Tripadvisor Reviews of Yap Sandiego House & 1730 Jesuit House

I posted a couple of Reviews in Tripadvisor, for the Yap Sandiego House and for the 1730 Jesuit House, both in Cebu:

“#1 Tourist Attraction in Cebu City- The Yap Sandiego Ancestral House”
5 of 5 stars Reviewed August 2, 2011
http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g298460-d1520123-r116188991-Yap_Sandiego_Ancestral_House-Cebu_City_Cebu_Visayas.html

I love the Yap Sandiego Ancestral House! It is an evocative Colonial house made of stone and wood and tile roofing. It is filled with lovely antiques. This house allows me to imagine how life in Cebu must have been in the 1700s. Everything about it is beautiful, even the small garden with a well that still has water. Val Sandiego and his wife decorate the house thematically, for Christmas, Chinese New Year, the June Fiesta, and so on. Every time I visit it, it is is like seeing a woman all dressed in another gown! So beautiful! I highly recommend it to all tourists of Cebu. From there, one can easily visit other tourist attractions in Cebu: The 1730 Jesuit House, Casa Gorordo, Cathedral and Museum, Fort San Pedro, Santo Nino Basilica and Museum, and the newly renovated Plaza Independencia.

~~~
“1730 JESUIT HOUSE - THE OLDEST DOCUMENTED HOUSE IN THE PHILIPPINES”
5 of 5 stars Reviewed August 12, 2011
http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g298460-d2233349-r116637091-1730_Jesuit_House-Cebu_City_Cebu_Visayas.html

The 1730 Jesuit House is a historical treasure tucked away in the middle of Historic Cebu City. It is located on Zulueta Street near the Heritage of Cebu Monument and the Yap-Sandiego Museum. For years, the Jesuit House was not available to the public. The Sy Family had used the premises as a warehouse until Jaime Sy decided to develop the Jesuit House as a museum. The rooms have been uncovered, galleries, and exhibits displayed revealing one of the most exciting historical museums in the Philippines.

There are two buildings that are connected by a covered bridge. The tile roof is what fascinates me most of all because it's original and shows a curve that is distinctly Asian. A plague that says "1730" sits on top of a doorway, proof of the age of this treasure of Cebu City. Jesuit historian Rene Javellana and the writer Concepcion Briones have done research on the place and documented this place as the Jesuit house.

The1730 Jesuit House offers tourists a glimpse of eighteenth century life in Cebu, Philippines. It is one place that I visit often, and I always marvel at the new developments Jaime Sy does to this marvelous and mysterious place, which allows me to reflect on the provocative history of the Black Robes in the Philippines

Restoration of the house is ongoing; visitors may make an appointment to visit the Jesuit House.

CEBU'S 1730 JESUIT HOUSE - published in Zee Lifestyle

Zee Lifestyle's November 2010 issue will feature my article about San Miguel Allende and Guanajuato, Mexico. I'm reprinting here an article I wrote for Zee last year, about Cebu's 1730 Jesuit House, located on Zulueta Street, Parian, Cebu City. It's the oldest documented house in the Philippines, a historical treasure, and a tourist must-see in Cebu City.



CEBU’S 1730 JESUIT HOUSE
by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard
Published in Zee Lifestyle, October 2009


I first learned about the eighteenth century Jesuit House in historic Cebu from Concepcion Briones’ book, Life in Old Parian. Intrigued by their history of the Jesuits, I also read The Jesuits in the Philippines 1581-1768 by H. de la Costa.

The Jesuits, also known as the Black Robes, came to the Manila in 1581. By 1595 they were in Cebu. The Jesuits went on to administer a free primary school teaching Spanish, Visayan, and Chinese students Christian doctrine, reading, writing, arthimetic, and deportment, grammar.

After 1605, the Jesuits appointed a Vice Provincial who acted as an overseer, a roving supervisor of missions, and who acted as a liaison among the mission stations and the provincial superior and civil government. The Vice Provincial had his own residence, and the 1730 Jesuit House, located between Zulueta and Binacayan, near Mabini, was such a house.

When the Jesuits were expelled from the Philippines in 1768, the 1730 Jesuit House ended up in the hands of others. In its 279 years of existence, the Jesuit House has been used for different purposes: it was the residence of the Vice Provincial of the Jesuits; it became the headquarters of the Japanese military during World War II; it was a private nightclub in the 1950s; it was used as a hospital by the Americans; and it was also the residence of the Alvarez family who sold the place to Nicanor Sy in the mid-1960s.

