We’ve seen the exit sign when traversing SLEX (South Luzon Expressway) on long trips but how many of us have actually been there? And who exactly is Susana, after whom the place is named?
Doña Susana Paterno y Ramos Madrigal
Susana Heights, where SM Investments Corp. (SMIC) recently acquired a sizable 261 hectares of land from subsidiary Intercontinental Development Corp., derives its name from Susana Paterno y Ramos de Madrigal, a “poor” relation of the prominent Paterno clan and wife of self-made industrialist Vicente Lopez Madrigal.
Vicente rose from humble beginnings in Ligao, Albay, and built a fortune anchored on coal mining and shipping as well as cement and other industries. Later, he would enter politics as Senator in 1941 upon the prodding of his close friend Manuel L. Quezon.
As Carlos Quirino writes in “Philippine Tycoon: The Biography of an Industrialist,” Susana or “Sanang” as her Tagalog nickname went, had learned the art of dressmaking from Vicente Mata of Imus, Cavite, then a prominent Spanish-era couturier. At 14, Susana, who had just lost her mother and was responsible for caring for her younger siblings, began working as an apprentice.
Eventually, she opened her own successful dressmaking shop, which expanded to 24 employees, including hand-sewers, embroiderers, and Singer sewing machine operators, catering to wealthy society matrons. Her business later diversified into selling jewelry, and she went on to own half a dozen carromatas or calesas for hire, further expanding her entrepreneurial ventures.
A simple wedding
It was said that Vicente first met Susana at a party in the Ermita district through a mutual friend. “He was attracted to her,” Quirino further writes, “not because of her beauty of face or figure, but because she could speak intelligently with him on business affairs — a rather rare attribute for a Filipina in those days.”
And so, after a civil wedding in Caloocan a week prior, Vicente and Susana wed in the afternoon of April 17, 1913, in a simple Church ceremony.
“My parents’ marriage was a true partnership,” Consuelo “Chito” Madrigal Collantes wrote in her autobiography “Picture Me”. “They were a devoted, ideal couple, always there for each other. Mother too had her own career: a dress shop which afterwards branched out into jewelry and, with more impressive success, real estate.”
Dressmaker to realtor
With Vicente now firmly ensconced as a pre-war tycoon at the helm of the diversified Madrigal & Co., Susana, utilizing the profits from her business ventures, “began buying real estate here and there and whenever the opportunity offered — that is, whenever a bargain presented itself.”
After closing her dressmaking and carromata businesses, Susana devoted her time and energy to forming Susana Realty Co. Through this company, she acquired a huge lot in Baclaran facing the bay, another in Pasay City that later became known as the Madrigal compound, and numerous other properties within the city including what would become the Madrigal Building in Escolta.
Looking further beyond, she set her sights southward, including what today are known as Ayala Alabang, Madrigal Business Park, and Susana Heights.
Said Chito: “It was she, for instance, who spotted the possibilities of Alabang, and who planted the mango trees which now make that enclave so pleasant.”
Susana Heights Subdivision
“What was it like living there? We were in between the province and the city,” recounts a former Philippine Airlines pilot who lived in Susana Heights in the 1990s. “We experienced provincial life with less traffic, and we could ride our bikes and leave them outside. We also had friendly neighbors.”
While primarily a residential development, the Vasquez-Madrigal Group of Companies developed the 100-hectare Everest Hills Memorial Park that offers “acres of greens, natural rolling hills with sprawling mango trees and serene surroundings.”
In 2007, SM Development Corp. (SMDC) launched its first horizontal development, the 22-hectare Lindenwood Residences at Susana Heights, an American country-themed development with 390 lots.
SMIC's vision
“We’re optimistic that the market, particularly residents in the south who would like to build homes for their extended families, will positively receive Lindenwood Residences as it is the closest new development to business and commercial hubs, schools, medical institutions and sports and leisure clubs in the area,” said SMDC at that time.
With SMIC now staking its claim on Susana Heights, we wait with curiosity and keen interest to see what the owner of the country’s biggest shopping mall chain and bank has planned, hopefully carrying on the forward-looking vision of an industrious dressmaker-turned-real estate visionary after whom the expansive property was named.
Features Reporter
