MABUHAY - Negros Ancestral Homes (Part Two)

LA CASA GRANDE (Part 2)
by Stephanie Dychiu
(Click here for Part 1)

The second part of our feature on Negros Occidental's ancestral houses traces the evolution of grand hacienda manors to elegant present-day homes.

"Any country colonized by Spain becomes addicted to soap operas," a popular film director once told me when I asked why hacienda-centric telenovelas dominate Philippine television almost nine hours a day, five days a week. "It's the same in Mexico and South America," he said.


Hacienda life is romanticized in Philippine popular culture, yet paradoxically, it is reviled in history textbooks as a ruthless system for economic exploitation. While a lot of the hacienda stereotypes are true—the landholdings were indeed in the thousands of hectares, and a number of hacenderos were indeed minor European nobles with family crests and bloodlines that can be traced back five hundred years—there are many surprising exceptions. For instance, some of the oldest families actually spoke more Ilonggo (the local dialect) than Spanish at home. They would only switch to Spanish whenever the code phrase hay moros en la costa ("there are moors on the coast") was uttered, indicating that unauthorized ears, usually those of the household help, were within hearing distance, so confidential discussions should be continued en Español. The astute natives, of course, promptly soaked up Spanish to almost a fifth of the Ilonggo dialect.

Today's descendants of the old landlords rarely refer to themselves as hacenderos, or call their plantations haciendas. They use more unassuming terms like "farm", or its Ilonggo equivalent, "uma". As one generation metastasizes into the next, the farms get sliced into smaller and smaller pieces, and so the bigger families like to joke that the government has nothing left to take by way of land reform, because divvying up the spoils among the numerous family members is, in itself, tantamount to land reform. The families with whittled-down lands laughingly refer to themselves as the "nouveau poor", formerly wealthy but no longer very liquid, an alternate version of the nouveau riche. The richness of their heritage, however, is definitely immune to dilution.

In this conclusion of our two-part feature on Negros Occidental's ancestral homes (click here to read Part 1), we visit the historic residences of the Montillas, Jalandonis, Gastons, Hofileñas, and Abellos.

The Montilla-Mijares House (Hacienda Constancia)
Perhaps the most passionate advocate for the conservation of heritage houses in Negros is Raymond Fuentes, a retired interior designer who trained in Cologne, Germany and worked abroad for many years before retiring in Bacolod City, the capital of Negros Occidental. Last year, he organized a photo exhibit of the province's premier ancestral homes, including his own, Hacienda Constancia. This vast sugar plantation in Ubay, Pulupandan once had eight manor houses on its grounds, though only three survived World War II. The main house, simply referred to as Balay Dakû ("big house" in the local dialect), is where Raymond's mother was born.

"As a child in the early '50's, before we had a house in Bacolod," recalls Raymond, "I always enjoyed the comfort of our black Cadillac Fleetwood with its little fans in the back as we drove the bumpy dirt road from La Castellana on our way to Ubay to visit our great-grand aunt Lola Pasay."

"Lola Pasay" is Bonifacia Montilla, granddaughter of Don Agustin Orendain Montilla, the man who originally built Hacienda Constancia in the 1850's. Don Agustin was one of the five sons of the Conde de Montilla of Cordoba, Spain. The Montilla family crest, dated 1695, is still on display at Hacienda Constancia. "Agustin was exiled to Guam after going against Isabela II in favor of King Juan Carlos," explains Raymond. "It was the Carlistas versus the Isabelistas at that time in Spain. Agustin eventually settled in Negros in the Philippines. He married a Chinese mestiza, and in 1844, [the Spanish crown] granted him Ubay, a land of more than a thousand hectares." This was around the time Yves Leopold Germain Gaston of France got involved in sugarcane cultivation in Negros. Don Agustin got cane points from Gaston and started planting. This began the commercial production of sugar in Negros, an industry that was to bring great riches and refinement to an erstwhile untamed land inhabited only by native Negritos.

The Bernardino Jalandoni House
The house built by Bernardino and Ysabel Jalandoni in 1908 was the first among the many heritage houses in Silay, Negros Occidental to be declared a National Historical Landmark by the Philippine government. It functions as a regular museum that can be visited Tuesdays to Sundays from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. Guided tours can be arranged by calling curator Ben Arceo at 034-4955093.