Sy converted the premises into the Ho Tong warehouse and for some forty years the Jesuit House took on the guise of a bodega. Sometime after the Sy family acquired the property, they placed an iron gate to protect the antique wood gate and three medallions above the gate with the emblems of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph; and so thankfully, the sixteenth buildings, gate, and coral wall are still there.

Three years ago, I dared enter the Ho Tong Hardware bodega and asked a woman if I could visit the Jesuit House. She graciously asked some workers to lead me to the middle of the enclosed compound where two adjoining buildings stood. I had to be careful not to trip over metal cables and piles of stuff stockpiled all around the buildings as well as within the buildings. The first building I encountered was smaller; it had stairs that led to a dark rectangular space, like a huge hallway, cluttered with more hardware stuff, but I could see huge antique foundation posts — huge tree trunks painted red. From this first structure I crossed a covered bridge to get to a larger building — still dark and cluttered but this building had a sign above a doorway that said, “1730.” In the darkness and clutter, and I realized that this was the sign that made this building the oldest recorded building in the entire Philippines. I was led through a huge room, like a sala, to the other end of this bigger building with wide wooden stairs that led to the ground floor. Briones had written that the original stairs had been removed by the Alvarez family and brought to Bohol. These then were the replacement stairs. But it was dark and difficult to catch details of the stairs and of the buildings. I would have to wait three years before I would see the Jesuit House again, this time with more light and without the warehouse clutter, and in fact this time the Jesuit House would be a musuem.

Jimmy Sy, son of Nicanor Sy now the head of the Sy family decided sometime in June 2009 to turn the Jesuit House into a museum. How a businessman like Jimmy, who for most of his life had lived with the Jesuit House buried underneath the Ho Tong bodega, got the inspiration to turn the place into a museum is a story in itself. Jimmy attended Sacred Heart School and the Ateneo de Manila University – schools run by Jesuits. While he was in the Ateneo library, he pulled out a 1936 pictorial book by Father Repetti, a seismologist whose hobby was taking pictures of old religious structures in the Philippines. When Jimmy flipped the pages, he saw an image that looked familiar – it was the Jesuit House in the Ho Tong Hardware bodega. Jimmy made a copy of the picture and showed it to his father. His father filed it away and for the moment the story ended there, but in fact Jimmy kept that information in his head, information that very well could have been the seed of his decision to develop the Ho Tong bodega into the Jesuit House Museum. Looking forward to this retirement, Jimmy welcomed the idea of becoming the steward of this oldest documented building in the entire Philippines. He felt the urge to share the place with others.



I revisited the Jesuit House Museum in August 2009, and since it was only a two-three month project, the warehouse clutter was still around. Jimmy explained that he is still building a bodega and it will take time to develop the Jesuit House Museum. However, the two building structures have been cleared and are being spruced up. Jimmy has decorated some areas with antique furniture and oil lamps so that visitors can have an idea of what the Jesuit House looked almost three hundred years ago. I could now see that the first structure was a large covered azotea. A covered bridge connected this to the main building, which had been the house of the Jesuit Vice Provincial in the sixteenth century. Both structures had two stories, and I only visited the upper floor. The main structure, that is the actual residence of the Vice Provincial, has a large central room, with rooms surrounding this space. These rooms have not been developed and are closed to the public.

Jimmy has also decorated this large space with furniture, an altar, lamps. He has likewise fixed up the original entrance to the building from Binacayan road. Plants, antique angel wood carvings, antique oil lamps, and wrought iron grills on windows give one a good idea of how the place looked like in the past.

