Part of the plan presented by the group is the construction of a new terminal building in place of the long-abandoned Philippine Village Hotel at the former Nayong Pilipino complex. The hotel, during its glory days, played host to a prestigious internal conference and served as the headquarters of the Miss Universe Pageant when it was held in the country in 1974.
Here is a brief but fascinating look at how the Philippine Village Hotel came to be.
Hosting the UNCTAD-UNDP Conference
In 1973, as the Philippines, led by First Lady Imelda Marcos, prepared to host the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development-UN Development Programme (UNCTAD-UNDP) in June 1974, a suitable hotel venue was urgently needed.
That was three years before the conception of the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) and the accompanying hotel construction boom brought about by the IMF-World Bank Conference.
As it turned out, writes Erlinda Enriquez Panlilio in the book “Teacher to Tycoon”, Mrs. Marcos had planned on letting Holiday Inn put up a hotel in Nayong Pilipino, wanting a “hotel with international standards.”
However, Trinidad ‘Trining’ Enriquez, Erlinda’s mother, (owner of the Sulo Hotel in Quezon City and the Sulo Restaurant in Makati apart from operating the Turo-turo sa Nayon dining outlet) believed a Filipino group should spearhead the project. Thus, despite having a limited track record in hotel management, Mrs. Enriquez made the necessary representations to make her case.
“Don’t worry, Ma’am,” she told Mrs. Marcos. “We’ll have the biggest ballroom in town, plus all the facilities for international conferences.”
With the project soon in the bag, she then set out constructing what would become the 300-room Philippine Village Hotel.
Build it and they will come
By presenting a project study by SGV affirming the viability of building such a hotel, “that with the peace and order prevailing under martial law, tourism will pick up,” Mrs. Enriquez was able to obtain financing from the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) then headed by Roman Cruz Jr. She also sold some personal assets.
Other investors, the book further says, included her Sulo business partners, project contractor Antolin M. Oreta, Domingo M. Guevarra of Radiowealth who supplied the television sets on a part-cash and part-barter basis, and Luciano E. Salazar of Sycip, Salazar, Feliciano Law Offices.
Tapped as architect was Angel Nakpil, who patterned the hotel’s design from the InterContinental in Makati, with interiors by Wili Fernandez who followed a Maranao motif that “exuded an ambiance of understated Filipino elegance.” Project management, meanwhile, was handled by Philip A. Ross of Bechtel Overseas Corp.
Job well done
Following a frenzied construction period that saw workers working in 24-hour shifts, the Philippine Village Hotel was completed in time for the UNCTAD-UNDP Conference, with President Marcos delivering the keynote address at the hotel’s 800-seat Fiesta Grand Ballroom, the largest at its time.
Built at a total cost of P43.5 million, the Philippine Village Hotel boasted, aside from its ballroom, double-glazed windows to ward off the noise from the nearby airport, multiple function rooms, the Saranggola coffee shop, two additional restaurants, the Par Avion Lounge that served as the headquarters of the Airline Operators Council, the Flying Machine disco, a large landscaped pool and garden area, and a shopping arcade.
Mrs. Enriquez herself was stationed on the hotel’s 8th floor, which was her executive office. There, she presided over the meteoric rise of her Sulo Group of Hotels and Restaurants, which during its heyday also included the Silahis International Hotel, Puerto Azul, and airline caterer Sulo-Dobbs Food Services.
The short-lived airline GrandAir, also controlled by the family, housed its check-in terminal there.
Steady decline
By the 1990s, the Enriquez-Panlilio family had shifted away from hands-on hotel operations, focusing instead on property and asset ownership. During this period, the Philippine Village Hotel came under the management of Mercure Hotels, part of the Accor Group.
Not long after, the Philippine Village Hotel, along with other Enriquez-Panlilio assets, would be entangled in numerous court cases, including sequestration by the Presidential Commission on Good Government or PCCG.
By the early 2000s the Nayong Pilipino Foundation, which owned the land where the Philippine Village Hotel stood, was demanding unpaid lease obligations.
Similarly the GSIS, from which Mrs. Enriquez had borrowed to help bankroll the hotel, also sent demands for payment of outstanding loans.
In the end, the Philippine Village Hotel, which was eventually sold to a new group led by Rogelio Serafica, shut down and ceased its operations. This left the GSIS with no recourse but to foreclose and seize the property, leading to its decline, decay, and eventual abandonment.
Features Reporter
