Did Danding Cojuangco's healing prompt him to support the Virgin Mary project in Cavite?

MANILA, Philippines - Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence. — Helen Keller

 What is more exciting than just making a lot of money? Making history. Among the most intriguing tycoons in Philippine big business today are San Miguel Corporation’s ambassador Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr. and his loyal executive the visionary Ramon S. Ang, with their breathtaking mega-deals and bold (sometimes even controversial) forays into diverse strategic industries. However, this writer senses that beyond just the drive for mega-bucks, both Danding and Ramon Ang seem to be aiming for glory with their various extraordinary endeavors.

While most of the media and the business community are engrossed with Ang’s recent pronouncements on a possible US$10 billion buyout of the government’s Pagcor gambling monopoly and his proposal for a massive nearly US$1 billion flood control project to save Metro Manila from chronic inundation, this writer believes that another no-less-grand project shall put Ramon Ang, Danding and the Philippine tourism on the world map.

Last Sunday, Aug. 15, the feast day of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary according to Catholic theology, San Miguel Properties, Inc. chairman Danding Cojuangco, president and CEO Ramon Ang, the popular healing priest Fr. Fernando Suarez, San Miguel Properties VP and general manager lawyer Karlo Marco Estavillo and others unveiled on a site in Alfonso, Cavite the plans for the world’s largest image of the Virgin Mary. It is called “Monte Maria, Mama Mary of the Poor.”

The name and concept of this Virgin Mary project as patroness of the poor are apt, since massive poverty and social injustice are still huge problems confronting our semi-feudal society today, and since the Catholic Church in the Spanish colonial era and at other periods was once viewed as favoring more the landed oligarchy and corrupt political elite. It was only in the late 20th century that Catholic leaders like the late Jaime Cardinal Sin were seen as genuinely caring for the poor, similar to the late Jesus Christ Himself, born a poor carpenter’s son.

Hopefully, this religious project can deepen authentic Catholic moral values in our society where not a few of our leaders mistakenly think that religious piety of kneeling and praying the rosary are enough, that there’s no need to be truly Christian in moral values and in day-to-day lifestyle.

This writer believes this gargantuan religious edifice will become a Catholic pilgrimage destination, and a major tourist attraction too since it is even taller than Brazil’s world’s famous 100-meter-tall Christ the Redeemer statue atop Rio de Janeiro City.

Although this writer is a Protestant, I have Catholic relatives and they pointed out that the world’s other famous Virgin Mary shrines are in Guadalupe in Mexico which attracts nine million tourists a year, the one in Lourdes of France which draws seven million tourists per year and the shrine in Fatima of Portugal which attracts five million tourists a year.

According to Ramon Ang and Fr. Suarez, the Monte Maria monument, upon completion, hopes to attract three million tourists its first year, equivalent to the total yearly tourist arrivals claimed by our government statistics! Wow!

33 Hectares donated by Danding

The huge 110-meter-high monument of the Virgin Mary will be built on part of the 33 hectares of land donated by Danding to Fr. Suarez. It was Ramon Ang who undertook the donation. The monument will be made of concrete and resin, designed by sculptor Redem Ballesteros and undertaken by architect Nestor Mangio.    

Sources told this writer that the 33-hectare Catholic center to be built around the Virgin Mary monument was donated by Ambassador Danding Cojuangco last March, that he had wanted to originally donate the entire 125 hectares owned by San Miguel Properties (the realty arm of San Miguel Corp.) in Alfonso town of Cavite. Incidentally, the 33 hectares coincides with the age of Jesus Christ when He died.

This donated property used to be part of the 125-hectare Magnolia dairy farm, located almost across the national road and 10 kilometers from the Tagaytay rotunda. Fr. Suarez accepted only 33 hectares donation as sufficient for his project.

The original project was supposed to have been on a five-hectare site in Batangas province donated a few years ago by Congressman Dodo Mandanas. The legislator is a former finance whiz, a former Batangas governor and one of the top officials of the conservative Catholic group of Opus Dei. The Batangas lot donation was, however, deemed too small for the project.

Since Father Suarez only needed 33 hectares, the rest of the lands beside the historic Monte Maria monument is to be developed by San Miguel Properties, Inc. into residential and tourism projects that will complement and support the shrine.

Why did San Miguel donate the 33 hectares to support the world’s biggest Virgin Mary monument project?

Apart from the Danding and his wife Gretchen having a track record of donating to Catholic Churches from Tarlac to Negros Occidental, and Ramon Ang’s professed religious faith (he reportedly goes to Mass at Santuario de San Antonio near Forbes Park in Makati), sources told this writer that Fr. Suarez had helped heal Danding from an ailment in December 2009.

San Miguel balangay at Shanghai’s world expo in october

Another project of San Miguel Properties, Inc. that excites Ramon S. Ang is the firm’s support for the Southeast Asian and China voyage of the San Miguel Balangay, three replicas of the ancient boat used by early Malay settlers who migrated to what is now called the Philippines. The 15,000-kilometer journey from August 11 to end of October is sponsored by San Miguel Properties, culminating in the balangays entering the mouth of the Huangpu River in the world’s fastest-growing new financial hub of Shanghai City. The event is part of the ongoing World Expo in Shanghai, with no less than Philippine President Noynoy Aquino and China’s President Hu Jintao in attendance.

Under the leadership of Ramon S. Ang, San Miguel Properties, Inc. hopes to contribute to lifestyle improvements in Philippine society by developing the 2,000-plus hectares nationwide Land Bank of San Miguel Corporation. The range of realty projects is so diverse — from its P3 billion serviced apartments project across Greenbelt 5 in Makati, its Wedgewood subdivision in Santa Rosa of Laguna, medium-rise condos on six hectares of land in Sucat of Parañaque City, medium-rise condos on four hectares of land across Valle Verde townhouses in Pasig and along C-5 highway, townhouses in the former Waterous Hospital in San Juan City, affordable housing in General Trias City of Cavite, three hectares of lands to be developed as “The Evergreens” high-end homes in Baguio City’s Outlook Drive, six hectares of land in Santa Rosa of Laguna at the end of the major road to Ayala Group’s Nuvali, etc.

When this writer asked whether San Miguel Properties, Inc. isn’t worried about increasing talks in Asia that there’s a regional realty bubble of unrealistically high real estate prices which might soon bring down prices and sales, sources said the firm’s main focus is to provide affordable housing and not to add fuel to the overheated realty speculative fever.

An aggressive new leader in the real estate industry, San Miguel Properties, Inc. president Ramon Ang said: “I want to build one million homes for the poor of the Philippines.”

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