RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Tucked among the rolling hills off the SS Erin Road in the Pe­nal/Debe re­gion lies Phillip­ine, a com­mu­ni­ty whose his­to­ry stretch­es from colo­nial sug­ar plan­ta­tions to the heart of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s po­lit­i­cal life.

It is home to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and was al­so home to the late Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day, who lived there with his wife, Oma, and their three daugh­ters—Mick­ela, Nico­la and Vasta­la. Over the years, lawyers, aca­d­e­mics, teach­ers, busi­ness own­ers and pro­fes­sion­als have set­tled in the for­mer es­tate, help­ing shape its rep­u­ta­tion as one of south Trinidad’s most promi­nent res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ties.

A Com­mu­ni­ty of Con­trasts

Yet Phillip­ine is al­so a place of con­trasts.

Be­yond its grand homes lie pock­ets of pover­ty. Along Well Road, just off Phillip­ine Road, mod­est squat­ter homes stand near a capped oil well. Chil­dren from some of those house­holds sell turmer­ic, limes and oth­er pro­duce along the SS Erin Road near Palmiste Na­tion­al Park to sup­ple­ment their fam­i­ly in­come. Venezue­lan mi­grants al­so take to the streets to beg with chil­dren in tow, watch­ful to avoid the po­lice.

Along Sir La­m­ont Av­enue, Venezue­lan mi­grants have es­tab­lished a busy car wash, while near­by a Venezue­lan flag hangs from the front of a home, sym­bol­is­ing the com­mu­ni­ty’s newest ar­rivals. At House of Chi­na Chef Restau­rant, Venezue­lan na­tion­al Alex Ro­driguez says he has found not on­ly em­ploy­ment but ac­cep­tance.

Al­though he lives in Dun­can Vil­lage, Ro­driguez said he en­joys work­ing in Phillip­ine be­cause res­i­dents have made him feel wel­come.

“It is qui­et and peace­ful,” he said. “The peo­ple treat us well. There is peace and love here.”

A World War II-era cannon stands on the historic Philippine Estate, a reminder of the community’s wartime past. The estate, once owned by the Lamont family, was later acquired by JB Kelshall, whose descendants continue to own the property.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

Faith and Fa­mil­iar Faces

Fur­ther along Phillip­ine Road, 58-year-old me­chan­ic Sham­my Bhag­wan­deen has spent decades watch­ing the com­mu­ni­ty evolve.

He re­mem­bers a time when the area was large­ly Hin­du and Mus­lim. Over the past three decades, he said, the re­li­gious land­scape has di­ver­si­fied with the growth of Pres­by­ter­ian and Pen­te­costal con­gre­ga­tions.

Even so, Bhag­wan­deen be­lieves re­li­gion and sport con­tin­ue to unite res­i­dents.

Tow­er­ing stat­ues of the Hin­du de­ity Shi­va stand promi­nent­ly along the SS Erin Road, close to the Prime Min­is­ter’s home. Crick­et and foot­ball are equal­ly wo­ven in­to vil­lage life, with gen­er­a­tions gath­er­ing at Chap­man Park, Wells Ground and Hill­piece Recre­ation Ground for com­mu­ni­ty crick­et match­es and night­ly foot­ball sweats.

“The area is qui­et,” Bhag­wan­deen said. “Every­body knows every­body. We live as one.”

Al­though proud that Phillip­ine has at­tract­ed na­tion­al­ly recog­nised fig­ures, in­clud­ing Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar, he be­lieves in­fra­struc­ture has not kept pace with de­vel­op­ment.

He point­ed to Dum­fries Road, Phillip­ine Road and Ram­bert Vil­lage Road as ar­eas re­quir­ing re­pairs.

“The roads should be bet­ter,” he said. “Phillip­ine is the Prime Min­is­ter’s home, but some of these roads are still in poor con­di­tion.”

A short dis­tance away, Duce Bar along Phillip­ine Road has served as a meet­ing place for gen­er­a­tions of res­i­dents.

One of the original estate buildings at Bryan Gate, Philippine, reflecting the area’s rich agricultural heritage.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

Its pro­pri­etor, 70-year-old Om­rao Lal­be­har­ry, re­mem­bers when the sur­round­ing land­scape was dom­i­nat­ed by co­coa, cof­fee, cit­rus and pro­vi­sion grounds be­fore res­i­den­tial de­vel­op­ment ac­cel­er­at­ed dur­ing the mid-1970s.

“We grew up with agri­cul­ture,” he said. “There was co­coa, cof­fee, grape­fruit and ground pro­vi­sion.”

Al­though much of that cul­ti­va­tion has dis­ap­peared, Lal­be­har­ry be­lieves the val­ues that shaped the com­mu­ni­ty have en­dured.

“It is still a nice, unit­ed com­mu­ni­ty,” he said. “Peo­ple live as one. We don’t have vi­o­lence. Hin­dus, Mus­lims and Pres­by­te­ri­ans—every­body gets along.”

He said re­li­gion and sport have re­mained cen­tral to com­mu­ni­ty life, bring­ing res­i­dents to­geth­er through crick­et, foot­ball and an­nu­al re­li­gious ob­ser­vances.

