The Lizareses of Negros

8/9/2019 The Lizareses of Negros

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The Lizareses of Negros

To hold a wedding reception in Palmas del Maror to make Palmas your home while in Bacolod

is to experience a little of how it is to be the guest of one of the sugar industry's most prestigiousfamilies. The Lizareses are a laid-back clan but the family's modesty (at least by Negrense

standards) is not necessarily an indication of how the family's wealth compares to others. TheLizareses just seem to have been bred to like their meat and most everything else, sliced in thin,

bite-sized slices while the Lacsons, our well known hometown political rivals, are moreprofligate in their ways and for their meat, are said to have a preference for thick slabs of steak.

My guess is that the family's style is because our grand matriarch, Enrica Alunan Lizares, was

widowed about two years after she gave birth to her 17th child. Whatever her wealth might havebeen at the time of her loss, only an indefatigable, no-nonsense, God-fearing woman could have

singlehandedly raised such a big brood while managing family properties and making

investments grow.

A history of the sugar industry mentions the Lizareses as being among the first to establish

mechanized sugar mills in the island. So successful was Lola Dicang as a planter and investorthat in time, her family had controlling interests in three sugar centrals, Talisay-Silay, Bacolod

Murcia, and Danao. Although these three mills are now defunct, heirs of Enrica Alunan Lizareswere also among the incorporators and officers of theFirst Farmers Milling and Marketing

Cooperative which was built on property purchased from Enrica's son Antonio.

Enrica Alunan Lizares in between President Manuel L.Quezon and President Sergio Osmena. All important visitors

of Talisay made it a point to pay their respects to the powerful and enigmatic matriarch.
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The writer does not have figures as to the number of Talisaynons who are somehow dependent

on Lizareses for a living. It is however known that the first Barangay High Schools in the

Philippines were built through the efforts of Mayor Mario "Batoy" Lizares (grandson of Enrica).Lizareses either own more farms or are more generous than other landowners in Talisay (or both)

but of the 24 Barangay High-Schools in the family's hometown, 21 schools are built on property

donated by Lizares heirs. It was also during the term of Batoy's brother Amelo "Meling" Lizaresthat Talisay became a chartered city. Not surprisingly, the family's generosity and record of

public service in Talisay have helped Lizareses win election after election against Lacson rivals.

The Lizareses are a presence in their hometown, and not just because of the 21 schools, the

Lizares haciendas, the Lizares streets, and what remains of the Talisay-Silay Sugar Mill. "Balayni Tana Dicang," Lola Dicang's 2 story house built in the traditional Filipino "Bahay na Bato"

style, was constructed sometime in the 1880s and it is for good reason, reputed to be the best

preserved ancestral home in the province. Unlike other heritage houses which have been throughabandonment and decay, the Balay was lived-in until the 1990s and it remains the favorite venue

for important family occasions, the town fiesta, and Good Friday gatherings. Now a lifestyle

museum that's open to the public, the house was bequeathed by Enrica to her 6 daughterstogether with a provision in the will that part of the income from two specific farms should beused to maintain the Balay.

Balay Ni Tana Dicang lit up for Good Friday.Photograph by Alfonso Lizares
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Several Lizareses have been mayor of Talisay and Enrica is known as Tana Dicang (short for

Capitana Dicang), because her husband Efigenio was at one time, the Cabeza Mayor, the town

Mayor. Several of Enrica's sons, grandsons, and a great-grandson also held the mayor's post butof her descendants, it is Lola Dicang's son Simplicio who began Talisay's most enduring line of

Lizares mayors. Don Simplicio's mansion overlooks the town square and the old municipal hall

as if it is the mansion that is the center of the town and its seat of power.

Facing Don Simplicio's mansion on the other side of the town square is the San Nicolas deTolentino Parish Church and beside it, the Talisay Campus of the University of Negros

Occidental Recoletos High-School and Grade-school. UNO-R was founded before the war by

Dr. Antonio A. Lizares (one of Enrica's sons) and Dr. Eugenio Lizares Kilayko (a grandson ofEnrica). The school was known as the Occidental Negros Institute and it did not begin offering

college courses until after the war, when it re-opened but this time in the capital city of Bacolod

City. When ONI became the University of Negros Occidental in 1956, it was already establishedin its present site beside Dr. Antonio's Lizares Compound on Lizares Avenue, Bacolod City.

As low-key a lifestyle as the Lizareses enjoy (at least when compared to the other big clans ofNegros), the family does have several hectares set aside for a private family cemetery withlots

assigned to each branch of Enrica's family and the families of Efigenio's siblings. During thefeast of All Saints (November 1), Lizareses, Granadas, de Ocas, and Labayens wander from one

mausoleum to the next in this exclusive little domain, visiting the living and paying their respects

to the dead, remembering the exploits of General Simon Lizares who was one of the Cinco deNoviembre generals, wondering at how there could have been two Antonio A. Lizareses both

married to Carmens, admiring the ornate chapel wherein lie the remains of Emiliano Lizares,

owner of the extravagant Lizares Mansion in Jaro. asking about relations, strengthening ties, and

enjoying the different treats that families prepare for this not-to-be-missed annual familyreunion.Perks of the rich of Negros.

