History of Pila

     
In the meantime, the Flores de Mayo, interrupted by the Revolution and the War, was revived in 1912 to honor again the Blessed Virgin Mary every year. The first hermana and hermano mayor were Srta. Soledad Agra y Dimaculangan (daughter of Josefa Dimaculangan and who later married Dr. Teodoro Alava) and Atty. Jose Relova (who married aDr. Manuel Rivera). In the province of Laguna, the first monument to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was inaugurated at the Pila Plaza during the town fiesta in 1922. It was donated by the pious president of the Apostolado de la Oración, Doña Concepción Diaz, widow of Don Feliciano Relova (Anonymous 1977:651).(64)

There was indeed a great deal to be thankful for because Pila was enjoying another economic boom similar to the one in the last quarter of the previous century. Thus, it was from 1915 to 1931 when most of the modest houses of Pila were pulled down to give way to the present great houses, which, together with the old church and convent they surround, impart a distinctive ambience to the town. The last building to be completed just before the nadir of the Great Depression was the Municipal Hall in June of 1931. It was erected during the second term of Don Arcadio Relova who worked for the longest duration as the mayor during the American Period (1919-26, 1929-34, 1938-39). The location of the edifice was transferred from the northwest corner of the rectangular plaza to across the west end of the plaza directly facing the church at the east end. The old site was exchanged with the new one owned by Doña Corazon Rivera de del Mundo, daughter of Don Luis Rivera (Ruiz 1969). (65) The present Pila is the picture of a Philippine town frozen in the prosperous twenties – to the delight of period film makers.

Pila contributed a “Miss Laguna,” the statuesque Miss Loreto Relova, to the Philippine Carnival of 1926. The first two lady dentists of the town, Doctoras Raquel Francia and Aurora Guysayco y Agra finished in 1928 at the Centro Escolar de Señoritas and the University of the Philippines, respectively. Two more scions of Pila acquired their medical degrees in the United States in the late twenties: Dr. Juanito Bartolome y Rivera (University of Chicago) and Dr. Petronio Alava, a neurosurgeon (University of Delaware). Dr. Alava was a private scholar of Miss Mercedes Rivera.(66)