Reminiscing Capiz's Old Cannery

My grandfather once told me about the existence of a canning factory along Premier de Mayo in Punta Tabuc. He called this the Cannery. I remember his stories about how fish heads, primarily bangus, were sold (since they were not used in sardines-manufacturing) for a centavo per 3 heads peddled around the town center upon rejection after processing.


I was able to validate this when I recently read about this. This has been mentioned in a book edited by Ian Brown. The late 1930s saw the canning craze in the Philippines and by early 1941, The National Development Company opened a canning factory here in Roxas City after the success of its cannery in Pampanga. In fact, Pres. Manuel Quezon highlighted this progress during his Jan. 1941 SONA, not to mention financing of the "construction of 5,000 hectares of fishponds under contract with private landowners."

As recounted by Dr. Leothiny Clavel, "The factory created many jobs on Capicenos, who hoped that their province would someday become as progressive as Iloilo or Cebu." However, by December that year, the Japanese invaded the country and the factory got burned at the height of World War II.