housing our rich past
DANIEL BETANCOURT EXPLORES THE ANCESTRAL HOMES OF NEGROS’ CULTURAL CAPITAL
The criss-cross streets of Silay, a small town north of Bacolod in Negros Occidental, are lined by scores of bahay na bato (stone houses), built by sugar barons and the landed farmers who tilled the cane fields during the Spanish period. Today they stand testament to the city’s former glory as the center of the sugar industry.
You can find similar structures, some even older and more historic than those in Silay, in towns such as Taal in Batangas, Malolos in Bulacan and several places in Pampanga and Nueva Ecija. Vigan in Ilocos has the most old buildings in the country and has earned the distinction of becoming a UNESCO World Heritage site. Yet despite coming second to Vigan in number, Silay’s stone houses are special as they paint a detailed picture of the life of the wealthy in the early 20th century. According to Dr Fernando Zialcita, co-author of Philippine Ancestral Houses, the dwellings were reserved for the country’s principalia and the ilustrados. These included rich farmers, traders and successful professionals.
Today, 31 of the ancestral homes are preserved, having been designated heritage homes by the National Historical Institute. They are densely concentrated and you can easily walk from one to the other. Some remain in private hands with the people living there quite literally living in the past. These may be closed to the public, but there are many that are open and a stroll around the city will bring you face to face with history.
An offshoot of the bahay kubo (single-room dwelling), the bahay na bato was designed to address the stresses of the Philippine environment. Its sturdy stone-based first floor and a lightweight, wooden second withstand the country’s frequent typhoons and earthquakes. They vary in size, lavishness, degree of preservation and current function.
If you are coming from Bacolod, the first ancestral building you will encounter is the El Ideal Bakery, a Silay institution. Occupying the ground floor of the Cesar Lacson Locsin Ancestral House, this café-boulangerie has been running for nearly a century. Passers-by go to great lengths to buy its freshly baked native confections such as pastillas de leche (carabao milk candy), white frosted bañadas (soft cookies), sugarcane and paciencia biscuits and lady fingers.
West of El Ideal on Cinco de Noviembre Street is the former home of Victor Gaston, son of a French sugar baron who settled in the Philippines. Built in 1897, this balayong wood structure housed eight of the owners’ 12 children. In the later part of the century, it fell into disuse until a group of Silaynons decided to restore the house and turn it into its present incarnation, the Balay Negrense Museum.
Near the city market is the Bernardino Jalandoni Ancestral House which was built in 1908. Now managed by the Silay Heritage Foundation, the house is also a museum with period pieces as well as a venue for artistic performances. One of its galleries contains photographs of all 31 of the houses designated treasures by the National Historical Institute.
Another heritage home with public access is the Vicente Conlu Montelibano House with its collection of antique furnishings. Meanwhile, the regal Maria Ledesma Golez House has been converted to the Silay branch of RCBC bank, while the Angel Araneta Ledesma house, aka the “Green House”, is currently used as the Silay culture and tourism offices.
Fronting the Cathedral of San Diego is the Kapitan Mariano Montelibano Lacson House whose first floors have been converted into an eatery and two cafés. New Café is a long-time favorite for the older men of Silay. It is where they meet and catch up with the latest town gossip and cockfight results over coffee.
One man who knows a lot about Silay and everyone in it is Ramon Hofileña. In fact the city owes a great deal to him, a statement he would probably never allow to cross his lips.
The very building where I had my puto (steamed rice cake) and coffee was saved because of his efforts.
In 1977, there was a plan to widen Rizal Street as part of one of the many road projects under a World Bank program to help farmers who were made impoverished by the sugar crisis at that time. This would have meant the highway encroaching on treasured properties including El Ideal and the Golez building.
Hofileña submitted a petition to the national government to have the decision reversed, much to the ire of the incumbent mayor. He, then with the city tourism board, organized the homeowners to rally behind his cause and the debate was brought to the governor who heard and mediated over the matter. Some owners even offered to donate land to create a diversion road. In the end, the houses were spared and the national highway between Bacolod and Victorias now narrows when it crosses through Silay. Other gems of Silay, however, couldn’t be saved. Its main plaza, for example, became a casualty of a misplaced affinity for the new.
Hofileña is a welcoming host, ushering me into the dim dining room of his family home with its Art Deco furniture. After offering me guapple pie, he recounts the history of the lost plaza: “Before the Second World War, that sunken plaza won the award as the best in the country,” he recalls. “The prize was PHP10, which was a lot of money back then.