The Jalandoni house has come to be known as the "pink house" due to the peculiar choice of paint color for its facade when it underwent a minor facelift some years ago. Its prime position on Rizal Street, the calle principal or main avenue of Silay, is indicative of the status the family enjoyed in the community. Around ninety-eight percent of the structure is still original, but only about a third of the furniture originally came from the house. The rest were donated by outside sources.

The eldest son of Bernardino and Ysabel Jalandoni, Cesar, was schooled in medicine at the University of Vienna in Austria. Cesar was the father of Luis Jalandoni, a former priest who became one of the top leaders of the Communist movement in the Philippines. He has lived in exile in The Netherlands since the 1970's.

Luis spent the first twelve years of his life surrounded by lavish opulence in the "pink house", experiencing first-hand how his landed family benefited from the feudal system prevalent in the Negros sugarcane plantations. Looking at the childhood photo of him that sits on top of the hundred-year-old Steinway piano inside the house, one can't help but marvel at the irony of Luis growing up to become one of the most prominent figures advocating the erradication of the very way of life he had been raised in.

Victor Gaston House (Balay Negrense)
Yves Leopold Germain Gaston was a Frenchman who was engaged in sugarcane production in his home province in France. He came to the Philippines in the late 1830's to assist wealthy local businessmen in starting up their sugar businesses. He married a Filipina named Prudencia Fernandez, then settled down to the affluent life of a sugar baron in Silay, Negros Occidental.

Victor, the eldest son of Yves and Prudencia, built his house on Cinco de Noviembre Street in Silay in the early 1900's. Through the years, the house fell into disrepair, until finally the Gaston family donated what remained of it to the Silay Heritage Foundation. Through government grants, the crumbling house underwent major reconstruction and had its rooms decorated with furniture acquired from outside sources. When it reopened as a museum dubbed "Balay Negrense", it spurred renewed interest in the conservation of heritage homes.

Though a few people sometimes raise their eyebrows at Balay Negrense because it is not as "authentic" as other heritage homes (much of its structure was rebuilt from scratch and most of its furniture did not come from the original house), it is nevertheless still a pioneering effort that saved a cultural landmark from permanent destruction.

Balay Negrense is open to visitors 10:00 am to 6:00 pm every Tuesday to Sunday.

Manuel Hofileña House
By the 1930's, the age of sprawling plantation houses began to draw to a close. Homes became more compact and practical, and were built on more central locations.

Spritely Ramon Hofileña, now in his seventies but still a bachelor, proudly declares that the house his father Manuel built in 1934 on Cinco de Noviembre Street is the first inhabited heritage house to be declared a National Historical Landmark in Silay.

A visit to this house is a must for anyone passing through Silay. One can spend days chatting with the affable and erudite Mon Hofileña on everything from history and geography to world arts. Priceless family heirlooms, such as the two-hundred-year-old Rachall piano that belonged to his great-grandmother, sit comfortably in the cozy living room. Throughout his life, Mon has been an avid patron of the arts, and the paintings and prints he has collected from the great masters—before they became masters—like Manansala, Amorsolo, Hidalgo, Joya, and Luz, are truly dazzling.

To schedule a visit to the Manuel Hofileña house, call Mon on 034-4954561.

Abello House
A fitting conclusion to a journey through the ancestral homes of Negros is the Abello House at the corner of Twelfth and Lacson Streets in Bacolod City. Located right beside Sorrento, Bacolod's latest hip hangout where the city's visitors are inevitably herded for a round of drinks, only the upper portion of the Art Deco '30's house of the Abello family can be seen from outside its black gates. Yet the high walls only serve to fuel the mystique of the red-and-white house, whose dainty curves and intricate detailing evoke memories of the very first dollhouse one longs for as a little girl.

Several generations of Abellos lived in this house before it was turned over to a caretaker when the family transfered to a much bigger space near the outskirts of Bacolod. In 2004, however, Rafael Abello III was born to the fifth generation of Abellos, and he moved with mom Lenchen de Luzuriaga and dad Miles Abello into the "Twelfth Street House", which was retro-fitted especially for the new family.

The excellent work done to inject modern conveniences into the house while staying true to its 1930's origins exemplifies the difference between restoration and invention. The respect given to the original design of the house enables the family to preserve its sense of rootedness and shared history.

The stately homes of Negros Occidental's founding families may be a little frayed around the edges, but they are imbued with the souls of great men and women who have walked in their halls. If only we learn to appreciate the power of these structures to inspire us as living reminders of our rich cultural history, enough efforts will be taken to ensure that they live on for many generations to come.

(This article originally appeared in Mabuhay magazine of Philippine Airlines, April 2007.)