According to Jimmy and his conservation architect Anthony Abelgas research must first be done. They are working with Jesuit Father Rene Javellana who is providing them with the historical aspect. In fact, Father Javellana has already written about the Jesuit House and Jimmy generously provided me with a copy of Javellana’s 1987 article, “The Jesuit House of 1730” published in Philippine Studies.

Jimmy Sy sounds like a religious convert, brimming with fervor and enthusiasm, when he talks about the Jesuit House. In the bigger building, he explains that the first original door had faced Binacayan Street, the tiny winding street close to Colon Street. Once upon a time there had been a gate and stairs on the Binacayan side. Jimmy excitedly pointed at the wood planks on the floor, pointing out where another kind of wood had patched up stud-holes. He showed me a square space to the right of the main stairs where a painting must have hung. He pointed out ancient carved wood beams through ceiling holes and showed off windows in the first floor area underneath the azotea, wondering why windows should be in a now-enclosed space. He pointed out a cemented area near the stairs that he says was a burial spot.

And the best part was when this business man started talking about the spirits in the place. Apparently Jimmy had invited a Jesuit classmate who is psychic to the place. The man said he felt the presence of so many spirits in the place. A ritual was done to ask permission from the spirits to do work on the place. There are still bits and pieces of red offerings on top of the burial spot near the stairs.

Jimmy also talked about a local oral legend about a sacristan who murdered seven Jesuits. Feeling remorseful, he carved a Cross on the coral stone wall outside. Jimmy searched for the Cross and found it, on the Binacayan side, near an area of the wall that looked like it had been enclosed. There had once been a gateway there, but it had been sealed. A new gateway was transferred to where the current opening is.

News that the Jesuit House is now finally a museum is a source of great delight to historians, heritage-lovers, tourists, and media. The new Jesuit House Museum already has a steady stream of visitors: guests from Manila, America, Europe, Australia, Korea, Cebuanos themselves (some of whom had never even heard of the Jesuit House), and many more. The 1730 Jesuit House always had visitors, even when it was buried underneath the Ho Tong Hardware, but now, the public is clearly anxious to see the eighteenth century Jesuit House properly restored and offered for public view. It is after all one of the treasures of the Philippines
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Side Bar: The Jesuits in Cebu
It was the Jesuit superior, Antonio Sedeño himself who founded a house in Cebu on what is today M. J. Cuenco Avenue. Sedeño was a veteran missionary who like St. Ignatius had been in the military when he was young. He had gone to England as a page of the Duke of Feria when Mary Tudor was queen. On March 13, 1568, he sailed for Florida with a group of Jesuits headed by Juan Bautista de Segura. In 1572, Sedeño was the first Jesuit sent to Mexico, and it was while he was acting Rector of the college there that he was informed he was chosen as superior of the first Philippine Mission. Traveling with three companions, he sailed from Acapulco on the galleon San Martin on March 29 and arrived Manila in July. There Sedeño and his company learned Tagalog. After much hemming and hawing as to whether the Manila Jesuits would head the entire Far East or the Philippines, and as to what type of work they would actually do there, the King of Spain sent an order for the Jesuits to establish a Jesuit College where they would teach not only Spanish boys but also mestizos and sons of the ruling class.

Cebu, the site of the first Spanish settlement was not forgotten, and by June 30, 1595 Sedeño himself headed a small group composed of Alonso de Humanes, Mateo Sanchez, and a lay brother to sail to Cebu for the purpose of founding a Jesuit house there. The people received them warmly and donated 500 pesos, which the Jesuits used to buy a house near the beach. The city corporation donated adjacent land for a yard and garden. The trip to Cebu had been on an uncovered sailboat, exposing the Jesuit passengers to the stormy weather for three weeks. Sedeño became ill and passed away in Cebu on September 2, 1595. They buried him in the domestic chapel on the ground floor of their first house, but three years later, Father Pedro Chirino transferred Sedeño’s remains to the new Jesuit church.
~~~

