COL. JAIME
C. VELASQUEZ
1907 – 1979
“Duty, Honor and Country”
“On July 4, 1946, Independence Day,
Col. Jaime C. Velasquez decided uncompromisingly to retain his Filipino
citizenship, notwithstanding the offer of U.S. citizenship by the United
States.”
“Makati’s, residential villages, hotels,
malls, offices, and restaurants, are a testament to Jimmy’s vision of a
commercial and residential complex thriving in a balanced environment.”
BALIWAG
When the United States took
over the Philippines in 1898, ending three centuries of Spanish rule, the
Americans had to find a way to bridge the “communication gap” between them and the Filipinos. Since Baliwag, Bulacan was the first
municipality organized under the American regime, it was here that the
Americans established the first public schools with English as the sole medium
of instruction. Up to this time, the
Filipinos had been using only sign language in talking to the Americanos. Education was compulsory, and children who
played hooky had truant officers to reckon with.
In this setting Jaime C. Velasquez was born on April 4,
1907 in the town of Baliwag, province of Bulacan, the third child in a family
of four of Juan Velasquez and the former Maria Camacho. The Velasquezes
lived on Mariano Ponce Street, a community of well-to-do folk who tended their
own farms. “Emeng” picked up an academic
bent and a fondness for books from some of his relatives who were school
teachers in Baliwag.
After finishing primary and intermediate schools in Baliwag, where he graduated valedictorian,
Jimmy attended U.P. High School in Manila, graduating valedictorian once again
in March 1924. During his first year in
Pre-Medicine at the University of the Philippines in late 1924, he took the
entrance exam to the U.S. Military Academy on a dare. The result - He was appointed by Major General Leonard Wood, then
Governor General of the Philippines, to the United States Military Academy at
West Point. He would be a “pensionado”,
a government scholar.
Standing l to r: Pepe, Anita,
Jimmy Sitting l to r: Maria, Juan. Sitting on floor: Maning
Baliwag,
Bulacan just before Jimmy left for West Point, August 22, 1925
Medicine was his career of choice,
perhaps a heart surgeon, perhaps a brain surgeon. But that was years away.
Though his family was more than comfortable in Baliwag, those years would
cost his hard working farmer father a good part of his savings. After topping the West Point entrance exam
in the fall of 1924, and thereby earning the privilege of entering this
prestigious American institution, Jimmy made the heart-wrenching decision of
accepting the appointment, knowing he was saying goodbye to a career in
medicine. Filipino cadet Jaime C.
Velasquez made that lonely month-long boat trip alone from Manila to San
Francisco, then a week by train to New York, and entered West Point with the
Class of 1929 in September 1925.
WEST POINT
At West Point, Jimmy had no problems
with the academic demands of the illustrious institution. He was interested in Math and Science, and
those subjects came easy to him. His
problems came with the physical demands of military training. No, he was not weak. Quite the contrary, he was a strapping 5’11
athletic type and built like a boxer.
But asthma ran in his family, and the harsh winters exacerbated his
allergies, which caused him to be sick often, especially in his first
year. His weak respiratory constitution
made the physical demands of a cadet harder on him than on the others.
In the summer of 1926, he stayed
alone in the New York area, recuperating from the physical demands of being a
Plebian (freshman) at West Point. And
unlike other American cadets who went home for the summer, he felt it would be
wasteful to make that month-long trip back to the Philippines and then back
again to the U.S., all within 3 months.
It was a lonely life.
In the summer of 1927, he decided to
be more adventurous, by going on a trip visiting different countries in
Europe. While on that trip, his health
started to deteriorate, which caused him to cut his trip short. Back at West Point, a physical examination
revealed that he had tuberculosis, which at that time, was generally accepted
as fatal. He was immediately placed on
sick leave, and sent to Fitzimmons General Hospital in Denver, Colorado to
recuperate.
