Toti and Marga Villalon: Brother and Sister team behind GENVI and Monterrazas de Cebu

CEBU, Philippines - The brother and sister tandem of Augusto “Toti” Villalon and Margarita “Marga” Villalon are now at the helm of the development of Monterrazas de Cebu under GENVI Development Corporation.

Monterrazas de Cebu used to be under Landco Pacific Corporation but the Villalon siblings thought about taking over under the umbrella of GENVI to make the development “more Cebuano.”

“GENVI is actually a contraction of our lola’s name which is Genoveva, because she started the company,” explained Marga.

Monterrazas de Cebu sits on a property that the Villalon family has kept for so many generations. Today, it is the last and largest contiguous mountain property in the heart of Cebu City.

Toti explained that nothing has changed with Monterrazas now that it is under GENVI. “There is actually nothing new. GENVI has always been the landowner, it has always been committed to uplifting Cebu life and it found a way to do it through this development. And now that we’re the ones doing it, we can do it quicker.”

“The purpose really is to make it as Cebu-based as possible. All of the designers and consultants are now Cebuanos,” said Marga adding that the thrust is to make everyone working on the development Cebu-based, since the property is in Cebu.

Toti shared that it was hard having a Manila-based partner because they were not that familiar with Cebu. Their former partner also hired consultants and engineers from Manila when there are available personnel here in Cebu, he added.

According to Toti, GENVI is fortunate that the whole team of Monterrazas remains intact, from the business development people to the engineering people who started the project.

Toti, the eldest of the six Villalon siblings and Marga, the youngest, teamed up for GENVI because the property belongs to them. Both are also not new to the real estate business because everyone in the family is somehow into real estate.

Aside from being at the helm of GENVI, Toti is also an architect, a cultural heritage planner and the owner of A. Villalon Architects. “I’m the Vicky Belo of old buildings,” Toti jokingly said. He is also a recipient of various cultural heritage awards like the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Cultural Heritage Award in 2003 and 2005 for architectural heritage conservation projects in Manila, the Lifetime Achievement Award for Heritage Conservation from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and the Gintong Karangalan Professional Achievement Award from the United Architects of the Philippines.

He now serves as a Member of the ICOMOS International Advisory Committee and is currently President of its Philippine Committee. He is also an adviser of the World Monuments Fund in New York City. 

He was a member of the UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines, serving as the Philippine representative to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in Paris from 1989-2001. He also served as a Member of the Board of Commissioners of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) the de facto Ministry of Culture of the Philippines, having headed the NCCA Subcommission for Cultural Heritage and also the NCCA Committee on Monuments and Sites.

Marga, meanwhile, is a trustee of The Beacon Academy in Taguig, Metro Manila, which she helped establish. The school adopts an alternative way of educating children.  

Cebu’s First Green Subdivision

The brother and sister team is proud that Monterrazas is Cebu’s first Green Subdivision. Both said that right from the start, it was really the vision to make the property a “green subdivision.”

Instead of doing rip rapping, the property is the first to apply coco fiber matting on the slopes and also used a special grass, the vetiver grass, that can hold the naturally. The property also has eight detention ponds to hold run off water so it won’t go to the Cebu City drainage system. “And the water that is stored in our dams will be recycled. It can be used for construction purposes and landscaping,” said Toti.

Marga added that the detention ponds also act as the property’s flood mitigation so that the water from the slopes will not go down to the lowlands. “The water just slowly goes down, according to what the city drainage can accept.”

“We are the first people in Cebu to do this. And when the mayor saw it, he plans to adopt this to all other future developments,” said Toti.

As soon as the property is fully developed, Toti said that they are going to put back the forest and replant all the slopes.“Over the years naupaw jud sya. I remember when I was a child our family was very active in planting trees in the area. We already have a tree planting program all around the property and we have partnered with Banawa Elementary School,” he added.

Marga shared that they have adopted the Banawa Elementary School and promised to help them in their activities because involving the community and making them feel the benefits of having Monterrazas as a member of the community is important. “We also donated land for a chapel and a playground for the residents along the access road. Toti even committed to do the design for the community center,” she said.

The Villalon siblings do not only see Monterrazas as a business but also as a way of helping the economy of Cebu, especially since the business can generate a lot of jobs. “We are very happy to be able to do this for Cebu,” concluded the brother and sister team.