Read also
Life in Parian Now
Cebu's 1730 Jesuit House 
The Secret Hall of Angels 
A Story of Hope
Finding Jose Rizal in Cebu
Lola Remedios and her Sayas
Lunch with F. Sionil Jose
Pre-Colonial Gold in Cebu
~~
tags: Cebu, Philippines, Jesuits,. history, Cebuano, 1730 Jesuit House, Spanish Colonial

A Story of Hope, published in Zee Lifestyle, June 2010

A STORY OF HOPE
Cecilia Manguerra Brainard
Published in Zee Lifestyle, June 2010

My family called it, “Ang Palacio ni Yvonne - Yvonne’s Palace.” We used to drive by it most afternoons after Papa picked us up from our schools and took us on a ride. The route included a stop at the kiosk near Magellan’s Cross for Coca Cola and packages of M&Ms; a drive down the pier for fresh sea air; a stop at Monay’s Bakery for hot Pan Frances and Pan Monay; then the ride home down what is now M.J. Cuenco Avenue. That’s when we’d see old stone Provincial Jail and we children used to point and exclaim, “Ang palacio ni Yvonne!” We were referring to my Yaya Yvonne who had stolen some things from our house and ended up in the Provincial Jail of Cebu – the Carcel de Cebu. I used to feel sad that she had ended up there. She had after all taken care of me; she had even taught me to love raw green onions.