He spent nearly two years at the
hospital, not knowing if he would ever be well enough to resume his studies at
West Point. But with his fighting
spirit, a firm determination to get well, and the excellent medical attention he
received at the hospital, Jimmy overcame the disease. It was now the summer of 1929, and his classmates at West Point
had graduated ahead of him. In August
1929, he was pronounced to be completely cured of tuberculosis, and was allowed
to join the Class of 1931.
When he returned to West Point in the
Fall of 1929, he pursued his studies and activities with renewed vigor. Ever confident in speech and demeanor, which
is unusual for a Filipino studying in an American institution, Jimmy excelled
in oratory, and led a West Point debating team in a competition in Europe. He graduated from West Point in June 1931
with a major in Electrical Engineering, with a rank of #17 out of a class of
142, earning a total of 2,696.04 out of a maximum possible 2,970.00 General
Merit points, a merit system that measured both academic standing and physical
prowess.
JAIME CAMACHO VELASQUEZ
WEST POINT 1931
“Jimmy is a man who came down to us from
the class of ’29. And it has been a stroke
of good luck for us to have him with us, although it came as a result of one of
the toughest breaks a man has ever had.”
“If determination and perseverance was ever
combined in one man and coupled with a grip of iron, they were incorporated in
Jimmy. The change of climate from the
Philippines to West Point tore down his health completely, but it never
destroyed his determination.”
THE PHILIPPINE CONSTABULARY
After graduating from West Point in
1931, he was promoted to second lieutenant and was commissioned an instructor
at the Philippine Constabulary Academy at Camp Henry T. Allen in Baguio
City. He also managed to qualify for a
Foreign Service credential with the accolade of Starman, of which there were
only five from the meager seventy that earned their credentials between 1914 to
1990.
At that time, the Philippines was
divided and organized into ten military districts. Jimmy was assigned Assistant District Commander of the 10th
Military District, which comprised of the island of Mindanao and the Sulu
Archipelago. He assisted in the
organization and establishment of the district headquarters, and of the camps
and stations for the training cadres of the district. In late 1935, Jimmy returned to Manila to serve as Chief-of-Staff
of the Philippine Army, and as Secretary to the Philippine Army General Staff.
In 1938 he revisited the United
States as a student at the Infantry School, Fort Benning, Georgia, Class of
1938, and at the Command and General Staff School, Fort Leavenworth, Class of
1939. Upon his return to the
Philppines, Jimmy was appointed Commandant of Cadets, Philippine Military
Academy. The Philippine Constabulary
Academy where he taught after his graduation from West Point was converted in
1936 into the Philippine Military Academy, patterned after the U.S. Military
Academy at West Point.
THE PHILIPPINE COMMONWEALTH
On July 10, 1934, in what probably
was the most orderly and quiet election in the history of the country to date,
the Filipino people elected 202 delegates to the Consitutional Convention. The purpose of the Constitutional Convention
was to frame a constitution that would be consonant with the nationalism and
aspirations of the Filipino people.
The framers of the Constitution,
cognizant of the needs of the people and aware of the lessons of the past,
approved provisions that were strongly nationalistic in character. Manuel L. Quezon, then the Senate President,
believed that the Commonwealth should be established on a non-partisan basis,
for the cooperation of the majority in the legislature was needed in solving
serious economic and social problems in the country.
For most of his public life, Manuel
L. Quezon had fought the United States vigorously for the speedy independence of the Philippines. He played a
major role in obtaining Congress passage in 1916 of the Jones Act, which
pledged independence for the Philippines without giving a specific date when it
would take effect. The next step was to pin down the United States for a date
when independence would be granted.
