But apparently they missed out on one thing which Buenavista residents were apparently too embarrassed to reveal: the De la Cruzes and their neighbors are virtual squatters since they don’t own their homelots.
"Our parents built our houses here but up to now, we don’t own the lots where our homes stand. Not one of us has a title to our homelots," barangay chairman Alfredo Pineda, 56, told The STAR.
Buenavista has an area of about 200 hectares of largely agricultural land which used to be owned by the Layug and Gueco families. Some 202 households of about 1,000 people populate two hectares of the entire area.
The agricultural area is devoted to palay, corn and sugarcane, he said.
Pineda, however, said the farmlands surrounding the village center are now owned by residents who were awarded ownership of one to four hectares each under the agrarian reform program of the late President Marcos.
Still, local folk who used to be tenants of the Layugs and Guecos have no titles to their homelots.
"(The barangay’s populated area) has always been owned by the Layug family of Tarlac, as far as I can remember. But I have never met nor seen any member of that family," Pineda said.
Pineda recalled that the original barangay used to be located some two kilometers farther south before World War II.
"But residents thought it was too isolated and dangerous during the Japanese occupation, so they started building homes in the present location," he said.
"With the media exposure our village got as a consequence of the hostage crisis, I hope that someone in the government would help us so we can own our homelots," he said.
Houses in Buenavista are largely small and made of wood and hollow blocks, and of various lot sizes. The De la Cruz residence has a floor space of about 35 square meters and stands on a lot of about 100 square meters, including the frontyard. Their neighbors occupy bigger lots.
Pineda, however, did not mention the residents’ desire to finally own their homelots, citing only their wishes for good roads and more jobs, during De la Cruz’s homecoming last Friday.
De la Cruz, however, is now luckier than most of his barriomates. Even before his release, real estate developer Benjamin Lim donated to his family a 100-square-meter lot and a house with a floor area of 48 square meters in Northville Subdivision in neighboring Barangay Tangle. The property costs some P800,000.