These
are visible remains of the Salt Industry of the Philippines or SaltPhil.- the nearly
immortal logs gallantly standing there defying the stormy sea through the ages.
Greek thinker Pythagoras (born at around 570 BC) said, “Salt is born of the purest of parents: the sun and the sea.”
I
was nurtured by a salt maker just like all the children whose parents were
pillars of early industrial salt-making in this part of Occidental Mindoro. We are gypsum, a salt by-product, figuratively
speaking.
Pillars
for salt-making
SaltPhil
was the biggest manufacturer of industrial salt in Southeast Asia and established on
April 27, 1955 and was under the Compania General de Tabacos de Filipinas or
Tabacalera. The company then rented an 800-hectare (some accounts says it is
1,200 has.) of coastal land from the Philippine Milling Company when Sugar
Central closed down in the early 50s due to poor management. The vast land
covered parts of Bubog and San Agustin, two seaside barrios of San
Jose-Pandurucan. The method of salt
production used by SaltPhil is the evaporation of salt brine by steam heat in
large commercial evaporators called vacuum pans. This method, according to my current
readings, yields a very high purity salt, fine in texture, and principally used
in those applications requiring the highest quality grains.
But
in the early-80s, the factory stopped its operation and many of its labourers,
my father included, were laid off from work. I was told by my mother that the
factory went bankrupt. The whole property was later purchased by Filipinas
Aquaculture or AquaFil and turned it into big prawn hatchery. Only the main
factory and parcels of land nearby were utilized by the new company while the
other facilities or features elsewhere are now already abandoned including the well-founded
poles shown in the picture above. The poles I used to stare from our window
during an inclement weather while the angry Buslugan River is roaring from afar.
We transferred from our former house near the seashore when it was nearly
devastated by a storm surge way back in 1970.
What
is the purpose of those poles, actually? Their main use is to hold cables where
a machine-operated bucket is attached. The bucket, about two meters in width,
is operated by a machinist at the elevated engine room in a place they call “Water
Intake”. Its primary duty is to make sure that the opening of the saltwater to
the pool is sustained. The Water Intake’s bucket pushes the volume of sands
seaward thus keeping the mouth of the pool open. A bulldozer below the Water
Intake operated by Antonio “Lagang” Aguilar complements the function of the
bucket. The heavy volume of seawater is continuously pumped to dozens of giant
salt ponds to the factory itself in Sitio Curanta, southern part of Barrio San
Agustin.
The
post- SaltPhil violence
By
the time the new government of Corazon C. Aquino was installed by the EDSA
People Power, the vast land owned by the AquaFil, the precursor of SaltPhil, was
placed under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program or CARP by the new
administration and the AquaFil years before it ended its operation. The property was occupied later by the farmers
from all over the place who joined the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP)
rallying for genuine agrarian reform. Group of former SaltPhil and AquaFil labourers
also petitioned for land occupation but its individual members later joined the
KMP. During the initial years of the Aquino presidency both insurgency-related
and politically-motivated acts of violence in our province have increased. High
profile cases of human rights violations have escalated especially in San Jose
and Sablayan where militant farmer leaders were executed. CARP has polarized
social groups in Occidental Mindoro costing many lives and limbs. Significant
cases happened during massive military deployment at the AquaFil Estate where
many of the farmer members of the KMP were detained and arrested. Law enforcers
and security officers of the property were not spared and even targeted by
Communist hit squads. Some of the farmer-leaders even joined the New Peoples’
Army (NPA) after being hunted by the police and Philippine Constabulary (PC) soldiers
while the others struggled through peaceful means and critically engaged with
the program implemented by the Department of Agrarian Reform or DAR. This was
an offshoot of the infightings among the national democratic forces then.
Fishponds
and saltbeds like those of SaltPhil and Aquafil are by law exempted from land
reform but that time they are idle and should be covered by CARP. Without the
vigilance and collaborative spirit of the people around AquaFil, the fishpond
estate would have to be out of the program’s coverage. Today, majority of the landholdings were agriculturally
productive after being legally acquired by the petitioners. The days of
violence, like the SaltPhil and the AquaFil, are now gone.
Glory
days
It
is very fascinating to watch the tug boats towing around 6 barges coming from Sitio
Curanta crossing the calm South China Sea. Tons of salts are being transported
from the company’s private seaport to other part of the country. In 1958,
SaltPhil had produced and exported to Manila 19,000 metric tons of refined salt.
It
is near the main factory where the tenement houses of the top executives and
employees of the factory and their families reside. The office of the labour
union and the cooperative store shared the same building. The store at one time
was managed by Mr. Perfecto Paguia supplying basic commodities needed by the
employees and labourers both on cash and credit basis. Spirits and cigarettes
are also available.
The
tributary canals going to the salt ponds and beds are abundant of shrimps,
crabs, prawns and all other edible crustaceans aside from milkfish, tilapia, paetan and the rest of the
fishes effortlessly caught in saline marshes within the property. Finding such
a free or affordable viand is easy way back then. The present day “food of the
rich” can definitely be devoured upon by the working class those days.
The
Divine Word College of San Jose, San Jose Pilot Elementary School and the Saint
Joseph School catered the educational needs of the children of the officials of
the firm. The resident employees lived inside the compound of the company together
with their families.
A
family Christmas Party is annually sponsored by the management. Dressed as
Santa Claus, the resident manager distributes gifts, mostly toys, for their
employees’ children. There were parlour games for the kids and songs and dances
for their parents. The ladies are wearing their floral designed Momo dress and
the gentlemen in their Macomber and Bestman pants. It was the only time of the
year when we, the children of the labourers, could taste chocolates, apples and
ice cream.
