The newly rebuilt Main Office/ORM (Office of the Resident Manager) at Canlubang Sugar Estate in this 1953 photo, stands at the same site where it was originally constructed by the former American owners in the 1920′s. The old Main Office, along with most of the structures in the old town, were completely burnt down by retreating Japanese forces as they made their way back to Manila. News of the impending attack by liberating American forces and Filipino guerillas drove the occupying Japanese to implement a scorched earth policy. In the ensuing frenzy, Japanese and Filipino Makapilis looted and burned houses in the barrios, indiscriminately bayonetting and/or killing their hapless occupants. Those who hid in their make-shift air raid shelters were not spared, as they likewise met, with a similar fate.”