Jose Cojuangco - 1950s

1950s

As his businesses outside of Tarlac flourished, he invited the rest of his family to join him. His brother, Itoy, and Antonio's son, Monching, benefited from this arrangement. Danding Cojuangco, his nephew by ex-Governor Eduardo "Endeng" Cojuangco Sr, declined.

In 1953, Cojuangco's youngest brother, Endeng (Danding Cojuangco's father) was sick and needed treatment in the United States. At that time, dollars was strictly regulated. Don Pepe's wife and holder of the entire clan's purse, Doña Metring (Cory Aquino's mother) was unable to obtain the necessary funds to facilitate the young Endeng Cojuangco's medical expenses. Danding's father later died of kidney failure. Also in 1953, President Ramon Magsaysay offered to sell Hacienda Luisita to Don Pepe, as the Hukbalahap rebels caused much fear and the Spanish owners, the Tabacalera, wanted to sell. (President Magsaysay was avoiding the wealthier hacenderos from Negros island and Iloilo, specifically the brothers Fernando Lopez and Eugenio Lopez, from owning too much as they already purchased the PASUMIL consortium in Del Carmen, Pampanga.) Negotiations started but President Magsaysay died when his airplane crashed on Mount Manunggal in Cebu. The deal was closed five years later in President Carlos Garcia y Polistico's term who was a close ally of then Senator Ferdinand Marcos y Edralin.

In early 1958 Cojuangco purchased the Hacienda Luisita, the second biggest contiguous piece of property in Luzon island. This time, he was able to secure American dollars required by the Tabacalera. Unlike before, he called on his friend, Philippine Central Bank governor Miguel Cuaderno to help him. The hacienda is separate from the lands his aunt Doña Ysidra Cojuangco y Estrella assembled in the past decades. He and his son-in-law, Ninoy (Benigno Aquino Jr), introduced strong social programs favoring the farmers of the hacienda.

While Don Pepe was genuinely loved by the farmers under his management (free healthcare, free schooling, adult education, veterinary medicines for the farm animals), designated areas for employee housing), the stark treatment concerning the dollars relating to Endeng's survival and his subsequent death versus the grand business move Cojuangco made in purchasing Hacienda Luisita added insult to injury to Doña Nene and her now fatherless six children (Eduardo, Mercedes, Aurora, Isabel, Enrique and Manuel). Besides the opposing views in politics and the abandonment of the Antonio Cojuangcos in Manila during the war, the situation concerning his younger brother's death would eventually cause for a collision course between Cojuangco's and Endeng Lalake's heirs.