Harry S. Stonehill. He was an American GI, a sergeant of the US Liberation Forces in 1945 who decided to stay in the Philippines. He was a man of vision and dedication, who was the first one who brought American Christmas cards here and made a small fortune out of them. He did not end there. He married a Filipino mestiza from Cebu.
After going around the country, at the North in Ilocandia, he saw the need for Ilocanos to have a cash crop. Thus, he went back to the US and brought the idea of Ilocandia planting Virginia leaf and barley leaf for cigaret manufacturing. He put up his own cigaret plant—the “Old Gold.” Lucio Tan was his chemist.
Stonehill’s idea caught on, and after a few years, Ilocanos up North were planting nothing else but Virginia leaf tobacco. In Pangasinan and Cagayan Valley, it was barley leaf.
Santa Banana, Stonehill was even made “Son of Ilocandia” by politicians that made him a sensation. Soon, he also began a reclamation project in Manila Bay with the help of big businessmen. He even went into property development. He was the toast of the town.
Eventually, Stonehill’s ventures into big business became his undoing. He created enemies in government and in business. His biggest mistake was that at cocktail parties and even among businessmen, he often boasted that he had congressmen and senators, even newsmen, in “his pocket.”
This led the Department of Justice under then Justice Secretary Jose Diokno to have the National Bureau of Investigation look into the background and business interest of Stonehill.
Word went around, however, that it was the American Tobacco Monopoly with the help of the Central Intelligence Agency that brought down Stonehill from his pedestal. Soon enough, Stonehill was charged with economic sabotage. This led to his deportation. However, there were those who said that Stonehill was also a victim of the crab mentality of the Filipinos.
I knew Stonehill on a personal basis. I admired and respected him. Thus, when after years in exile and through the efforts of the late Jaime Cardinal Sin, he was allowed to come back, I met him again. He said to me: “You know Emil, I had wanted to die in the Philippines, a country I had learned to love.”
Stonehill’s reclamation project in Manila Bay changed the landscape of Roxas Boulevard. These are now where Sofitel Hotel, PICC, Philippine Trade Center, Cultural Center of the Philippines, World Trade Center, and the Pagcor Entertainment City of Solaire, and City of Dreams now stand.
Another development during the Macapagal administration in 1963, if I’m not mistaken, was the devaluation of the Philippine peso which stood at P2 to $1. There were reports going around that the peso was grossly overvalued, and that soon enough, the currency would be devalued.
One afternoon when I was making my rounds at the Central Bank, I went to the office of Mrs. Fanny Cortez Garcia, who was then economic department head. Nobody was around, not even her secretary. Taking the chance, I looked around her desk when I saw a memorandum, signed by then-CB Gov. Miguel Cuaderno and Mrs. Garcia, proposing to President Macapagal the devaluation of the peso, pegging the exchange rate of P19.50 to $1, if I am not mistaken. I made this scoop a headline story of the Herald, and it changed the business landscape.
With the currency devalued, the rate started to float to P25 to $1, but soon enough, the Central Bank poured dollars into the economic enough to arrest it from going further. But, the devaluation, while making exports like coconut oil, copra, sugar, lumber and others more competitive worldwide, new industries like textile, car assembly and others and imports suffered, having borrowed from banks at P2 to $1. The peso since then has been floating, hitting at one time over P50 to $1.
When President Marcos came to power in 1969, there were hopes for a better Philippines. I’d say that perhaps he was the most brilliant of all Philippine presidents, packing his cabinet with so-called “technocrats,” led by Cesar Virata and Roberto V. Ongpin, both respected by the business community.
Still, there were others around Marcos who became cronies, having their own agenda as is usually the case when a new president comes to power.
It was also a time when the communists became more active and aggressive with no less than the New People’s Army already knocking on the door of Manila with their known presence at Balara near the University of the Philippines. Edsa, which was then known as Highway 54, was even closed.
I quit the Herald after 17 years as business editor and editorial director. My friend Roberto S. Benedicto, whom his friends and associates called “RSB,” enticed me to join his Kanlaon Broadcasting System to become public affairs manager. I accepted it because I believed that television was an impact medium that could reach and influence more people. Thus, I joined RPN Channel 9, which was then along Roxas Boulevard.
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I had thought of ending this series already, but it seems that I should, for celebrity’s sake and for history, have another episode on the Marcos years and beyond, especially so on Martial Law. This has been distorted by people with their own agenda. Santa Banana, those were the years when the government was on the verge of a communist takeover!
