‘Old families’ of the Philippines

I am an avid collector of history books, especially if the subject matter is Philippine history. Back in my high school and college days, I was contemplating majoring in history. But I decided to be pragmatic and when I got to college, I decided on a double degree course in business management and social science at De La Salle. I never got over my fascination with history and I have built a mini library of history books, specializing in Filipiniana.

In this column, I want to take leave from writing my usual column on geopolitics, economics and contemporary issues.

I have decided that from time to time, I will share with my readers short reviews of books in my history collection.

Historian and National Artist Carlos Quirino’s book on Old Manila (second edition) was published in 2016 by Vibal Foundation Inc. Its first edition was published in 1971 as “Maps and Views of Old Manila.” The book is a pictorial history of the city of Manila. This edition includes rare maps, drawings and photographs of major personalities and events in the long history of this city.

In contemporary times, the city of Manila has received an unsavory reputation. In fact, a very recent survey has lamentably named it the fifth riskiest city in the world for tourists. There are now, however, attempts to improve the livability of this metropolitan area. Intramuros has been the center of its revival. Recently, an esplanade along parts of the Pasig River has been rebuilt and has drawn enough visitors to make it a tourist attraction.

The book begins with the foundation of the city, focusing on the oldest settlement along the Pasig. The 17th chapter is on the fall of Spanish rule and the rise of a new nation. The reproduction of old photographs and illustrations is enough to make the book a collector’s item.

I plan to write another column on the content of this interesting book. I want to focus for now on what has been the most fascinating chapter for me. This is the one entitled “The Families of Old Manila.”

Manila’s social life is like that of other cities in the world in that a favorite topic is who are the elite families or the so-called “old families.” In the present roster of old families, there are very few families that can trace their ancestry to the families of old Manila.

First on this list is one of the leading businessmen in the early 1880s. Don Domingo Roxas founded the country’s first business house in 1834. But the Ynchausti family is another Basque family who settled here in 1800s and founded Ynchausti y Compania, whose businesses included agriculture, insurance, banking and shipping. It had its own fleet of steamships and it had international offices in Hong Kong, San Francisco, Shanghai, New York and in Europe. It had large haciendas in Panay, Bicol and Negros.

The Ynchausti business conglomerate was at one time the biggest business house in the Philippines. It was one of the heirs, Don Manuel Ynchausti, who gradually sold most of the family’s business interests starting in the 1930s. The biggest buyer of the Ynchausti business interests was the Elizalde family, whose family member began as a clerk.

One of the heirs was Rafael de Ynchausti, whose daughter Consuelo married Ignacio Ortigas, who became the patriarch of the Ortigas real estate clan. One of his daughters Angelina married Joseph McMicking Sr.; their son Jose Rafael McMicking y Ynchausti married Mercedes Zobel y Roxas. Together they would become the driving force in the modernization of Ayala y Compania and the transformation of Hacienda de San Pedro de Makati into the premier business district of the Philippines.

Others on the “old family” list were the families of Roxas, Zobel de Ayala and Soriano, whose family histories were intertwined. The daughter of Don Domingo Roxas was Margarita who, after her father’s death, married Don Antonio de Ayala. She was the matriarch in the family who exercised strong control of the family holdings, a tradition followed by her daughters Carmen and Trinidad.

Her brother, Don Jose Bonifacio, was responsible for purchasing Hacienda San Pedro de Makati, which would become the basis of the family’s real estate holdings.

Their second daughter Carmen married Pedro Pablo Roxas who became the financier of San Miguel Brewery. Their offspring, Margarita Roxas de Ayala, married Eduardo Soriano, the parents of Don Andres Soriano who made San Miguel Corporation a business behemoth.

Carmen and Trinidad, together with their respective husbands, Pedro Pablo Roxas and Jacobo Zobel, continued the family business and renamed it Ayala y Compania.

Enrique Zobel de Ayala (1877-1943), the son of Don Jacobo and Doña Trinidad, became the patriarch of the Zobel de Ayala clan.

The Roxas families of Manila, Madrid, Capiz and Laguna trace their line of descent from their patriarch, Mariano Maximo Roxas.

The other old families of prominence in the same era were the Pardo de Tavera, Garricho and Cabarrus families. There were other families of that era that were actually descended from Chinese immigrants who had converted to Catholicism and intermarried with the local population. Among these were the Tuason, Prieto, Legarda and Valdes families.

The wealthiest were the Tuasons, who were descended from a prosperous Chinese trader named Son Tua. Prominent Filipino-Chinese clans of that period were the Cu-Unjieng and the Cuyegkeng families.

While a few of these families, like the Ayala and Roxas families, remain as prominent old families today, the majority of the other families have given way to a new breed of “old families.”