The Lacson Family Name
I've heard a couple of versions on how the Lacson name came to be. It would be nice to one
day get the real scoop on this.
Son Lac?
The first version was narrated to me by one of the Sarabias
from Iloilo. He says the Son Lac family was originally based in Iloilo. Being of Chinese
origin, they were often discriminated against. To escape this, they moved to Bacolod and
once there, changed their names to Lacson.
The Chinese
Connection
The second version came courtesy of the Chinese ambassador
to the Philippines. My wife Marilou, and I were invited to the ambassador's residence for
dinner one evening with two other guests from Taiwan.
Most of the conversation was in Chinese, with my Taiwanese friend acting as interpreter for Marilou and I. In between servings the ambassador would propose a toast. After several toasts, when most everyone had a permanent blush, the ambassador proposed a new toast welcoming me back to my roots.
Intrigued, I asked the ambassador what he meant. He told me
that the early wave of Chinese immigrants who came to the Philippines were mostly poor
farmers. He then went on to explain that they had no last names. Because of this,
they decided to adopt family names that corresponded to their order of birth within their
respective families (first son, second son, etc.). This, he said, is how names such as
Lacson, Sison, Tuason, etc., came to be.
The rest of the consular staff at the table then raised their glasses and 'welcomed' me
back warmly. It was a touching experience in a surreal kind of way.
A side note to this story.....
The chef and the food were flown in from Beijing. Needless to say, it was by far the best
Chinese meal I had ever had even though I had never encountered those particular dishes
before. In fact I was going to ask why they didn't have beef and broccoli but wisely
decided against it. I figured this was authentic Chinese food and not the take-out
variety I was used to.
However, I couldn't figure out why the food was coming out one dish at a time (in between toasts). After about two hours, dishes were still coming out of the kitchen. Being the culturally-challenged person that I am, it didn't occur to me that we were being feted to a Lauriat (sp.?) where one was supposed to sample a small amount of food from each dish and not fill one's plate as I did.
As a result, I was stuffed after the 8th dish. I then made a casual comment to the effect that there was so much food, which my Taiwanese friend translated to our hosts. The ambassador's wife had a surprised look on her face and then proceeded to give instructions to the staff in Chinese. My friend then explained that she had just canceled the rest of the entrees as a gesture of respect (there was supposed to be over a dozen entrees). Marilou was horrified and wanted to hide under the table (Boy, did I get it in the car on the way home!).
Marilou said it was a good thing I didn't represent the country otherwise the Chinese would have occupied Manila by now.