This led to the Tydings-McDuffie Act, which Quezon fought
hard for, and which the U.S. Congress passed under President Roosevelt to provide
guidelines in the winning of independence for the Philippines within 20
years. Unfortunately, this Act required
certain provisions that were difficult for Filipinos to accept – Granting
American citizens in the Philippines rights equal to those of the Filipino
citizens; and, recognizing the right of the United States, pending her complete
and final withdrawal from the Philippines, to control all matters pertaining to
the latter’s currency, trade, immigration and foreign affairs. Instead of fighting the U.S. on these
provisions, Quezon urged that Filipinos work with the U.S., since the priority
was the granting of independence.
Differences in the provisions could be worked out after independence was
granted.
Jimmy followed these events with
great interest, as he performed his duties as Assistant District Commander of
the 10th Military district.
He admired Quezon’s nationalistic fervor, and agreed with his practical
approach to dealing with the United States on the issue of independence.
On November 15, 1935, the
Commonwealth was inaugurated with Manuel Quezon and Sergio Osmena as its
president and vice-president, respectively.
The reins of government, with the exceptions of the currency and foreign
relations, were now completely in the hands of Filipinos. The government just launched, Quezon
declared in his inaugural address, was only “a means to an end. It is an instrument placed in our hands to prepare
ourselves fully for the responsibilities of complete independence.”
In 1940, Jimmy served as Regimental Executive at Camp
Parang, Cotabato, Mindanao. By that
time, he had married the former Nieva Eraña, who made the trip with him to Cotabato. Life was hard at Camp Parang, where the
weather was uncomfortably humid, where life’s amenities were sadly lacking, and
cleanliness a luxury. Mosquitoes thrived in this environment, and diseases
carried by these mosquitoes were a constant threat. Tragically, Nieva lost her life to a serious bout with malaria
within less than a year after they arrived in Cotabato. Devastated, Jimmy wound down his affairs at
Cotabato and returned to Manila to decide what to do next.
A few months after his return,
President Quezon called, asking Jimmy if he would serve as his aide-de-camp. There were continuous threats to the
President’s and his family’s safety, and they needcd someone of Jimmy’s
experience to provide them personal security while in public or while
traveling. Jimmy needed no
convincing. Here was his chance to work
closely with man he greatly
admired. In 1941, Jimmy accepted an
appointment as aide-de-camp to Commonwealth President Manuel L Quezon. As it turned out, this appointment saved his
life during World War II.
Lt. Col. Jaime C. Velasquez, (standing second from
left), aide-de-camp to President Manuel L. Quezon, with the Quezon family and
friends, Saranac Lake, New York, 1943
WORLD WAR II
In December 1941, Jimmy’s division
fought the Japanese in central Luzon, and helped insure the orderly withdrawal
of the South Luzon Forces to the Bataan Peninsula. At Bataan the Division repulsed repeated Japanese attacks against
the western flank of I Corps under the command of Major General Jonathan
Wainwright. About three weeks before
Bataan fell and at the request of President Quezon, Jimmy was relieved of his
duties as Chief of Staff, 91st Philippine Army Division and
appointed as his aide-de-camp. Jimmy
accompanied President Quezon and his family in their escape from Corregidor to
Mindanao, then to Australia, and on to the United States. Had he not been appointed, he would have
stayed in the Philippines, and possibly captured by the Japanese, who were
looking for him.
Jimmy never knew the hell that was Death
March for he was among the lucky ones who had escaped to the U.S. via
Australia. To his dying day he believed
that his escape from Bataan was no big deal, that the real heroes are those who
stuck it out in the Philippines. He
remained deeply grateful to his older brother Pepe, who was tortured by the
Japanese because of him. They wanted to
know Jimmy’s whereabouts but Pepe refused to tell them.
After he was released from his
duties as aide to President Quezon, Jimmy took a three-month Battalion
Commander and Staff Officer Course at the Infantry School, Fort Benning
Georgia. Then he joined the First
Filipino Infantry Regiment which was organized, equipped and trained in the
West Coast. He was one of the battalion
commanders in the New Guinea and Southern Philippine campaign. At New Guinea, Jimmy was within a few feet
of death when his battalion sustained a Japanese attack that killed many of his
men. He splattered himself with mud and
blood from the dead men around him, and lay motionless as the Japanese walked
past them.
