Mandaluyong City Lodge No. 277

The Name

            Named after the town of Mandaluyong in Metro Manila, which was intended by the organizers to be the seat of the lodge. Mandaluyong comes from "madaluyong" a Tagalog word meaning a place where water flows freely or surges or swells to the sea.

The Lodge
            In 1985, two of the pillars of Masonic District 9, WB Rogelio Talastas and WB Oscar Rodriguez, pondered on what they perceived was a lamentable Masonic hiatus in Metro Manila. They were aware that since the founding of the first Masonic lodge in Manila in 1868 almost a hundred other lodges had
been established all over the metropolis but only Mandaluyong had not been host to a Masonic lodge. To the two this was an oversight that cried out for immediate correction.

            Brothers Talastas and Rodriguez enlisted the support of Gerardo Francisco Antonio R. Garcia, Romeo Sarenas, Rogelio Flores, Fernando V. Pascua, Reynold S. Fajardo, Teodorico V. Baldonado, Ramon Nuñez, Emilio Andrion, Jr., Safiro Vinarao, Peter R. Aragon, Ulrico Baladad, Agapito Francisco, Eusebio Abella, Lamberto A. Aguilar and others. Thereafter three organizational meetings were held. At the first organizational meeting held on November 5, 1985, the members agreed to name their lodge GOMBURZA in honor of the martyr priests Gomez, Burgos and Zamora, but at the second organizational meeting they changed the name to Mandaluyong Lodge. The organizers then solicited the sponsorship of
T.M. Kalaw Lodge No. 136, after which they requested the Grand Lodge for a dispensation to form a lodge. On January 7, 1986 Grand Master Pedro W. Guerzon graciously issued the requested dispensation and named Oscar Rodriguez to be the dispensation Master.

            Mandaluyong Lodge was still under dispensation when it embarked on an ambitious project. It undertook to finance the cementing and conversion of the vacant lot fronting the Capitol Masonic Temple into a combined playground and parking lot.

            At the April 1986 ANCOM, the Grand Lodge granted a charter to the lodge and on June 7, 1986 it was duly constituted and its first set of officers under charter were installed, namely: WB Oscar Rodriguez, Bro. Romeo Sarenas and Bro. Rogelio Flores as Worshipful Master, Senior and Junior Wardens, respectively. The constituting and installing officers, namely, Grand Master Reynold S. Fajardo, RW Teodorico V. Baldonado and VW Fernando V. Pascua, Jr., were all charter members of the lodge.

            In 1992, Mandaluyong Lodge hosted the 1992 ANCOM in Manila and by all accounts, it was an unqualified success. But it still has a dream unfulfilled - that of finally establishing its own Temple in Mandaluyong City. Today, sadly, it still meets in Quezon City.
 

            Location: Capitol Masonic Temple, Quezon City