Oriental Mindoro’s Son Shares Success with Barriofolk He Left Behind

By Val G. Abelgas

Lauro V. Manigbas was a typical barrio boy growing up in the farmlands of Oriental Mindoro, who dreamed of making it big in the city. What separates Manigbas from the typical barrio boy is that when he realized his dreams, he never forgot his barrio.

Manigbas, who now owns a major clinical laboratory in Santa Fe Springs, California and has several investments in the Philippines, is well-liked in his native barangay Tawagan in Calapan, the capital city of Oriental Mindoro. Although he has spent much of his adult life out of the little barrio, Manigbas has always felt a deep attachment to the barangay.

Just recently, Manigbas donated a 500-square meter lot in the barrio, where he is now helping build a big concrete church in honor of the barrio’s patron saint, Saint Anthony. As chairman of the fund-raising committee of the Pamayanan ng Kristiyano ng Barangay Tawagan, Manigbas has raised more than $15,000 from his own pocket and contributions from his friends and colleagues in the United States for the church project. The amount (roughly P600,000) has enabled the church group to put up a half-finished concrete church in the barrio. Although still halfway finished, masses are held in the Saint Anthony Church every Sunday.

The Saint Anthony Church project is just one of many valuable contributions Manigbas has made personally and as the chairman of the Oriental Mindoro Association of Southern California (OMASC), an organization of former residents of Oriental Mindoro who are now living in the United States.

Manigbas’ devotion to his home province can serve as a model for other Filipino expatriates in the United States. This devotion dates back to the first time he visited barangay Tawagan as a balikbayan in 1979.

He saw then that not much had changed in the barrio and in the province that he left in 1975 to pursue better opportunities in the United States. Manigbas vowed then that if he made it good in the U.S., he would come back to help his barrio and his province in every little way he could.

Manigbas was born and raised in barangay Tawagan, a barrio in the outskirts of the capital town of Calapan. After finishing his elementary studies at the Adriatico Elementary School and his high school at the Oriental Mindoro High School in Calapan, Manigbas sailed to Manila to continue his studies. He had hoped to become a doctor, and earned his bachelor’s degree in Preparatory Medicine from Far Eastern University in 1965. After one year in Medicine Proper, Manigbas decided to shift course and earned his B.S. in Medical Technology from the same university in 1969.

After graduation, he worked as a laboratory technician at the Bureau of Research and Laboratories of the Department of Health in Manila.

In 1967, while on vacation in his uncle’s house in Batangas City, Manigbas met his future wife, Cely, who was then working as a registered nurse at the Holy Family Hospital in Batangas City. They went steady until Cely had to go to the United States to work as a nurse in Detroit, Michigan late in 1967.

The two lovers continued to write to each other until 1974, when Cely went back to the Philippines to marry Manigbas. In 1975, Manigbas went to Detroit to follow Cely. They now have two children — Maria Kristina, who was born in Detroit in 1976, and Richie, who was born in Norwalk in 1983.

Manigbas took his post-graduate studies in biochemistry at the Wayne State University in Detroit from 1976 to 1978, while working for the Levernoy Clinical Laboratories.

In 1979, Manigbas relocated his entire family to Los Angeles after passing the Medical Technology licensure exam in California. He worked as a medical technician at the Studebaker Community Hospital while Cely worked as a nurse at the Bellwood General Hospital.

In 1982, Manigbas decided to put up his own clinical laboratory with four partners. It was called the Therapeutic Drug Monitoring Clinical Laboratory in Bellflower. The company was dissolved in 1984.

In the same year, he put up his own laboratory, the Unimedic Laboratory Inc., in Norwalk. The laboratory prospered, but Manigbas decided to sell it in 1994. He then put up another laboratory, the Imperial Clinical Laboratory, Inc., in Santa Fe Springs.

In 1993, he began publishing the Philippine Post, a weekly newspaper for the Filipino community in Southern California and the forerunner of the Philippine Post Magazine.

A year later, he put up Calix Drugs, a pharmacy, and established a management firm, URO Management Inc., to oversee his numerous businesses. Manigbas continues to serve as president of Imperial Clinical Laboratory Inc. and chairman of URO Management Inc.

In 1991, Manigbas bought and developed a 13-hectare fishpond in Kaluwagan Lake in his native barrio of Tawagan in Calapan. He raises prawns, milkfish and tilapia. He also planted oranges in a 12-hectare land owned by his father-in-law.

Manigbas also owns an apartment complex in Project 8 in Quezon City, Philippines.

Because of these investments in the Philippines, Manigbas has to go back and forth to the Philippines at least three times a year. It was during these frequent trips that Manigbas renewed his vow to help his barrio and his province.

In 1993, Manigbas and three provincemates now living in California — Hermie Maramot of Alhambra, Elsie Navarro-Amansec of Redondo Beach, and Bayani Ilagan of Los Angeles — founded the Oriental Mindoro Association of Southern California (OMASC). Maramot became the first president, and Manigbas the chairman of the board, a post he continues to hold to this day.

Since then, OMASC has become one of the most active Filipino parochial organizations in the United States, and probably one of the few that has remained undivided.

Under the leadership of Manigbas, Maramot, Amansec, Ilagan and the current president, Rolly Ong, OMASC has undertaken numerous projects for the benefit of their provincemates in Oriental Mindoro. OMASC has donated a firetruck for use by the City of Calapan, built four artesian wells in four Mindoro towns, built a Mangyan Wing for the Oriental Mindoro Provincial Hospital, donated food and clothing for typhoon victims, donated wheelchairs for the hospital, conducted annual medical missions, and granted college scholarships to numerous deserving students in Mindoro. Prior to his OMASC involvement, Manigbas donated 100 chairs for use by the Oriental Mindoro High School.

Manigbas hopes to be able to help provide employment to his provincemates through his business interests in Mindoro. In addition to his fishpond, Manigbas is developing a resort, called the Lake Kaluwagan Resort, around his fishpond. It already has two cottages, picnic huts, and a concrete wharf. He plans to put up more airconditioned cottages, picnic huts, jet skis and speed boats for rent, and a marina for private boat owners.

Manigbas is also awaiting the go-signal to start construction of a McDonald franchise in Calapan, the first ever in the province, which is fast growing to be one of the Philippines’ tourist attractions under the leadership of Gov. Rodolfo G. Valencia, a renowned real estate developer.

But all of these business ventures are secondary now to his main mission, to finish construction of the Saint Anthony Chapel, which is a realization of his vow to help his barrio, and of a promise he made to his late mother, Felicidad Villanueva-Manigbas, who urged him to help build a church in honor of the barrio’s patron saint, Saint Anthony.