Thereafter he served successively as
assistant G-2, U.S. XI Corps, and as assistant G-2 of General Walter Krueger’s
Sixth U.S. Army during its operations against the Japanese in Southern and
Central Visayas, and in Southern Luzon.
After the Liberation of Manila, Jimmy was appointed Deputy Commander,
Military Police Command, Army Forces Western Pacific, and subsequently as
Provost Marshal General, Philippine Army.
With a combination of hindsight,
national fervor and a dash of calculated risk, Velasquez had moved for a
transfer from the United States Army to the Philippine army at some fair cost
to his rank – From full colonel status, he was relegated to lieutenant colonel. War reparations were the order of the day,
and much had to be done. Velasquez was
anxious to serve his country at a time when the Philippines needed help in
rebuilding after the war.
Wedding of
Col. Jaime C. Velasquez
&
Theresa LaO
May 11, 1946
On July
4, 1946, the Philippines was finally granted full Independence. On exactly that day, Col. Jaime C. Velasquez was
placed on inactive status by the U.S. Army, having uncompromisingly decided to
retain his Filipino citizenship, notwithstanding the offer of U.S. citizenship
by the U.S. Government. The newly independent Philippine government, however,
restored him to active duty and commissioned him as a Colonel in the Philippine
army. In May 1946 he had married the
former Theresa LaO, daughter of Pacita Arguelles and Gabriel LaO. With foreign service colors tucked under
his sleeve, Jimmy was immediately commissioned by the newly elected President
Manuel Roxas as the Philippines’ first Military Attaché at the newly
established Philippine Embassy in Washington D.C., as well as Chief-of-Staff of
the Philippine Service Command. The
newly weds left for Washington D.C in October 1946. While on this assignment, he participated in the negotiation of
the Mutual Defense Assistance Pact between the Philippines and the United States. In 1950 Jimmy returned to the Philippines
and, after a short stint as Chief of Staff, Philippine Service Command, he
retired from military service in 1951.
President Truman signs the
National Defense Assistance Pact between the Philippines and the United States
– 1948. Standing l to r: Al Valencia - Press Attaché, Narciso Ramos
(father of Fidel V Ramos), J. “Mike” Elizalde - Philippine Ambassador to the
U.S., O’Neal – U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines, Ramon Magsaysay, Congressman
Atilano Cinco, Col. Jaime C. Velasquez
AYALA
The liberation was as much an upheaval as the Japanese Occupation that
preceded it. Major portions of Manila
were razed by fires or had collapsed under the heavy bombing. Many were displaced and a devastated
countryside was rife with unrest.
Makeshift shelters were hastily erected as millions of refugees flocked
in from the provinces. The City, once
inhabited by 450,000 residents in the Peacetime era, had ballooned to 1.5
million residents in a single year.
At that time, Hacienda Makati was an
estate that stretched along the Pasig River across the old Spanish
governor-general’s summer residence in Guadalupe. It rolled downstream along the western bank of Sta. Ana, and
swept across the fields of Olimpia, San Andres and Singalong extension. Makati was a vast, raw expanse where share
croppers cultivated rice and horse fodder.
In the early 1920s, large
unproductive portions of this land were parceled into small residential lots
and offered at nominal cost. These
early districts were characterized by narrow sreeets, poor drainage and few
public amenities, but the lots sold well nevertheless. By the end of World War II, the hacienda had
dwindled to little more than 930 hectares and brought a quandary to its owners,
Ayala & Compania.
The havoc of the war leveled
practically most of the residential areas in Ermita, Malate and other bayside
neighborhoods. These fashionable
districts were rebuilt in time but many of the old residents had moved out to
the suburbs north of Pasig, away from the direction of Makati. Unless there was a plan for Makati, the
hacienda would be hemmed in by slums and its land values placed in serious
jeopardy.