After World War II, My

grandfather, Dr. Antonio A.

Lizares and his wife, CarmenRodriguez, established their

Bacolod residence in a

sprawling Spanish stylemansion with a tower,

balconies, sweeping staircases,

a grand ballroom, andexpansive terraces and

courtyards that made the

mansion something like a fairytale castle. The tower was the

stuff of childish Rapunzel

imaginings but it's likely my

grandparents ascended thesteep staircase to the dizzying

height for a very practical purpose. They owned most of the land south of the mansion, the


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proverbial "as far as your eyes can see" kind of owning. Only with a tower could they survey

their sugar cane fields, orchards, rice paddies, and fish ponds.

My father Heriberto used to say that at one time, my grandfather owned one of the three bighaciendas that became the center of Bacolod City and he would have acquired the hacienda that

is now the down-town area if the owner had not had a change of heart just when the documentswere ready for signing. Libertad St. (now Hernez St.) is the northernmost demarcation line for

my grandfather's properties, "Lolo owned just about everything south of this," I tell guests onLizares heritage tours.

To create a new hub for development on his side of the city, Antonio donated a site for the

Libertad South Market and a few hectares for the Sacred Heart Shrine and the Sacred Heart

Seminary. His school, the Occidental Negros Institute (University of Negros OccidentalRecoletos) drew families and professionals to live near where they could teach or send their

children to school. Further south, part of the hacienda beside the highway was expropriated for

the Bacolod airport. With the opening of this area, the family established St. Vincent's Home for

the Aged and nearby landholdings were gradually converted into residential subdivisions andcommercial areas. Several hectares were sold to the developer ofGolden Field Commercial

Complex and a number of years later, the Gaisano City Mall was built on what used to be thefamily's orchard in Singcang. As the family was blessed, so did its members' generosity to

church and community grow. Various lots were donated for use as Bacolod Police Headquarters,

San Antonio Abad Parish Church,Negros Occidental Girl Scouts Council of the PhilippinesHeadquarters, and the Bacolod (Alijis) campus of the Carlos Hilado Memorial State College.

Seeing how Bacolod needed a convention center, the family also ventured for the first time into

the hotel business, investing in the Bacolod Convention Plaza Hotel (nowLuxur Placeand

Teleperformance Call Center) and inPalmas del Mar, previously just a beach resort.

And so the story of the Lizareses of Negros continues. Although I have written mostly about mybranch of the family, the siblings of Antonio have their own claims to fame. The families of

Enrique Lizares, Asuncion Lizares Panlilio, and Nicolas Lizares took over Lola Dicang's

extensive landholding in Granada, in the north eastern part of Bacolod. There they left Lizaresfootprints in the form of public schools, the Bacolod Boys' Home, and the Salesian retreat house.

Rodolfo, son of Simplicio, built a mansion to compare with his uncles.' He and his father

Simplicio were also among the founders of the Cebu Institute of Technology, well knownproducer of Cebu's first engineers. My great aunt, Asuncion married a Panlilio, one of the

governors of Pampanga while her youngest sister Remedios became the second wife of the

statesman, Leon Guinto. Their sister Adela became the matriarch of a line that produced bankersand industry leaders like Placido Mapa Sr. and Placido Jr,. and Fr. Bernard Ybiernas, provincial

of the Carmelite monks in the Philippines. Dolores, another daughter of Enrica, became the

mother of Ramon Nolan, Philippine ambassador of the sugar industry for many many years.

Even as some members of the family remain planters and centralistas, others are developing andmanaging subdivisions, apartments, or commercial buildings. As a tenth of a ninth of a

fourteenth of even the greatest fortune does not really amount to much, many Lizareses have

sought and made their fortunes abroad. Meanwhile, the new generation has discovered afascination for culinary arts, hotel and restaurant management, fashion and design, and
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architecture and landscaping. Needless to say, there are also heirs who have made it their grand

business to continue as caretakers of St. Vincent's Village and in other ways, to feed and clothe

the poor, defend the oppressed, and serve the community of God. And because the Lizareseshave remained true to the legacy of Enrica (who ironically, was an Alunan and not a Lizares), the

family line will continue because Lizareses are peaceful and fair in their dealings, modest in their

ways, and God-fearing in their actions. So it was, so it shall be.

For more on Enrica Alunan and the Lizares Clan

Categories:Negrense Heritage,Things to do in Bacolod
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The Lizareses of Negros