Pampanga: Pio Chapel and the ethics of transferring heritage structures

It's time to post again about my Philippine travels. Today, I visited Porac, one of the towns of Pampanga. Although Porac is more known for its natural sites such as Dara and Miyamit Falls as well as the Porac Highlands, it also plays host to some of Pampanga's important cultural heritage structures. One of these is the last intact (meaning unrenovated) hacienda chapel in the province which is located in Barangay Pio.

I have been to Pio several times before but we decided to visit today after it had been rumored that someone had purchased the chapel and will be transferring it to Bagac, Bataan! To give you a backgrounder on the Bagac project, check out this PDI column. As a result of the news, the Pio Chapel is fast becoming a rallying point for Pampanga in the fight to preserve its heritage and is now sparking a debate on the ethics of transferring heritage houses and structures.

Heritage structures must remain where they are because they are part of the historical fabric of the communities they are located in. There may be some cases however when transferring a heritage structure may be better than leaving a structure where it is, especially when it is highly likely that the structure will be lost or demolished in the near future.

But, when you go shopping for heritage houses and structures, especially in places where they are an important part of the historical fabric of the community, is that right? I was told that many of the houses were purchased from Bulacan, including one from the heritage town of San Miguel de Mayumu (which now serves as the house of Bishop Soc Villegas) and another house in Bustos which was ironically featured in the heritage house calendar of Shell. I wonder if Governor Josie dela Cruz knows about this.

In Pampanga, the grand old Reyes House of Candaba, which was the oldest surviving house in the province and the house where Noli Me Tangere was shot several decades back, is now in Bagac. News circulating is that Mayor Jerry Pelayo is not happy and is making moves to protect what is left.

We got to chat with the parish pastoral council president and a barangay kagawad while we were in Pio. Mass is said at the chapel every Saturday at 5 p.m. It was built in 1861 as part of the hacienda founded by Don Felino Gil (who also founded the Escuela de Artes y Oficios, the oldest trade school in Asia, which is now DHVCAT) and his wife Dona Eugenia Toledo. Their descendants include actress Rosemarie Gil. But the property is no longer theirs since it was sold to someone from Bulacan who was said to have donated the chapel to the local community.

We were told that the Gils visited several times to cart off the antique furniture and artifacts inside their hacienda house and chapel. Nothing was spared including the piedra china flooring around the chapel and the house. The most infamous of these visits was in the 1980s when actor Dante Varona, who accompanied them, climbed the belfry of the chapel hoping to get the centuries-old bell. He was mobbed by the local community and they were chased away with tabak, an agricultural-based cutting bolo.

The chapel is very important to Pampanga because as I mentioned earlier, it is the only intact visita in the entire province of Pampanga. Aside from that, it is a circular chapel built during the Spanish colonial period, pre-dating the UP Chapel (which some claim to be the first circular church in the country) by 145 years!

The people of Barangay Pio in Porac are now up in arms after word reached them that their chapel was reportedly sold by a still unknown person and would be transferred to Bagac soon. The municipal government and the local community are now vigilantly guarding the chapel. And if and when the demolition crew comes to get it, they said they will protect it with their lives. Quoting them, "They could not even get the bell, what more the entire chapel!"

Now with that situation, is it still ethical to transfer a heritage structure to someone's private property? And even more so when news is going around that the structure is being transferred to serve as a decoration for their daughter's debut?

A moratorium on this Bagac project should be done until further studies are done on the location in particular since there are a lot of issues on the safety of the houses being built so close to the sea, and until the heritage community has fully digested this unusual project and threshed out the ethics of transferring heritage structures. Again, heritage structures are best kept where they are so that they are appreciated in the proper context vis-à-vis the environment they are built in.

Actively shopping for heritage houses for use as scrap material for homes or transferring them whole, and even worse, using coffee table books featuring heritage homes as shopping catalogues is simply detestable. The best way to save a heritage house is by educating the local community about the value of a heritage house, the significance of its architecture or former inhabitants to the local community, and its potential as a symbol for the community to strengthen local identity and pride of place.

Photo credits: Tonette T. Orejas (2nd, 3rd and 5th photo)

Manila: What is wrong with Manila?