In
the 60s, there was still no electricity in Barrio Bubog and Barrio San Agustin
and only the facilities of the SaltPhil have electricity such as Check Point
Number 1 (which is actually a guard house), the entry point to the factory. It
was located just a few steps away from our new place in the barrio proper.
Since
the Check Point is the only electrically-lighted area in the barrio, children of
my age used to play near it at night especially during weekends. Once a month,
the SaltPhil management offered a free movie for the residents from a portable
projector and makeshift screen nailed into the electric post. I remember that
the last movie I saw there was Anthony Mann’s 1964 film “The Fall of the Roman
Empire”. After less than a decade, the SaltPhil, due to the prevailing
political and economic changes that time, fell like the Roman Empire. Like the
so-called “Last of the Romans”, the SaltPhil employees and labourers scattered
like grains of salt in the crockpot of changing social realities of the era. Some of them even worked abroad.
Salts
of the earth
My
old man worked as a pump tender alternating with a fellow named Johnny Orozco
in Pump House Number 1. The Pump House cloisters the six-cylinder Buda Engine
made by the Buda Engine Company. It was founded in 1881 by George Chalender in
Buda, Illinois, to make equipment for railways. The main bulk of my father’s
job is to make sure that the engine is properly maintained adjusting the volume
of the seawater to be conveyed to the ponds. Since his work does not require
much mobility especially during graveyard shift, he has a lot of time to read pocketbooks.
He is fond of Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason series. When the officials of
the company moved out, my father brought home volumes of Reader’s Digest’s
compilation of short stories and other pocket books handed to him as mementos
from one of his bosses, the company accountant Mr. Pedro Nillo, a voracious
reader like my old man.
My
father’s eldest brother, Pantaleon S. Novio, Jr., was one of the company’s
trusted mechanics. From their ancestral home in 132 Capt. Cooper St. in the town
proper, my father Manuel and my Papa Addie brought their families in Barrio Bubog
where my uncle served as barangay captain for more than 20 years. My father was
one of the officers of the company’s labour union. Aside from the poles, the
long cemented water canal from the former site of Pump House Number 1 stayed even
to this day. Just like the lessons left behind to their children by the two
Novio siblings of SaltPhil.
The
overall boss was Engr. Alfredo Yleaña, the company’s resident manager, former
mechanical engineer of the Central Azucarera de Bais in Dumaguete but was born
in Jaro, Iloilo. Yleaña first arrived at
SaltPhil in 1958 and initially became its plant supervisor where his superiors
are all pure Spaniards. He later promoted as SalPhil’s resident manager and
took the helm from the foreigners. Engr. Yleaña was a heavily-built man, around
6’ 2” feet in height and wearing thick eyeglasses. With his Ilonggo accent in a
baritone voice, the resident manager expresses authoritative but kind
instructions and orders. He was a generous and caring and always accommodating to
those in need. He was an active official of the Knights of Columbus in San
Jose. Engr. Alfredo Yleaña at 59 died on January 17, 1980 leaving his wife
Mafalda and their children behind. One of his children, Grizelda, is a
long-time friend of my aunt, Helen.
I
was in high school when chess great Bobby Fischer is at the height of his popularity
and fame. I and my classmates, Danilo Solomon, Winifredo Oracion, Roberto
Paulmanal and the late Joel Boongaling were into chess. I never did win a game
against any of them. Knowing about my inept skill in the board game, my father
told me once that he’s going to introduce me to the expert wood pusher of
SaltPhil, Engr. Leto E. Nicanor. But that meeting did not happen for reasons I
do not know. My friends continued to butcher me over a chess game until I gave
up playing.
Leto
E. Nicanor is an electrical engineer and an alumnus of Mapua Institute of
Technology. He, as a young bachelor, first set foot on the shores of SaltPhil
on February 1965 and served as its shift engineer. He first stayed in the
compound but later rented a boarding house in the town proper which is more or
less ten kilometres away from the factory. Engr. Nicanor tied knots with
Milagros Espinas, a teacher at Pilot Elementary School, in November 1965. After
14 years in SaltPhil, Engr. Nicanor resigned and worked as power plant
superintendent of Occidental Mindoro Electric Cooperative (OMECO) for a time. I
don’t have a chance to introduce myself to him each time I watch him play chess
in a barber shop of downtown San Jose or under the Talisay tree near the San
Jose Water District Office. I have already lost my enthusiasm in playing chess,
anyway.
Prospects
of salt-making in Occidental Mindoro Today
Our
province is bounded by saltwater making it one of the biggest salt-producing
provinces in the country even today that the SaltPhil is long gone. At the
height of the province’s production in 1990, Occidental Mindoro boasted of
producing and supplying about 60,000MT of the 338,000MT or 18% of the country’s
annual salt requirement. Today, while our province still provides salt in neighbouring
provinces in Southern Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, only 12% national salt requirement
or almost 75, 000 MT of 590,000 MT comes from Occidental Mindoro.
But
today, Occidental Mindoro salt industry is already dwindling due to climatic
factors and insufficient technology. The provincial government and the industry
stakeholders should exert extra effort to keep it more vibrant and competitive
by providing additional salt production technologies various programs that the
local government failed to seriously look into. The industry needs to be
revitalized though researches and innovations to re-boost the industry. Without
it, the province’s salt industry will in the end drop its taste.
A
chemical practice
It
is said that salt production is one of the oldest chemical practices performed
by man and equally true, memoirs are brought about by chemical reaction
processed by his aging brain.
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(Photo: Pipay Novio)
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“Stories of 100 Families”, Rodolfo Meim Acebes
