Dasmariñas Village was conceived by developer Makati Development Corporation (precursor of Ayala Land, Inc.) in 1964 as an offshoot of the success of its earlier subdivision Forbes Park. No different in concept from Forbes, it was envisioned as an upscale community with smaller cuts of lots but with the same target market of professionals (lawyers, doctors, engineers, bankers, among others) with young families as its first residents. To achieve this targeted clientele, it invited priests from the Order of St. Augustine to set-up a basic education school within its sprawling confines.
The village covers 187 hectares of land bounded on the west by EDSA, on the east by the Maricaban Creek and Fort Bonifacio, south by the Kayamanan C area of Chino Roces Avenue, and north by McKinley Road and Forbes. It derived its name from Gomez Perez Dasmariñas, the 7th Spanish Governor General of the Philippines who served from 1590 to 1593. After his death, his son Luis Perez Dasmariñas became Governor General from 1593-1596. The streets in Dasmariñas Village bear the names of native hardwood trees, flowers, fruit-bearing trees, and flowering shrubs. Its longest road that snakes from north to south describes what living in it is: “Paraiso” or Paradise.
Being an offshoot of Forbes Park, Dasmariñas Village have lots that range in size from 2,500 square meters to medium-sized cuts of 600 to 1,000 square meters in its southern portion. It had early on required that houses be of strong materials, big easements, single-family dwellings, no consolidation of adjacent lots, and with ample provision for multiple vehicles.
Its first officials were employees of Ayala Corporation who served from its inception in 1965 till the late ’80s. Its barangay was organized in 1971 and made a separate enclave independent of Forbes Park and nearby Magallanes Village. It is the only subdivision in Metro Manila where the barangay is exactly located within the perimeter walls of its gated area.
The Village is managed by a professional staff of about 40 regulars, a security force of 70, support personnel of 35, and 30 volunteer firefighters manning 2 firetrucks and an ambulance. It has equipment for maintenance of roads, manlifts to trim its robust trees, a CCTV system that covers all roads, and it boasts of separate traffic, family, and village disaster management plans. It is one of the few villages that implements a Quality Policy that approximates international standards, and has an air raid warning system that alerts residents of existing emergencies. It is the only village that practices Bayanihan (neighbors helping each other) and Sariling Sikap (self-help) among its residents.
Indeed, the Village is worthy of its moniker as a premiere community and one of the best-run subdivisions in Metro Manila because of its adherence to its mission, vision, and core values of community engagement, continuous improvement, transparency, and resilience.
