Asia Postscript

Tokyo-Osaka-Batangas-Manila-Hong Kong in 16 Days

Sometimes it feels so wrong but you know it's the right thing to do.

It was the worst possible time for me to take a trip being in the middle of finishing construction of Casa Montana Alegre and a 16 day absence wouldn't help. Also, major trip details like where to stay in Manila and a flight from there to Hong Kong did not get chosen until the night before I left. There were also too many connections with too many people in too many airports and train stations that I felt a connection was bound to be missed somewhere. How do you plan for that?

But I knew it was a trip I had to take, a real once-in-a-lifer, do it now or never have the opportunity again. With the exception of leaving my laptop at Narita Airport, everything worked out. Eventually even the lost laptop reappeared 10 days later.

This was not a trip about countries and cities. I'd been to Japan and Hong Kong before. This was a trip about people, my family's people.

On behalf of my sister and myself I would like to thank Emma Gutierrez for making this trip happen. From the beginning when she learned that I had a Philippine background, she wanted to introduce me to her homeland. This opportunity in particular, during the week-long celebrations of her graduating class, was especially rewarding. We got to meet and spend time with some of the people who were close to Emma during her time in the Philippines. This was an experience my sister and I will carry for the rest of our lives. Thank you Emma.

Emma Gutierrez -- A Pioneer Planner

Recently my sister and I had the pleasure of being escorted in the Philippines by a pioneer and innovator in planning, Emmanuela Gutierrez. Emma is from a city called Batangas, about a two hour drive south of the capital Manila via expressways. Batangas is a city of over 300,000 and Emma was the City's first planning director and developed it's first general plan. And that general plan is unlike most I've seen in the U.S.


Emma came to planning from a teaching background. However, through the efforts of ex-dictator Fernidan Marcos and a U.S. aid agency, a decree was issued that Philippine cities be comprehensively planned so a training program was established. As a new friend said to me in Manila, "For all the bad things you can say about Marcos, he did do some innovative things."

Emma said the hours involved in that program are more than what is done in planning schools today. I can see why. Pictured above is today's Planning Director, Januario B. Godoy. He is holding the current General Plan, currently undergoing revision for the third time since it's creation. Their plan covers much more than land use. It includes: economics, social (including health and education), environmental protection, infrastructure, utilities, and development administration (implementation).

Pictured below, Emma and Januario are holding the first fruits of her efforts, Batangas first General Plan, published in 1978.
It has been almost 20 years since Emma left the Philippines but everyone at Zoning and all over the Planning and Development Office seemed to know her.

The reason for Emma to take the trip was to celebrate with her classmates the 50 year reunion of their high school graduation. My sister and I tagged along to be part of the party and get introduced to a part of our background we have never experienced. There were around 300 people celebrating for a week going from one function to the next. In this picture Emma is with one of her classmates of the 1959 Batangas High School graduating class, the Honorable Eduardo B. Dimacuha, mayor of Batangas. This party was an outdoor event on a farm featuring a barbecued cow and two pigs as well as bands and entertainers. Oh, and we all got these fragrant leis.

Origins of Happy Mountain -- Part I

Translated into Spanish my last name means "happy mountain." In English it's Montealegre. Last week I got to explore some of the roots of the happy mountain people--they are rooted in the capital of the Philippine Islands, Manila.

My father was from the Philippines where the dominant language is Tagalog and English. However my father spoke Spanish, it was a colony of Spain for over 400 years, and my mother, being Puerto Rican, also spoke Spanish. However, my sisters and I grew up not knowing the Philippine part of our background because he left when he was 16. That was in 1921. He died in 1972. It took us till January 2009 to bridge this gap when we went to the Philippines for the first time. And as it turned out we found a living relative, his youngest brother, Severino.

Severino, or Vero, at 82, is the last surviving child of Antonio and Juana Bartolome Montealegre. Before him there was, in ascending order, Remedio, Alberto, Guillermo, Vicente, Cleotilde, Iluminada, Carlos, our father Julio, and Leopoldo. They are buried in Makati, a neighborhood in Manila, along with two of their children in the grave pictured above and below.
Uncle Vero did not appear in this world until six years after my father left in 1921. However, on my father's only visit to the Philippines, in 1972, he and Vero were close. Uncle Vero remembers that visit very well. Shortly after returning from that visit our father died.

Uncle Vero could not remember his grandfather’s name but did know he was from Spain and who had also died there. His grandmother's name was Adela Lalinda, who was born in the Philippines.

Meeting Uncle Vero for me felt like visiting the past, as well as seeing the future. My father and his family thought they each had died in the war. My father was working on a ship with his brother Vicente when Vicente became ill and sent home. At some point the ship landed in a U.S. port, probably San Francisco, and my father jumped. At that time the Philippines was an American colony.

In this picture Uncle Vero is in the same cemetery where some of his siblings and their spouses are buried.

It felt like seeing the future because everyone said I look like him. He also confirmed some of my inclinations and arthritic joints. He likes red meat, doesn’t eat vegetables, likes to exercise, and moves like a dart. He also speaks English and is alert and astute. Is this the future me?

P.S. If you want to see some video of Uncle Vero please let me know.

P.S.S. Juan Garcia-Maruri is a Spanish architect practicing in Los Angeles. In my office we would talk and he would remind me that he grew up in a city near a very small town called Montealegre. He said I should stay in the family hotel and check it out. I guess that's Part II.

Dad and Mom