News

Centennial Home
Mirror Magazine, May 17, 1999
By Flordeliza M. Odulio

A visit to this sinaunang bahay in Pulilan, Bulacan left one feeling nostalgic for a lost era of grace and civilized tastes and regretful of what had been given up on the road to modernity. A good thing we still have a big number of them around for the young to see and appreciate. Perhaps, from them, they could gain a better understanding of being Filipino.

As this ancestral home of Revenue Deputy Commissioner Lita Aguirre shows, homes were lighter and roomier, there was still enough space for everyone when its architectural design and interiors were in fashion. And life was still not as helter skelter and frenzied as today, giving home builders and makers the time, energy and concentration to make rooms and furniture both functional and beautiful.

A brief talk with Nanang Dominga Andan Caleon, the lady comissioner's 83year-old mother, gives a hint that the structure may well qualify as a "Centennial Home," give it a few more years. She recalled how her father had traveled far to obtain the narra wooden planks and posts that he used in building it.

 

The present structure, though, has been changed from how her father built it. For instance, a concrete annex had been built at the back for her nun-sister who preferred more quiet when her children (the commissioner and her siblinqs) were active growing children. Then, too , it was originally built with a floor raised several feet from the ground, accessible through a stairway flanked by wooden balustrades.

Today, part of the raised floor has been dismantled to give way to a lower-level kitchen and dining area. A bedroom and anteroom has also been built at the front of this lower level for the commissioner during her regular weekly visits.

These days, though, the main upper house is not actually lived in, although it remains tastefully arranged with its finely crafted antique furniture. There had been times, Aguirre said, when it had been leased by some film production groups as location for their shootings.

Outside the house, along L-shaped shed had been built, perhaps to keep the sun out while some field or yard tasks had to be done. This has been transformed into an open pavilion which is also leased out as site for social gatherings and conferences.

The era of this home design may be gone forever, but thankfully, traces of our past history are still with us in these houses known as sinaunang bahay.