These memories were running through my head when I visited the old Carcel one January day, Sinulog week in fact, when traffic was impossible, and to my surprise discovered that the Carcel was walking distance from old Historic Cebu where I stay when I am in Cebu. I heard that the Carcel had been turned into a museum in August 2008, another welcome addition to the increasing cultural developments in Old Cebu. I was curious as I made my way to the place. I remembered it as a dreary place with gray walls and electrified barbed wire; it was near the old cemetery and the ice plant. It was heartening to see the pretty landscaping in front and the new signs announcing its respectable new name, Museo Sugbo. I liked the elegant ring of the name too – Museo Sugbu –which made me think of the Museo de Oro of Lima, Peru.

I stared at the clean walls of the Carcel, surprised that they were made of antique coral stone blocks after all. All my life, I thought it was made of cement that had turned dark and dingy. It was Jobers Bernales, Director of the Museum who explained that the walls had been stripped off its cement plaster to uncover the coral blocks, which probably came from Parian Church, a grand structure in historic Cebu, demolished in 1877-78 by the Bishop after a long battle with its parishioners. Indeed the Carcel displayed a Spanish Colonial look. Jobers explained that this was the look that Governor Gwen Garcia wanted when she envisioned the creation of the museum. The Provincial government developed and funds the museum.

The museum had been built in the tailend of the Spanish Occupation as a one-story building to house prisoners of the entire Visayas District, accounting for its fairly large size. Don Domingo de Escondrillas, the only Cebuano engineer-architect, designed it. The second floor was added during the American occupation. The Americans not only used the facilities for prisoners, but at some point used the place as horse stables. When the Japanese occupied Cebu, they used the Carcel to imprison guerrillas, the lucky ones who survived the torture they endured at the Cebu Normal School. When World War II ended, Cebuanos threw Japanese collaborators into the Carcel.

Steeped in this dark history, the Carcel should have been a depressing place but somehow the work done to the facilities – the chipping off the cement, the removal of extraneous rooms and shacks – erased any negative feelings of the place. The ten galleries surrounding a courtyard have a crisp solid look. The galleries are not huge; they are not crammed with a lot of artifacts, but there’s a respectful elegance in the display of the items that document Cebuano history on culture.
On the left near the entrance is one of my favorite galleries – the Pre-History Gallery. It gives visitors a good idea of how ancient Cebuanos looked like physically, the tattoos they had, what they wore, what tools they used, how they lived, as well as how they died. The Pre-History Galley has pottery shards, earthenware, ceramics, stoneware, shell beads, log coffins, and other funerary items. What caught my attention was a skull with pinprick holes on the forehead, possibly a result of syphilis, but more significant was the sloping shape of the forehead, indicating the person had undergone skull formation; the baby’s skull had been bound somehow to create the sloping elongation. The only other place I’d seen skull formation was in Peru’s National History Museum in Lima, where I saw elongated skulls and skulls with two large protrusions on top. It was interesting to relate the similarities of these two cultures.

The galleries unfold as if telling a story, and from the pre-Hispanic section, I climbed the steep stairs to the second floor with the Spanish gallery which shows
copies of the official appointment of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi as governor of Cebu, dated August 6, 1569; there is a copy of Legazpi’s letter to the King of Spain, dated May 27, 1565, the oldest letter to have been sent from the Philippines.
There is a Katipunan Gallery with an anting-anting vest as well as an anting-anting handerchief that belonged to Leon Kilat, a name I used to puzzle over whenever I saw his statue in Carcar. Born Pantaleon Villegas, he was the Katipunero who led the Cebuanos against the Spaniards in the Tres de Abril (April 3, 1898) Revolution. The story goes that the Spaniards had informed the Cebuano families that Carcar would be destroyed if they didn’t turn over Leon Kilat; the old families obliged by having Leon Kilat assassinated.