“What I like most about Phillip­ine is the quiet­ness and the to­geth­er­ness of the peo­ple,” he said.

Pres­i­dent of the Palmiste His­tor­i­cal So­ci­ety, Ter­rence Hon­ore, says the qual­i­ties res­i­dents de­scribe to­day have their roots in a his­to­ry stretch­ing back more than two cen­turies, when Phillip­ine formed part of one of the largest agri­cul­tur­al es­tates in south Trinidad.

Hon­ore said Phillip­ine Es­tate was es­tab­lished in 1874 by the Philip fam­i­ly. It was op­er­at­ed for 82 years by the Philip French cre­ole fam­i­ly.

A historic bell at the Kelshall family home in Bryan Gate, Philippine.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

The Scot­tish Sug­ar Barons

Long be­fore Phillip­ine be­came as­so­ci­at­ed with na­tion­al pol­i­tics, Hon­ore said it was one of south Trinidad’s most sig­nif­i­cant agri­cul­tur­al es­tates.

“It was the most fer­tile land in South Trinidad, and the com­mu­ni­ty has re­tained a strong sense of to­geth­er­ness and ap­pre­ci­a­tion for its his­to­ry and en­vi­ron­ment,” Hon­ore said. He not­ed that he and his team were work­ing to pre­serve com­mu­ni­ty archives from the Kelshall fam­i­ly.

Hon­ore said that be­fore the La­m­onts owned Phillip­ine, the es­tate be­longed to the Phillip fam­i­ly.

He said Phillip­ine de­vel­oped around the es­tate econ­o­my, where gen­er­a­tions of fam­i­lies cul­ti­vat­ed the land and built close re­la­tion­ships with their neigh­bours.

Re­search com­piled by Em­ma Per­ot and the late Gi­na De Bru­in traces the com­mu­ni­ty’s ori­gins to the British ac­qui­si­tion of Trinidad un­der the Treaty of Amiens in 1802.

Af­ter the Phillip fam­i­ly re­lin­quished the es­tate, it passed to Scot­tish planter John La­m­ont, a de­scen­dant of the an­cient La­m­ont clan of Knock­dow in Ar­gyll­shire. By 1831, La­m­ont had es­tab­lished him­self as one of Trinidad’s wealth­i­est landown­ers, op­er­at­ing Riv­er Es­tate with 153 en­slaved peo­ple, the largest en­slaved labour force record­ed on any es­tate on the is­land at the time.

When John La­m­ont died in 1850, his es­tate passed to his 22-year-old nephew, James La­m­ont. Al­though James spent much of his life abroad pur­su­ing hunt­ing ex­pe­di­tions and trav­el, he con­tin­ued to ex­pand the fam­i­ly’s hold­ings in Trinidad.

The Philippine residence of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

In 1869, he pur­chased the 361-acre Palmiste Es­tate for £8,000, de­scrib­ing it as “the best pur­chase” he ever made. Four years lat­er, in 1873, he ac­quired the neigh­bour­ing 460-acre Phillip­ine Es­tate and Champ Fleur for £20,000, cre­at­ing one of the largest pri­vate­ly owned agri­cul­tur­al prop­er­ties in south Trinidad.

For decades, sug­ar, co­coa and oth­er crops dom­i­nat­ed the land­scape, pro­vid­ing em­ploy­ment for hun­dreds of es­tate work­ers while shap­ing the growth of sur­round­ing vil­lages.

The es­tate reached its great­est promi­nence un­der James’ son, Sir Nor­man La­m­ont.

An ac­com­plished agri­cul­tur­al­ist, Sir Nor­man played a piv­otal role in es­tab­lish­ing the Im­pe­r­i­al Col­lege of Trop­i­cal Agri­cul­ture, the in­sti­tu­tion that lat­er be­came part of The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

Un­like many ab­sen­tee es­tate own­ers of his era, Sir Nor­man main­tained close ties to Trinidad and con­tin­ued over­see­ing the fam­i­ly’s es­tates as the last Baron of Knock­dow.

He died on Au­gust 31, 1949, af­ter be­ing gored by a bull while pos­ing for his an­nu­al Christ­mas card pho­to­graph on the es­tate.

With­out a di­rect heir, the fam­i­ly’s ex­ten­sive land­hold­ings grad­u­al­ly be­gan to frag­ment.

Omrao Lalbeharry, 70, proprietor of the landmark Duce Bar at Hillpiece, Phillipine Road, recalls the days when the surrounding estate was planted with cocoa and coffee. He credits sport and religion for helping to preserve the community’s close-knit spirit through the decades.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

From Es­tate to Neigh­bour­hood

Parts of the es­tate had al­ready changed dur­ing the Sec­ond World War, when the Gov­ern­ment ac­quired sec­tions of the prop­er­ty to build mil­i­tary bar­racks. Af­ter the war end­ed, the tem­po­rary struc­tures were dis­man­tled, leav­ing large tracts of un­de­vel­oped land.

Among those who recog­nised the area’s po­ten­tial was so­lic­i­tor Bryan Jack Kelshall.

