after the Makati Central Business District. It is governed by Ortigas Center Association, Inc.

Data provided by www.ortigas.com reveals that the Ortigas Center began as "Hacienda de Mandaloyon", a 4,033-hectare estate supervised by the Augustinian Order. Ortigas, Madrigal y Cia, S. en C. (sociedad comanditaria por acciones) was established on January 20, 1920. The original incorporators were Francisco Ortigas (Don Paco), Vicente Madrigal, B.C.M. Johnston, Fulgencio Borromeo, and Clyde A. Dewitt who were designated as general partners (socios gerentes colectivos), while then Senate President Manuel L. Quezon was listed as a limited partner (socio comanditario). When Ortigas & Company acquired the estate, it was a virtual wasteland. The vision of the management, headed by Atty. Francisco V. Ortigas, Jr., who was President and Chairman at that time, turned it into a progressive industrial, commercial, and residential urban complex.

The first time I stepped on what is now Ortigas Center was during the People Power Revolution of 1986. From P. Tuazon Street in Cubao, we walked along EDSA together with Filipinos from all walks of life until we reached Ortigas Avenue. There were tanks in the vast track of land where the Robinson Galleria and the Shrine of Our Lady of Edsa now stands. During my high school days in La Salle Green Hills (1988-1992), it was very regular for me to walk along Ortigas Avenue to EDSA for me to catch a bus bound for Cubao. I always admire the Ortigas family for owning this huge estate and I always ask why the avenue was named after an Ortigas.

Who’s Who in Philippine History by Carlos Quirino gave a short biography of Don Paco. The patriarch of the Ortigas family, Francisco Ortigas y Barcinas, Sr. was a prominent lawyer during the American colonial period. Ortigas was born on September 11, 1875 in Porac, Pampanga. After the death of his father, Ignacio Ortigas, who was a captain of the Spanish infantry, he was brought to Manila by his mother Asuncion Barcinas. The impoverished mother and son sought refuge in the house of a close relative. He was admitted as a scholar at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran where he finished his Bachelor of Arts. His friends in Letran were: Sergio Osmeña, Vicente Madrigal, Francisco Imperial and Manuel L. Quezon. He pursued law studies at the University of Santo Tomas, while working as an intern at the law of office of Jose Juan Ycazas, a prominent Manila lawyer. He obtained his law licentiate in March 1896 and joined lawyer Rafael del Pan (1865-1915), son of the great journalist Jose Felipe del Pan, to start a law office.

The Philippine revolution in 1898 disrupted his law practice but eventually, he was appointed by the American military governor-general as a registrar of the south district of Manila from 1899 to 1901. The following year he was named registrar of deeds for the city of Manila. Together with former law partner Rafael del Pan, he opened a new law practice with American Frederick Fisher which achieved prominence in its time. The American government designated them as chief investigator of anomalous titles and land purchases of the Spanish friars. In 1910, Ortigas left his law office to join Judge W.J. Goldsborough for the Code Commission to revise the Civil Code of the Philippines. Ortigas also became a law professor at the University of Santo Tomas and the University of the Philippines, where he became a member of the Boards of Regents.

Ortigas married the socially prominent social worker and anti-tuberculosis crusader Julia Vargas de Ortigas y Camus (1881-1960), the daughter of Governor Vargas of Basilan. A 2.3 kilometer six-lane divided avenue, also in the Ortigas Center, was named after Doña Julia. Their son Francisco Ortigas Jr. would also become a lawyer and greatly expand Ortigas & Co., Limited Partnership. Don Paco died on November 1935 of lung cancer, on his return trip from the United States where he sought medical treatment.

Proper urban and financial planning was surely performed by the Ortigas Company which resulted to being one of the foremost players of the Philippine economy today. CBMS is very important in government planning to make sure that proper projects, programs and activities are implemented by the LGUs most especially in the countryside.