Jimmy joined Ayala y Compania (now Ayala Corporation) in 1951,
with some concern about leaving the military life he knew so well, and joining
the business world he knew little about.
He used to say that military life was easier in that all one had to do
was follows rules and regulations. Even
one’s relationships with your superiors and peers were guided by one’s
rank. But the war was now over, and
there was not much future for his talents and training in military planning,
command, and ground staff administration, where he had spent most of his 25
adult years. He was 44, had 2 children,
with another on the way. He had to find
his future in the business world, somewhere where his ability as a planner
could best be used.
Colonel Joseph McMicking, U.S. Army
- retired, had married into the Ayala
family, and was involved in the development of Hacienda Makati. Integrated urban planning was not new in the
United States, but most Manilans had to be convinced. The development of Hacienda Makati was moving along very very
slowly. In 1951, he sought out a
comrade, Colonel Jaime C. Velasquez, a fellow military man who, like himself,
understood the far reaching benefits of military planning.
Jimmy Velasquez and Joe McMicking
eventually struck up an affectionate and bantering partnership that was able to
accomplish what everybody thought could not be done: develop Hacienda Makati into a modern, multi-zoned subcity to be
built in stages over 25 years, each zone complementing and enhancing the value
of the others. There is no anecdote of
how the two had met, or how the latter had learned of the former, leading to
that fateful call. We may surmise that
Manila was a much smaller place then, with the colonial military network
contributing its own valuable share to their summit. Their names could have rung familiar to each other as nearly as
the wake of General Douglas MacArthur and President Manuel L. Quezon’s exodus
to Australia in mid-1942. The
Filipino-Scottish McMicking was in the beleaguered General’s departing squadron
as an intelligence officer. Velasquez,
on the other hand, was one of the President’s illustrious retinue of
aides-de-camp, a Chief-of-Staff of the 91st PA Division of the
Philippine Constabulary and a battalion commander of the 1st
Filipino Regiment in the US Army. It is
known that Velasquez was active for the better part of the war years in
Australia with MacArthur’s USAFFE (United States Armed Forces in the Far East).
By the time Jaime C. Velasquez
accepted the job as Administrator of Hacienda Makati, hundreds of homeless
families had settled illegally in the property. With the additional tenants who cultivated the farms in the area,
they had to be relocated. To meet this
social program squarely, and to eliminate any possible social unrest, special
villages were created within the hacienda where lots were sold inexpensively at
very liberal terms. Industries were
also brought in to provide livelihood.
Attracting the affluent to transfer their homes to Makati was not easy,
and inducements had to be offered.
Velasquez launched a vigorous
campaign to visit promising entrepreneurs and offer ready advise. Those who lent him an ear never regretted
his visits. Two Filipino-Chinese
businessmen who heeded his advise, Henry Ng (who operated a grocery at Isaac
Peral Street in Ermita’s expatriate neighborhood) and Henry Sy (who owned a
shoe store in Rizal Avenue in downtown Manila) have since become luminaries in
the Philippine business community, beginning with the Makati Supermarket and ShoeMart, respectively, at the then
Ayala Center. Many others have similarly benefited from Velasquez’s
prodding. He went on to become the key
figure in Ayala’s day-to-day operations, piecing together the formula for the
development of a planned complex where commerce and residence would thrive in a
balanced environment.
Velasquez succeeded in convincing
Manila’s rich to purchase lots in Forbes Park, which opened in 1949. More subdivisions sprang up and lots sold
quickly – San Lorenzo in 1952, Bel Air in 1954, Urdaneta in 1957, San Miguel in
1960, Magallanes and Dasmarinas in 1962.
One of the rare times he was quoted publicly was in 1961, when he
remarked, “It’s been a seller’s market ever since, and we’d like to keep it
that way.”