Another section that fascinated me was the National Museum Branch which has artifacts from recent excavations done in Plaza Independencia and Boljoon Church grounds. Most interesting are gold death facial covers, the skull on which these gold coverings were found, gold chain, a rare blue and white ceramic ewer, celadon ware, and a rare underglaze blue covered powder box decorated with a Chinese boy carrying a puppet. The gold death facial covers interested me most because I had also seen similar gold death masks and facial covers in Peru.

The other museum galleries include: the War Memorial Gallery; and memorabilia of Edward Sharp (a Thomasite), Justice Sotero Cabahug, Senator Vicente Rama, and Gregorio Abellana (a Katipunero). These galleries also document interesting periods of Cebuano history.

Jobers Bernales says the museum plans to add interactive facilities in the form of LCD monitors with videos in the prehistory and history galleries. They will be adding a changing gallery, which will showcase monthly or quarterly exhibits. There will also be a media gallery complete with old printers and broadcasting equipment. A gift shop and small café will be opened on the ground floor of the former bartolinas or isolation cells, near the old Spanish-period wishing well.
By August, the museum hopes to have a branch of the National Library, a multimedia library with internet facilities. Finally, once the twelve galleries are complete, Museo Sugbo plans to print a Museum Guide for Teachers, with lesson plans and questionnaire for classroom use.

By the time I leave the Museo Sugbo, any dread about the old Carcel has vanished and in its place I feel pride for my Cebuano heritage. The documentation of Cebuano culture and history in the Museo Sugbo validates what I had always known, what had always been there, but which had been ignored for so long.

The sad story of Yvonne’s Palace has been replaced with a story of hope.
~~~~

Read also
Life in Parian Now
Cebu's 1730 Jesuit House 
The Secret Hall of Angels 
A Story of Hope
Finding Jose Rizal in Cebu
Lola Remedios and her Sayas
Lunch with F. Sionil Jose
Pre-Colonial Gold in Cebu 
~~
tags: Cebu, Philippines, Sugbo Museum, history, Spanish Colonial, architecture, Filipino

Finding Jose Rizal in Cebu, published Zee Lifestyle, June 2009

FINDING JOSE RIZAL IN CEBU
Cecilia Manguerra Brainard
First published in Zee Lifestyle, June 2009

It was my friend, Marily Orosa, publisher of the award-winning coffee table book, Rizal, who mentioned that she visited Cebu to do research for her book. She raved over the rare Rizal artifacts she had found in Cebu. I had no idea that Cebu had Jose Rizal artifacts; I had always thought that belongings and documents of Rizal were in Luzon where this Philippine National hero came from. It wasn’t until a year ago when I visited Rizal Museum at the University of Southern Philippines and realized, after talking to Dr. Odette Jereza, Vice President of the University of Southern Philippines, that Rizal Museum was where Marily had found the Rizal artifiacts.

I thought the Rizal artifacts may have ended up in USP’s Rizal Museum because of Josephine Bracken, the 18-year old Irish lass whom Rizal fell in love with in Hong Kong. She was the step-daughter/companion of George Taufer who had cataracts and had sought Rizal’s medical assistance. It turned out that Rizal and Josephine Bracken fell in love with each other. Bracken left Taufer and lived with Rizal in Dapitan. They had wanted to get married by there were complications because Rizal was a Mason. They got married only shortly before Rizal was shot. As his widow, she joined the revolutionary movement, but after the revolution, the American colonial government hired her as a public school teacher in Cebu. Cebu historians will talk about where Bracken had lived while she was in Cebu – somewhere in One of her students was reportedly Sergio Osmeña who later became President of the Philippines. Bracken also taught in Manila, but when it became politically dangerous for her, she fled to Hong Kong. It was there where she met her Cebuano husband, Vicente Abad who worked for Tabacalera, and with whom she had a daughter named Dolores. It was this Abad connection that made me certain the Rizal collection came via the Abad family.

I proved wrong. The collection in Rizal Musuem had belonged to one of Rizal’s younger sisters, Trinidad, who gave the collection to her niece, the daughter of another sister of Rizal, Lucia. The niece, Concepcion Herbosa married Escolastico Duterte who was the former Vice President of the University of Southern Philippines.

The lights in Rizal Museum have to be dim, and the temperature has to be just right, in order to protect the artifacts from disintegrating further. One huge room displays these artifacts. Some treasures in Rizal Hall are: Jose Rizal’s personal clothing, from overcoats, pants, summer clothes, undershirts, to socks that have been meticulously darned. The 1899 and 1900 copies of the novels, Noli Me Tangere ad El Filibusterismo are there with the original receipt from Chofre Printing company. There are genealogy charts and numerous pictures of Rizal’s family members, his home in Dapitan, his prison cell, the place where he was baptized, and more. There is a report card of Trinidad Rizal; a complete set of 1908 Jose Rizal Memorabilia postcards; a 1906 handkerchief with prints of the song, “Canto Patriotico de Maria Clara.”

Photographs of the women Rizal reportedly loved (Segunda Katigback, Leonar Rivera, Gertrude Becket, O Sei San, Suzanne Jacoby, Nelly Bousted, and of course Josephine Bracken His medical books are displayed there. Some of Rizal’s art works, including a carving of Josephine Bracken, crayon sketch of another Rizal-love, Leonor River, and other art pieces are there. A very important treasure in the Hall is the original KKK Kataastaasan Kagalanggalangan Katipunan) flag, which Marily Orosa featured in another coffee table book, The Tragedy of the Revolution.

There are original love letters of Josephine Bracken and Jose Rizal. And there is a letter from Josephine Bracken to Rizal’s sister Josephine Rizal, where one can see Bracken’s evenly spaced handwriting. It is dated May 1894 and references her Hong Kong address. This was clearly written after Rizal and Bracken had met in Hong Kong, but before Bracken accompanied her stepfather George Taufer from Hong Kong to Dapitan to seek Rizal’s medical attention for his eyes.

I fell in love with the drawings by Rizal of Josephine Bracken. One shows Bracken in the nude, reclining on a divan, with two angels near her, one hovering from the top, and one standing and seemingly staring at her stomach. I wondered if this drawing was made after Bracken’s miscarriage in Dapitan, and if the angels had something to do with the child they had lost.

The drawings made me think of Josephine Bracken, the shortness of her life, its turbulence: Her mother died soon after giving birth to her; her military father abandoned her in the care of George Taufer; she lived with Rizal, a man, who was on the hit-list of the Spaniards; when Rizal died, she bounced around, from Cebu, to Manila, to Hong Kong. Perhaps she had a few good years with Vicente Abad, but by the time she was 26, she was dead from tuberculosis.

Those interested in the life of Jose Rizal will discover much in Rizal Musuem, which is in the University of Southern Philippines in Lahug. It seems to be a secret museum that Cebuanos hardly know, except perhaps for students. But I know for a fact that serious Rizaliana researchers always make a stop there to view and study the numerous Rizal artifacts kept there.

And what a treasure Cebu has with these artifacts!

###

Read also
Life in Parian Now
Cebu's 1730 Jesuit House 
The Secret Hall of Angels 
A Story of Hope
Finding Jose Rizal in Cebu
Lola Remedios and her Sayas
Lunch with F. Sionil Jose
Pre-Colonial Gold in Cebu 
~~~
tags: Cebu, Manila, Philippines, history, literature, Jose Rizal, F. Sionil Jose, Cecilia Brainard, lifestyle, 

