Negros Occidental was nothing but sugarcane plantation. Introduced into this new frontier sometime in the mid-1800s, and spurred by a friendly world market, the sugarcane Kabalikat sa Pabahay Award 2003industry grew quickly throughout the first three-quarter of the 1900s. It was no wonder that sugar was, for many years, the country’s No. 1 dollar earner. So lucrative was the sugar trade that it styled a way of life. The story goes, a man stick a stalk into the ground and 10 months later chops it down for cash. Who wouldn’t want such a painless life? Indeed, the sugar industry authored a take-it-easy lifestyle, one that was pampering and so hard to do without. As time passed, haciendas were passed on as inheritance. From the few cigar-puffing barons of old, decision making in the farms became the shared priviledge of community of heirs. The family of Don Esteban de la Rama was no exemption. He was one of the most landed in the region, owning vast properties in Negros and Panay. When it came time for them to step up to the plate, still, there was plenty for Don Esteban’s progency to till.Hernan R. Lopez, Jr., is a grandson of Don Esteban. Like most families in Negros, Hernan sought to formalize the management of his family’s share of the sugar estate by creating a company. In 1975 Carmela Valley Corp. was established as an agricultural company whose main business was sugarcane farming. On the side, the company tried its hand at real estate development by opening Malunsi Subdivision in Talisay, just north of Bacolod. The move proved to be ominous. Then 1980 came, and the sugar market soured. Carmela Valley was now faced with the problem of how to finance its sugarcane farms, which stretched as far as eyes can see.It didn’t help that Pres. Corazon Aquino called it the sunset industry. At her word, the sugar industry panicked. Crop loans couldn’t be paid, farms were foreclosed, and banks took a lesson. And because the majority of the population of the province included farm workers and their families, the province took a hit. In the mid-1980s, Negros Occidental became almost like a ghost town. It was a time when being a small farmer or a farmer lessee was better. But this was not an option for Carmela Valley Corp.
Kabalikat sa Pabahay Award 2003Hernan Lopez, Jr., quickly assessed the company’s assets. To his mind, assets didn’t merely comprise of Carmela’s vast sugar landholdings. Assets included competencies. And the company has one nascent competence beyond sticking a stalk in the ground. By then, Carmela had grown its real estate business. What it started in 1978 had slowly expanded to include four more properties. In 1980, they opened for sale San Esteban Village in Bago City, this south of the provincial capital. Carmela Valley Homes Subdivision was also inaugurated in 1983, subsequently followed by Phase 2 in 1985 and Phase 2-A a year after.
Turning its focus on real estate, the company immediately recognized one key factor in its initial success: its ability to deliver honest customer value. As the economy continued to slow down, the concept of massive lots in posh subdivisions became unwise, at least to Carmela Valley. Although there were still many who could afford them, they remained too few to render profitable the sizable landholdings of Carmela.
The blossoming middle-income and the aspiring lower-income segments of the society had the numbers. So Carmela Valley invested into developing subdivisions that offered small lots, hence smaller investments. But that wasn’t enough. Carmela also adressed the issue of affordability, not in terms of lot prices, but in terms of how much people can afford to pay each month. That was the critical customer value of time – instead of fighting it with amenities people didn’t need, Carmela delivered it with easy monthly payments. Carmela Valley agressively-designed installment payment scheme rocked the local real estate industry, but it jolted the modest income segments into home ownership. Suddenly, here was an enterprise immune to the madness of the sugar industry-controlled economy.
The business sagacity of the corporation was greatly rewarded for it brought to conciousness the enormous back-log of the housing industry in Negros Occidental. Lopez and his corps of creative managers lost no time in visualizing expansion. They trained their eyes back to Talisay, this time, for mass-housing. In 1987, Carmela Valley Corp. applied for and was granted originator/developer status by the National Home Mortgage Finance Corp., the country’s lead agency supervising low-cost, mass-housing projects.
Since then, the corporation has worked on several such projects, categorized under its guiding legislation, the BP 220. Among this developments are the 15-Hectare Phase 2 and seven-hectare of Menlo Subdivision in Talisay, eight-hectare Phase 2 of Carmela Valley Homes Subdivision in SilayCity, and the 25-hectare Phase 2 of San Esteban Village. Interestingly, in time, as the projetcs came one after the other and the people, seemingly coming from nowhere, starting to move into their new homes, to Carmela, the low-cost housing experience acquired altruistic flavor. It was noble that Carmela Valley Corp. was doing its citizenship share in helping the goverment upgrade the larger population’s standard of living. What started out as purely business decision to save a company became a mission to save home. Carmela thus adapted the slogan: Caring for our own because Negros is where our heart is.
The company nevertheless continued developing more upscale-serving projects. Trailblazer that he is, Hernan Lopez, Jr., led his team in building Bacolod City’s first townhome complex, the 2.6-hectare Bethany Court, which introduced the benefit of underground utility lines to the local community. Made with the same market in mind is the Carmela Executive Village in Talisay, a subdivision punctuated by clubhouse and amenities. Down south in Binalbagan, Carmela Valley has Villa Sta. Maria, a combination commercial and residential subdivision. The company’s newest venture in this category is the Mt. Carmel Village in Brgy. Alijis Bacolod City. Meanwhile, sister companies also under the leadership of Hernan Lopez, Jr., likewise developed residential subdivisions in Kabankalan, Cadiz, Escalante, and E.B. Magalona all in Negros Occidental and even in Iloilo.
Ask the sugar farmer today and they will all tell you, Cory’s forecast of a sunset industry, thank goodness, feel flat on its face. For now, and but for the grace of God. That the sun hasn’t set on Sugarlandia does not diminish the value of Carmela Valley’s foresight in refocusing its business into real estate. And surely, it doesn’t diminish the excellent record of Carmela Valley in living its commitment to serve and satisfy the varied housing needs of Negros Occidental folk. The Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board thought so when it awarded the company the Top Production Award for Region 6 from 1988 to 1990. Carmela Valley’s invaluable assistance in elevating the standard of living of the people in every community it gets involved in, puts into action the company’s selfless slogan of caring for a home once almost abandoned.
Indeed, Carmela Valley Corp. has come a long way in its real estates dealing, especially considering that the people behind it were born to a pampered lifestye, born to an industry that bred them and styled them for wine, song, and siesta. Indeed, Carmela Valley has, by all counts, come a long way if only for its prudence in changing the landscape of a hapless industry, of painting over the sunset vista.