As word spread that Makati was the
place to buy land, Ayala Avenue – a six-lane boulevard through the heart of
Makati where high-rise buildings form a financial hub – rose to prominence. The avenue, formerly the Nielsen Airfield
which functioned as a landing strip for military planes, had been transformed
into the most prestigious thoroughfare in the country. The Ayala Center, the Philippines’ fully
integrated commercial complex, was another of Velasquez’s projects as its chief
zone planner. He visualized it as “the
jewel in the crown”. The early Center
was a marvel of its day, replete with conveniences and modern features which
Filipino locals merely saw in American films.
Today, the Center is the premier showcase of shopping center design as
well as innovations in marketing concepts.
Today’s huge malls such as the Glorieta and the Greenbelt Mall, large
multi-departmental stores such as ShoeMart and Landmark, and first class hotels
such as New World, Shangri La, Peninsula, Mandarin, InterContinental, and
Oakwood are a testament to Jimmy’s vision of a commercial and residential
complex thriving in a balanced environment.
Through all this work at Ayala,
Jimmy continued to distinguish himself in public service, on loan to the
Philippine government from time to time from Ayala y Compania from 1954 to
1960. At various times during this
period Jimmy served as Commissioner of Customs, as a member of the Reparations
Survey Mission to Japan, and as a member of the Monetary Board of the Central
Bank of the Philippines. His stint as
Commissioner of Customs deserves emulation as he managed to eradicate
corruption down to the lowest clerk.
In 1964, Jimmy was appointed a
Director of Ayala y Compania, and Vice-president
and Director of the Ayala Securities Corporation, staying on until his
retirement in 1967, the year before Ayala y Compania was incorporated. Subsequently he became Chairman of the Board
of the Ayala Investment and Development Corporation in 1969, and then Chairman
of the Board of the Bank of the Philippine Islands in 1973. In the same year, he was named Consultant to
the Ayala Corporation.
RETIREMENT
Since his retirement, he became involved with other business activities
such as the Bank of Asia and the FGU Insurance Corporation, where he was a
director in both institutions. He
involved himself in civic endeavors, becoming trustee for three terms of both
the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation and the Filipinas Foundation (now the Ayala Foundation).
In his heyday, old hands at Ayala
remember Jaime Velasquez as a man of character and of the highest
integrity. His colorful and sharp wit
preyed on all at Ayala, including the young dons of the Ayala family. When agitated, his voice would resound
through the office walls down the corridor in his distinctive Bulakeño accent
as the staff held on to their seats. A
stickler for detail and accuracy, his office memos, sprinkled with military
terms, were structured with nested subsections and subclauses. More than that, he was like the proverbial
schoolmaster, stern yet possessed of a gentle heart.
One of the last pictures of Jimmy, taken at his Forbes
Park home, summer of 1977
His long and faithful service to his
country in both public and private endeavors was characterized by jobs well
done, which remained consistently through the years in keeping with the highest tradition of “Duty, honor, and
country”. Jimmy’s decorations include a
Silver Star, Legion of Merit, and Commendation Ribbon from the U.S. Government,
and Distinguished Service Star with Oak Leaf Cluster from the Philippine
Government. He was a man of action as
well as ideals, a visionary who drew a master plan with Joe McMicking and
harnessed it to reality. With his
passing on October 5, 1979 at the age of 72, Jimmy had spent a lifetime as one
who had stood at various crossroads of history, at times a witness, and then as
a trailblazer. The solace of his
remaining years were in the comfort of family and home, dabbling in culinary
experiments, keeping up with events in the Philippines and in the world, and
friendly games of poker with the closest of friends.
-Tisa Velasquez Fernandez
Sources --------------------------------------------------------------------
Write-up by Juan H. Alegre III,
August 1993.
Baliwag.
Then and Now, by Rolando E. Villacorte, 1970
History of the Filipino People, by Agoncillo &
Guerrero, 1987
Velasquez
Family Archives
NOTE: This entire document can be viewed on the
internet at:
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