Last time, we talked about Pasig’s importance before as the capital of the Province of Rizal when the latter was first established. For a while, the seat of power was located near the banks of the Marikina River, where it stayed for almost 50 years.
Fast forward to 1950, as the Rizal provincial capitol found itself settled in its new home, right along Shaw Boulevard near what was to become the Ortigas Center business district.The land that new capitol sat on was made possible through a donation of the land by its landowners, the Ortigas family,.whose property once extended to what are now parts Mandaluyong, San Juan, Pasig, and Quezon City. For the first 20 or so years, the capitol settled itself comfortably as development began to sprout in neighboring places like the rising Ortigas Center. That would be the way of things in this part of town until 1975, when things became a bit more “complicated.”
