After years of loss and a long legal fight, the family of the late Baby Jane Teodoro Allas received just that on Oct. 2, when Vista Land and Lifescapes Inc., the country’s biggest homebuilder, turned over a Camella house and lot in Puerto Princesa to her children.
For the family, this new home brings a sense of stability Baby Jane had worked so hard to give her children. It is also a fitting gesture from a homegrown company whose own story has long been tied to the Filipino dream of homeownership.
Chasing the dream
Vista Land founder and Chairman Manny Villar led the ceremonial handover of the keys to the ready-for-occupancy home at Camella Palawan, marking one of the company’s initiatives ahead of its 20th anniversary in 2027.
For nearly two decades, Vista Land has developed communities across the country for families chasing that dream of owning a home. In Baby Jane’s case, this Camella home comes to a family that has spent years holding together what she left behind.
Baby Jane was an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) in Hong Kong and a single mother of five. She was diagnosed with late-stage cervical cancer and later challenged her dismissal by her former employer following her diagnosis. In 2026, a Hong Kong court ordered the employer to pay some P2 million in damages after ruling that she had been unlawfully dismissed.
The ruling came five years after Baby Jane died in 2021. It was a hard-won recognition of a fight she did not live to finish, but one driven by a mother’s tireless efforts to protect her dignity and secure a better future for her children.
Her sister, Mary Anne Allas, continued the case on Baby Jane’s behalf, carrying forward a fight that reflects the challenges many OFWs face in asserting their rights. The damages allegedly remain unpaid, as the former employer reportedly failed to appear before the court.
Immediate realities
Back home, however, the family has had more immediate realities to deal with.
Baby Jane left behind five children, who have been living with their grandmother in Brgy. Antipuluan in Narra, Palawan. Rosemarie, now 23, has finished Grade 12 and is raising two children of her own. Joa Christian, 22, is a second-year college student at Western Philippines University in Aborlan, Palawan. John Christian, 17, is in Grade 12; Jessica Shane, 16, is in Grade 10; and Jenno, 11, is in Grade 4. Four of them are still pursuing their education.
Now, they will have a permanent place of their own at Camella Palawan in Puerto Princesa City. Turned over to them was the Cara unit, which has 66 sqm of floor area on an 88-sqm lot, with three bedrooms and two toilet-and-bath areas.
Beyond its size and features, the home gives Baby Jane’s children a permanent place to return to as they continue their studies and build lives of their own. It answers, in part, the hope that had driven her years abroad, which was to give her children a better future.
For hardworking Filipinos
For Vista Land, the turnover also comes at an important point in its own history. As the company heads toward its 20th year, it looks back at nearly two decades of building quality homes and conducive communities across the Philippines. Over that period, Vista Land has grown alongside generations of hardworking Filipinos saving for and eventually moving into homes of their own.
Baby Jane’s family now becomes part of that story.
The donation cannot undo what the family went through. But it can, at least, ease one concern that has followed the family for years.
Baby Jane spent years working abroad with her children’s future in mind. Today, part of that hope has found a place to stay in a home they can finally call their own.