Layers of Ilonggo Reality

Unrivaled

For many years Iloilo prosperity was unrivaled, reaching a peak when the irritating delay and occasional damage to cargo caused by transshipment of sugar through the Port of Manila was finally bypassed, and from 1865 produce was exported directly to international points from Iloilo.

“The condition of business in Iloilo largely depends on the size of the sugar crop and the price of the staple,” further reported the Manila Daily Bulletin in 1907. When the sugar trade boomed, so did Iloilo. Now known as the Queen City of the South, roads and infrastructure were laid out, hospitals and schools opened.

In 1907, Iloilo was no backwater. “Iloilo has an electric-light plant and the city is well-lighted. There is also an ice factory and cold-storage plant. Among the possibilities of the near future are an up-to-date telephone system and streetcar line connecting all parts of the city.

One institution Iloilo can boast of, that might well be copied in other parts of the archipelago, [is] an up-to-date department store, Hoskyns & Company, a British firm, was established in 1868. In their large store on Calle Real can be found a complete stock of goods at prices, for the most part, far below Manila prices.”

Iloilo prosperity was on the rise and the grand planter lifestyle had to be lived in worthy surroundings. Mansions were witness to the opulent moneyed lifestyle that has now all but died out due to 21st-century economic and social realities.

Mansions built on generous plots of land in quiet pre-World War II outskirts were swallowed up without warning by rapid, unregulated urban growth. Now finding themselves situated on valuable city center properties, mansion owners have been forced to reevaluate their properties and lifestyles.

Some downsized to smaller houses, renting out their mansions to commercial tenants. Others built rental buildings on their front lawns to generate additional income, hiding their mansions behind a layer of nondescript commercial structures built right along the street, changing the streetscape forever.

A few simply abandoned their mansions. The postwar years saw many of the moneyed Ilonggos moving out of their downtown mansions into smaller houses.

source: http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/