A good, great man called ‘Bitay’

Daniel Ledesma Lacson, who was appointed post-EDSA governor of Negros Occidental by then President Corazon Aquino in 1986, and had gone on to lead the province until 1992, was a visionary and modern-day hero whose life, as Bacolod City Mayor Alfredo Abelardo “Albee” B. Benitez put it, is worthy of emulation by the younger generations.

Lacson, 77, known to many by his monicker, “Bitay,” passed away on 6 September after a lingering illness. He was born to wealth and privilege, but he belonged to that enlightened segment of his class that was socio-politically aware and was vocal about the issues plaguing his province where over half of total Philippine sugar was produced.

Sugar exports, which used to be nearly 30 percent of the country’s total dollar earnings, made local sugar producers, especially in Negros, rich.

With the price of sugar surging in the world market, then strongman Ferdinand E. Marcos ordered domestic and international trading of the commodity placed under state control. Then the price of sugar overseas crashed, hitting the sugar farmers and those dependent on them for work.

By 1984, sugar planters in the country were in a precarious state. Their regular farmhands had no income and about a million sacadas or seasonal workers suffered from what was known as the “Negros Famine” of 1985.

Rafael Coscolluela, who succeeded Bitay as governor in 1992, points to the latter as the one who took the lead in pulling Negros Occidental up off the ground, leading efforts towards the province’s recovery under the battle cry, “Hope Shines in Negros.”

Such efforts included a massive UN International Children’s Emergency Fund-backed feeding program, finding alternative gainful opportunities for sugar landowners and their workers, as well as economic diversification projects to wean the province off its sugar mono-crop economy.

Bitay helped establish the Association of Negros Producers (ANP) comprised mainly of housewives of sugar farmers who crafted a wide range of fine handmade export-quality products, from food, apparel, personal ornaments, handicrafts, décor and now, even furniture, among many other items.

At the height of the Negros crisis in 1985, Manila-based Negrenses banded together to address the hunger and poverty in their province. Thus was born the Negros Trade Fair (NTF), which was first held at the Ayala Makati Carpark, thanks in particular to Bea Zobel, wife of Don Jaime Zobel de Ayala.

Bitay, who was then at the helm of major inter-island shipping company Negros Navigation, had all the goods produced by the ANP and other homegrown and backyard industries in Bacolod and elsewhere in Negros Occidental shipped to Manila for free.

His role, along with Mrs. Zobel de Ayala and her friends, in getting the NTF running and thus helping Negrenses to get back on their feet at a time they most needed a lift will never be forgotten. This week, the NTF, now the most successful longest running trade fair in the country, is celebrating its 38th anniversary, on 17-21 September, at the Glorietta in Makati.

Even after Cory Aquino became president, with Marcos Sr. deposed in the so-called EDSA “revolution,” and she had compelled him to be Negros Occidental governor in 1986 until 1987 and all through a second term that he served until 1992, Bitay continued to help the NTF along with other programs and projects designed to push forward and bring progress to Negros.

After serving as Negros Occidental governor, he was appointed chairman of the Philippine National Bank and the Government Service Insurance System.

He was also named by then President Fidel V. Ramos as Presidential Assistant for Countryside Development.

His introduction of microfinance in Negros based on the Grameen Bank microcredit concept with assistance from the bank’s founder, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, led to the setting up of the Negros Women for Tomorrow, a foundation aimed at helping women in particularly low income and depressed areas in the province achieve self-reliance and self-sufficiency.

With Taiwan as a model, Bitay moved for the creation of a 15-year master plan that sought to transform Negros Occidental’s economy and envisioned a Negros Island region.

Ramon del Rosario, who was secretary of Finance in the Ramos Cabinet, describes Bitay as a “highly professional, honest and competent public servant and a good man.”

For his part, former National Economic and Development Authority director general Cielito Habito remembers him as a man whose “heart was truly for the rural poor and the countryside and he was an energetic champion for its development. I worked closely with Bitay as FVR’s Presidential Assistant for Countryside Development and his passion and energy were hard to match. He was a truly great man, yet so humble and unassuming.”

Truly, the kind of man Bitay Lacson was, the quality of his life and work which changed the lives of many for the better, will continue to inspire and shine hope for Negros, Negrenses, and beyond.