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July 9, 2010
If you have time and you want to know more and appreciate your Filipino heritage, try driving to Bagac in Bataan. Only some three hours away from Manila, especially if you use the well paved North Luzon Expressway and on to the Subic- Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEX), Bagac is home to well known beach resorts, the mothballed Bagac nuclear power plant, mango and casoy farms and other agricultural areas.
Lately, Bagac has become famous because of the the Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar, a 400-hectare heritage resort patterned after a typical town settlement during the Spanish occupation of the Philippines. At the resort, one can admire well-restored 19th century classic mansions, establishments, and stone houses while walking along cobblestone roads.
The houses were actual structures sourced from different locations in the country that were painstakingly redeveloped in the resort “plank by plank” and “brick by brick”. Most are at least a century old, restored to their original grandeur, resulting in an overall Filipino neighborhood of yore at a venue showcasing a Hispanic lifestyle influence.
An example of a notable house is the Casa Lubao, which was owned by the relatives of former President,now Congresswoman Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. It has a spacious dining hall, three bedrooms, a large balcony
with iron grills, huge windows, and wood plank floorings. There are also accommodations available to visitors
who want to stay longer than a day. The Paseo De Escolta, which is reminiscent of commercial buildings
in Manila during the early 1900s, moonlights as a fully operational hotel. Other than the hotel and the requisite historical day tour services, there is also the Marivent Café that serves traditional Filipino-Hispanic cuisine; and the Taberna del Señor Pepe, a cigar and tapas cocktail place where different musical groups also play at night.If plans pushes through, the resort will soon feature the old house of the mother of Dr. Jose Rizal in Binan, Laguna.
Already, parts of the historic house at the center of Binan, near the public market and the town hall,
were being hauled off for Bagac, but the dismantling of the house was stopped due to the opposition of
officials of the town and various cultural groups. Officials said the historical landmark should not be uprooted from Binan and reconstructed in Bagac, because it is part of Binan’s history.
It was gathered that the century-old house made of hard wood and stone was the house where the national hero stayed during his first days of formal studies. The descendants of Rizal who owns the house said they were sad that its transfer to Bagac was being opposed. “This is our house and we have the right as to what we will do with our house,” a member of the clan said. He said they plan to build a modern commercial building on the site of the old historic house. “We need this so we would earn to be able to support our family,” he added. The old house was already unfit for commercial purposes, he said. For more information about the heritage resort,
you may visit www.lascasasfilipinas.com.