Hilarion G. Henares

F O R E W O R D: The name of Hilarion Gensole Henares, Sr., is publicly known specially in connection with his inventive genius, his unfaltering interest in the industries of our young Republic and the unsparing efforts he has made to make the economic climate warmer, kinder to new industries. It is a name known more particularly to a certain segment of Philippine Society and were Hilarion Gensole Henares less modest and more self-seeking, it would have been a name that would shine and sparkle with greater brilliance than those that are better known in this time. One has to know the man, his life, in order to understand that here is a man on whom nature has lavished much with the gifts of the mind and crowned him with the more valuable gift of heart. Whenever we come across one such individual as Hilarion Gensole Henares, we ask ourselves: What are the composite factors which have made this man stand out distinct from the rest? Are they factors inherited from his forebears, shaped by his environment? Or, are they special traits given to this particular individual by the Good Lord? Has there been a purpose for his having been so specially endowed? This simple story of a man's life, the times in which he grew into full stature so that, quite unknown to the public, he leaves his imprint on the economic growth of the country, is told with the same simplicity as the man himself and with the underlying affection with which everyone interviewed by this writer, spoke of and remembers the man: Hilarion Gensole Henares. + + Life With Father: He was a man of many passions, and he had the restless, relentless, persistent and energetic determination to pursue them at all costs and over all obstacles. One of his greatest passions was the love he bore for Miss Concepcion G. Maramba who after a courtship that lasted three years and spanned two continents, finally consented to be his wife. The one other great passion of his life was the Industrial Revolution in his own country. An engineer with four degrees, he did most of the pioneering work for the diversification of the sugar and coconut industries. He organized the Philippine Chamber of Industries, one of the most powerful and militant organizations. He went further. Because he wanted to bring industrialization to the very grassroots of the country's economy, he pioneered in the Home Industries Movement --"If you can swim in six feet of water, you can swim in waters six miles deep " A writer named Carlos Bulosan once wrote of the laughter of his father. I now write of the wonder of my father. Not only because to me and to many others, he was such a wonderful man, but because he was a man so full of wonder --- full of the wonder of life itself, its challenges, its excitement, its grandeur and the innate goodness of its ultimate purpose. Full of the wonder of love which he lavished, without counting the cost, on his family, his friends, his fellow industrialists, and above all, way above all, his native land.