In 1950, Kelshall pur­chased the for­mer mil­i­tary lands and be­gan trans­form­ing part of the old plan­ta­tion in­to a res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ty, sub­di­vid­ing the land in­to 10,000-square-foot lots. The parcels sold for about one dol­lar per square foot, help­ing fi­nance the con­struc­tion of his fam­i­ly’s home.

By 1956, Kelshall’s res­i­dence stood at the cen­tre of the de­vel­op­ment and the new neigh­bour­hood be­came known as Bryan’s Gate. By the 1970s, Kelshall emerged as a promi­nent fig­ure dur­ing the 1970 Black Pow­er Move­ment. He was de­tained on Car­rera Is­land be­fore be­ing placed un­der house ar­rest at the very home he had built on the es­tate.

Dur­ing that pe­ri­od, Kelshall’s res­i­dence be­came an in­for­mal meet­ing place for po­lit­i­cal ac­tivists, trade union­ists and re­gion­al lead­ers. Among those who vis­it­ed was the late Guyanese pres­i­dent Ched­di Ja­gan.

Over the fol­low­ing decades, the neigh­bour­hood at­tract­ed a grow­ing num­ber of pro­fes­sion­als, aca­d­e­mics, lawyers and busi­ness lead­ers seek­ing the tran­quil­li­ty of south Trinidad while re­main­ing with­in easy reach of San Fer­nan­do.

Hon­ore said he and his team are com­mit­ted to doc­u­ment­ing the Phillip­ine com­mu­ni­ty, a place where af­flu­ent neigh­bour­hoods and mod­est set­tle­ments ex­ist side by side; where de­scen­dants of es­tate work­ers live along­side new­er res­i­dents; where Venezue­lan mi­grants have found work and ac­cep­tance; and where two Prime Min­is­ters have called home.

Mechanic Shammy Bhagwandeen repairs a vehicle at his workshop along Phillipine Road, Hillpiece. While praising the community’s strong sense of togetherness and noting that several prominent nationals, including Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, have roots in Phillipine, he says improvements to several roads are still needed.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

Chronol­o­gy of Phillip­ine

Ear­ly 1800s – Scot­tish planter John La­m­ont ac­quires ex­ten­sive es­tates in south Trinidad, in­clud­ing lands that lat­er form the Phillip­ine Es­tate.

1873 – James La­m­ont pur­chas­es the Phillip­ine Es­tate for £20,000, ex­pand­ing the fam­i­ly’s sug­ar and co­coa op­er­a­tions.

Late 1800s–Ear­ly 1900s – Phillip­ine be­comes one of south Trinidad’s largest agri­cul­tur­al es­tates, pro­duc­ing sug­ar and co­coa while em­ploy­ing hun­dreds of work­ers.

1940s – Dur­ing the Sec­ond World War, sec­tions of the es­tate are ac­quired by the Gov­ern­ment for mil­i­tary bar­racks.

1949 – Sir Nor­man La­m­ont dies, mark­ing the end of the La­m­ont fam­i­ly’s di­rect stew­ard­ship of the es­tate.

1950 – At­tor­ney Bryan Jack Kelshall pur­chas­es part of the for­mer es­tate and be­gins de­vel­op­ing what be­comes Bryan’s Gate.

1956 – Kelshall com­pletes his fam­i­ly home as res­i­den­tial de­vel­op­ment of the es­tate gath­ers pace.

1960s – For­mer plan­ta­tion lands con­tin­ue to be sub­di­vid­ed as Phillip­ine ex­pands in­to a grow­ing res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ty.

1970 – Kelshall is de­tained dur­ing the Black Pow­er Move­ment and lat­er placed un­der house ar­rest at his Bryan’s Gate res­i­dence, which be­comes a gath­er­ing place for po­lit­i­cal fig­ures and ac­tivists.

1970s – Phillip­ine at­tracts lawyers, aca­d­e­mics, trade union­ists and pro­fes­sion­als while res­i­den­tial de­vel­op­ment ac­cel­er­ates.

1990s – Bas­deo Pan­day re­sides in Phillip­ine while serv­ing as Op­po­si­tion Leader and lat­er Prime Min­is­ter.

1995–2001 – Phillip­ine gains na­tion­al promi­nence as the home of Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day.

2000s – Con­tin­ued hous­ing de­vel­op­ment sees mod­ern res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ties emerge along­side long-es­tab­lished vil­lages and in­for­mal set­tle­ments.

2010 – Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­comes Prime Min­is­ter while re­sid­ing in Phillip­ine.

2025 – Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­turns to of­fice as Prime Min­is­ter, once again plac­ing Phillip­ine at the cen­tre of the coun­try’s po­lit­i­cal land­scape.

2026 – More than 150 years af­ter James La­m­ont ac­quired the Phillip­ine Es­tate, the com­mu­ni­ty con­tin­ues to evolve, bal­anc­ing its agri­cul­tur­al her­itage with mod­ern res­i­den­tial growth while re­main­ing one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s most his­tor­i­cal­ly and po­lit­i­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant com­mu­ni­ties.