It complemented the style of the Church of San Diego, which was Romanesque. It had two great fountains and statues of women and fawn-like figures amid a green landscaping, But under martial law, they filled it up,” he says.
“I was not around. I was in Manila. When I came back, there was only one tree left. I tried to save it.” The tree still stands in plaza today and many still call it the Ramon tree.
Hofileña spent most of his childhood in that house, which his father built in 1934, on Cinco de Noviembre Street. Studies brought him to Manila, where he took up journalism, while work brought him to New York. He came back because of his parents’ old age, returning to a town that was in stark contrast to the cultural buzz of Manhattan. So began his attempt to turn Silay into a cultural center. He organized art workshops and exhibitions, inviting artists and high society from the nation’s capital to a possible cultural rival in the heart of the Visayas.
Hofileña also began his annual cultural tour (see above left), which includes a guided tour of his own father’s house. In 1962, the Hofileña house was opened to the public for the first time, the first ancestral home in Silay to do so. The living and dining rooms are decorated with pictures of his parents and eight siblings – all of whom were involved in the arts: piano teachers, ballet and flamenco dancers, theater artists. Hofileña describes their achievements with pride. The comedor (dining room) is filled with treasures – cupboards containing antiques and archeological finds from the area and China, some an incredible 3,000-years-old.
Spanish chairs and a 200 year-old piano from Germany adorn the living room; and the library contains countless volumes of Filipiniana (some written by Hofileña himself), indigenous toys and wooden images of the Saint Vincent Ferrer, saved from the island’s old churches. At the center is a table with piles of books made sepia-colored by time. I picked one up, Portrait of Jennie by Robert Nathan, a story about an impoverished artist in New York who searched for a woman who inspired him. “I don’t care for novels anymore, but I read that three times,” Hofileña says.
Perhaps the most impressive part of his art collection is on the second floor. It includes works by national artists such as Juan Luna, Felix Resurrecion Hidalgo, Fernando Amorsolo, Ang Kiukok and BenCab among others. A cross-section of the most important talents in Philippine art from the 19th century on, it is probably the most comprehensive personal collection on public display. However, the works that stir the most emotion are those by Conrado Judith, whose canvases Hofileña discovered in the thatch hut Judith was living in. Many were already damaged by the sun and rain.
A poor high school graduate, Judith painted billboards and posters for the movie houses for a living, while at home he painted abstract expressionist pieces. He died of tuberculosis at 34, long before any of his pieces could be mounted in an exhibition.
On the terrace on the second floor, I noticed the neighboring ancestral house across the yard, well on the slow road towards decay. Weather and termites are natural enemies of these houses, but far worse is neglect by the owners. Most of the real owners left these homes a long time ago, settling in bigger cities or emigrating abroad. Meanwhile, those who stay do not have the technical abilities to preserve or the means to do so.
Silay’s heyday may have passed a long time ago, but what is left are the stories of its sons and daughters – revolutionaries, statesmen, economic leaders, prominent artists – and the houses they lived in. This is what keeps it alive in our consciousness.
The Manuel Severino Hofileña Heritage House is a place that keeps this rich heritage alive. On the walls, are a story of our country, echoes of the past and an inheritance it is our challenge to protect. From the humble sugar farmer who built this house for his wife and nine children, to the Japanese commanders who met under its roof, to the siblings who sought shelter in its warmth after they were widowed, to the many children who played in its garden, to the countless national artists who have been its guests right up to its faithful caretaker and storyteller.
The houses in Silay are an umbilical cord that connects us to the past and the pastoral, and the best way for us to prevent it from being cut off is to support the tours and to visit our history.
ANNUAL CULTURAL TOUR OF NEGROS OCCIDENTAL BY RAMON HOFILEÑA
Tour dates All Saturdays of December except holidays, 9am to 5.30pm.
Itinerary includes Bacolod, Silay (Jalandoni and Hofileña heritage homes), Victorias (Church of St Joseph the Worker); Manapla (Chapel of the Carwheels); Talisay.
Fee PHP600 (USD13.75), limited to 55 people
Tel Jara Laboratory (034) 434 6398.
USEFUL DETAILS
Where to stay: Fortuna Pension House, tel (034) 495 3981, email elleng@bacolod.worldtelphil.com, from PHP400 (USD9.15)
Where to eat: El Ideal, New Café, Sir – all on Rizal Street
How to get there: From Bacolod central market: a Bacolod – Escalante bus, or a Bacolod – Silay jeepney; PHP10 (USD0.23)
Silay Tourism Office, tel (034) 495 5145
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