History of Pila

Natural and man-made calamities of whatever magnitude did not deter Pileños from continuing to embellish and improve their house of worship. In 1855, plans for a concrete belfry were drawn by the local architect and builder, Maestro Sebastián Bade. (See accompanying original sketch.) It was also designed to serve as a watch- tower to warn against the approach of the tulisanes as well as a lighthouse to guide those who sailed at night in Laguna de Bay. Before then, the church bells were strung from a horizontal bar supported by two coconut lumber posts 2 baras (5.6 feet) tall. Like the square tower of the defunct church in Pagalangan, the base of which still stands, the first floor of the proposed tower was reserved for the baptistery. On it, the belfry proper of three more floors, progressively decreasing in diameter, were to be constructed topped by a small dome. The windows featured three-centered arches. (49)

Maestro Sebastián estimated that it would be necessary to order the following materials for the project: 9,000 adobe stones (at 6 pesos and 2 reales per hundred) from the quarries of Guadalupe in the province of Tondo (now in Makati) and 5,000 cavans of limestone (at 16 pesos per hundred) from Binangonan. The parishioners pledged to provide the gravel and sand and labor. The contractor asked for 4 reales per day for his fee and he confidently promised to finish the work in stages in two years. The total cost of the project was 1,690 pesos and 4 reales. For lack of parish funds, however, the project was shelved on the order of the governor-      general.(50)

The baptistery and belfry were apparently built after the Earthquake of 1863. Of Maestro Sebastián’s design, only the windows with three-centered arches were adopted. Red bricks from local kilns – laid up in the Flemish style – replaced the proposed adobe from Guadalupe except for the square-shaped baptistery on the ground floor. The number of floors for the belfry proper was reduced from three to two and their shape, including that of the spire was altered into an octagon. The structure was so carefully built that it has since withstood the test of time as well as several catastrophes.

Economic prosperity in terms of increased productivity in the coconut, rice and sugar industries of the town was registered in the last quarter of the 19th century until it was interrupted by the Revolution and the Filipino-American War. Several roads and bridges were built in strategic parts of the municipality during this boom period. The first rice mill was set up in 1881-82 by Don Lorenzo and Don Luis N. Rivera, Don Juan Madrigal and Don Benedicto Carillo. Five sugar mills were also started later by Don Luis N. Rivera, Don Juan Madrigal, Don Mariano Dimaculangan (whose family had migrated from Lumbang, Laguna), and Don Feliciano and Don Ruperto Relova (Paterno 1907).(51)