Gov’t asked to preserve shuttered sugar mill smokestacks

LANDMARK Pasudeco sugar mill had three smokestacks before its closure as a result of lahar flows in San Fernando. At least one of the smokestacks remains intact today. —POCH JOROLAN

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO — The mayor of this Pampanga capital has asked building and tourism officials to prevent the demolition of one of the last two smokestacks inside a former sugar central that one of the country’s biggest real estate developers is turning into a 35-hectare urban township.

Mayor Edwin Santiago said smokestack No. 2 of Pampanga Sugar Development Co. (Pasudeco) in the village of Sto. Niño here should be preserved as a heritage structure because it was within the city’s heritage district.

Pasudeco began operating the mill on March 10, 1920. Built by Honolulu Iron Works, it was touted to be the first Filipino-financed sugar central in Pampanga province.

Delfin Marcelino, a contractor of real estate firm Megaworld, cited safety reasons for the demolition of the smokestack located beside the old Pasudeco office.

Not stable

“Its foundation has many cracks. It has not been stable. It is dangerous to people,” he told the Inquirer by telephone.

He said workers had tied a cable wire around the smokestack to prevent it from collapsing. Megaworld or Marcelino has not filed an application to reconstruct the smokestack in another site.

Ivan Henares, vice president of international cultural tourism committee of International Council on Monuments and Sites, said “we only have” the smokestack “to remind us of the contributions of sugar milling to the development of San Fernando.”

He said he expected the developer, “at the very least,” to retrofit the smokestack “and reconstruct a silhouette of the sugar central.”

Villar order

Pasudeco used to have three smokestacks but one collapsed months ahead of the demolition of its mill in 2016. The third smokestack was found to be intact.

Public Works Secretary Mark Villar earlier directed all building officials, as well as city and town engineers, to consult and coordinate with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts

(NCCA) and other national cultural agencies before issuing permits and certificates for construction, renovation, retrofitting or demolition of buildings and structures that had been declared part of cultural heritage.

Ching Pangilinan, city tourism chief, said the developer was “in a position to do preservation because it has the resources to do so.”

She said a check with NCCA archives showed that the agency had not issued an order rescinding its official presumption that Pasudeco was an important piece of cultural property. —Tonette Orejas