When President Manuel L. Quezon said, "I prefer a country run like hell by Filipinos to a country run like heaven by Americans." I'm sure he never thought that his wish would come true quite literally.

Senator Alfredo Lim was right when he berated the City Government of Manila for its greed. Two educational institutions in Tondo, both integral parts of Manila's heritage, and providers of free education to no less than 10,000 students in Tondo, will soon give way to shopping malls. Oh how Atienzic!

And the good senator and former mayor could not have said it better: "These two lands, inseparably identified with institutions devoted to education and imbued with memories of the Manileños’ past, having existed for decades as public schools, accommodating no less than 10,000 poor students of Tondo, for free, the Rajah Sulayman High School and Jose Abad Santos High School, are awaiting their unexpected and dreaded demise, as their death certificates have been signed by no less than the City Council, with the death sentence struck - with a thumb-up sign, by its City Mayor. As heralded, from the schools’ burial sites will rise luxurious malls: the stereotypical symbols of the modern care-free lifestyle – luxurious wares, expensive foods, entertainment centers, fully air-conditioned establishments."

He adds, "Without a doubt, this is the voice of gold, the whisper of wealth, heard and heeded by ears of avarice and greed."

The article Lust for silver triumphs over Filipino heritage was published in two part in Malaya on November 15 and 16.

OT: I updated my Multiply site and added some background music. Did you know that the instrument used in the Lonely Planet theme is the kubing, a jaw harp from the Philippines?

China: Guangzhou, last day in China

I arrived at the Guangzhou East Train Station at 11 a.m. I was met at the station by Jiajin, our liaison officer during the program who was nice enough to take me around Guangzhou during my last day in China. We hadn't been able to see Guangzhou during the program in Guangdong Province since the activities were in Dongguan City.

From the Guangzhou East Station, we took a subway to the Guangzhou Train Station (there are two stations in Guangzhou) since the hotel I was going to stay in was right beside it. It was convenient for me since right beside the hotel was the China Southern office and the pick-up point for the airport shuttle which left every 15 minutes. I paid RMB150 for a single room.

We had lunch at the KFC beside the hotel. From there, we took a subway to the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall. The hall is situated on the southern slope of Yuexiu Hill and was constructed between 1929 and 1931 by the people of Guangzhou and overseas Chinese as a monument to Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the forerunner of Chinese democratic revolution.

Since Jiajin had classes at 3 p.m., we took a 40-minute bus to the Guandong University of Foreign Studies where he is a graduating student. I stayed at his dorm and surfed the Internet while he was in class.

After his class, we took another bus back to the city center. I wanted to pass by a supermarket to check out the local food. We decided to buy dinner there. Got myself some rice noodles and vegetable pie while he got some dumplings. Also bought some dried fruits and my supply of water. From there, we walked towards the Shangxiajiu Walking Street (上下九商业步行街) a famous shopping area of Guangzhou.

What I liked about the place was the glass covered display of an old street which was accidentaly discovered in 2002 during excavations for a redevelopment project. But instead of destroying the old street and other remnants of the city's heritage, like what Mayor Atienza did in Mehan Gardens and Cuartel Meisic, Guangzhou covered it with glass and it is now an attraction of the walking street.

It was not only one street but actually layer upon layer of streets from various periods dating back to the Tang Dynasty (618 to 907 AD). Between then and the period of the Republic of China (1912 to 1949), ten additional layers were added. The bottom grit layer is about 3 meters below the surface. At a depth of 4.5 meters, the remains of the Southern Yue Kingdom (203 to 211 BC) were found. From 7.9 meters below, the surface lies gray-red virgin soil, which reveals that the site was once a riverbed. If you check out the photo, each label is from a different period of China's history. I hope we are able to find things like these in the Philippines.

After taking some photos, we went back to the hotel to eat our supermarket dinner. Didn't stay up too late since my flight was early in the morning and I had to be up before 6 a.m. to catch the 50-minute shuttle to the airport. My flight back to Manila leaves at 8:45 a.m. Anyway, this is my last post on my China trip. Until the next adventure!