The Secret Hall of Angels

(This article first appeared in Zee Lifestyle, April-May 2009. The magazine article includes a lot of pictures of Aula Angelorum.)

THE SECRET HALL OF ANGELS
By Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

Tucked away in Cebu in an unknown address is a private religious gallery called Aula Angelorum, latin for Hall of Angels, a name given by a priest after seeing the numerous oil paintings, wooden and ivory sculptures of Archangels that grace the gallery. In fact, the gallery also has paintings and sculptures of saints, the Virgin Mary, and Jesus Christ. This collection of religious icons has been exhibited in the Santo Niño Exhibit at the Folk Arts Theater, the Ayala Mall, the Santo Niño Exhibit at SM Cebu City, and have participated in numerous religious processions. But despite their wide exposure, these statues and paintings return home to a secret place in Cebu, a dazzling whitewashed place that also houses 1950s vintage furniture, Ming dynasty plates, contemporary Chinese porcelain figures, and rare Filipiniana books. Walking into Aula Angelorum feels like stepping into bygone days, a place of Old World opulence and serenity, for indeed a prayerful feeling saturates the place, perhaps from the Masses and prayers regularly offered in here.

While the public is forbidden to know the location of Aula Angelorum, they are allowed to know the name of the owner - Louie Nacorda, who is well known in the corporate world as well as in the worlds of art and culture. Louie does not refer to his collection as material objects but speaks of them as if they are family members. “The child John the Baptist and Jesus Christ – these Baroque-like sculptures hold a very special place in my heart because I am a devotee of St. John the Baptism, and seeing him as a boy already dressed in camel pelt reminds me that John lived an ascetic life even in his youth,” he says.

He has also been heard to say, “I tell them if there is an earthquake they will fall; if there is a fire they will burn, so they better take care of themselves.” Indeed Louie has a quality of trusting in God completely, a trait that can discerned in his calm and gentlemanly manner.

Louie grew up in a religious family, surrounded from infancy by what he calls a “plethora of images – the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Anthony of Padua, St. Vincent Ferrer, St. Joseph, St. Roch, St. Rita, and so on.” His family was the type that did the Lenten Passion chanting (Pabasa) and owned private chapels in their residences. Picking up on his family religiosity, Louie co-founded the Cofradia de San Juan de Bautista de Cebu (with Pepit Gorordo Revilles). He was appointed by Cardinal Vidal as the chamberlain or camarero of the image of Our Lady of Immaculate Conception, the unofficial patroness of the Cathedral of Cebu. The position involves making sure the image and carriage are properly adorned for the yearly celebration; he also coordinates with the Church authorities on the celebration and the procession. He was also assigned overall chairman of the 4th centennial celebration of the arrival of the Black Nazarene of Quiapo from Mexico. He has been appointed as chairman of so many church-based projects, he can’t recall them all.

It followed that Louie and his sisters would carry on the family tradition of collecting religious icons. Louie’s first acquisition was a wooden crucifix which he found in Quiapo in the 1960s, an item which he had picked up for P40. By 1977, he started collecting in earnest, first Philippine furniture, then Chinese porcelain, and finally religious paintings and statues. His archangel paintings are from Peru and are done in the Escuela Cuzqueña style – the Cuzco School of Painting – which merge Spanish colonial and Peruvian indigenous elements of art. One of his favorites in his collection is the oil painting of St. Raphael Archangel, his first Peruvian acquisition. He was sick at the time and since Raphael means the Healing of God, he prayed for his intercession, prayer that was answered.

He has an oil painting of St. Michael, showing the archangel triumphantly smothering the devil with his flaming sword. This particular painting shows the archangel with flamboyant helmet with three feathers, graceful body and androgynous facial features, showing that angels are neither male nor female.

Another Peruvian favorite is the oil painting of Our Lady of Candelaria, which reveals Incan elements in the cloth with multicolored feathers that wraps the Baby Jesus. The Virgin Mary has a black headdress; her clothing is red and her face reveals Inca Indian features.

His recent acquisitions include a hardwood image of Our Lady as a young and innocent pre-teen child (La Nina Maria), which he found in a corner of an antique shop in Ermita and which he found irresistible. The other is that of a young St. Vincent Ferrer, plump and smiling, instead of having the usual stern expression. There is also a life size wooden statue of Christ that used to be on a Cross but which Louie had remade so that Christ’s twisted arms are by his side and Christ now lies on a bed.

Louie says his acquisitions happen by chance. The first attraction is the uniqueness of the piece – uniqueness in style, material, color scheme, and so on; but more important is how he relates to the subject matter. Collecting is addictive, he says, but it’s not about greed or monetary value but the sheer satisfaction of being able to be close to a thing of beauty. At the same time, he continues, it brings you closer to God. The purpose of art in religion is to concretize what otherwise is an abstraction of the divine. Religious paintings and images, as well as architecture is man’s limited way of expressing the limitless, the infinite and so, art really serves its purpose in man. Louie says that when his images are exposed publicly, he can feel the devotion of the viewers surging, their piety intensifying, because of the visual experience they have had.

Louie’s advice to his readers is this: “If you are interested in art, any form of art, just set your heart on it and it will come your way. Do not even think of the logistics (How? How much? Where? When?) Positive desires have a way of becoming self-fulfilling.


In the meantime Louie’s private collection of religious images fill the secret Hall of Angels and cast their blessings far and wide in Cebu.
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Top picture shows Louie Nacorda, standing, in a red shirt.
Next picture shows Louie Nacorda in the brown shirt. Both pictures were taken at the Aula Angelorum.



Read also
Life in Parian Now
Cebu's 1730 Jesuit House 
The Secret Hall of Angels 
A Story of Hope
Finding Jose Rizal in Cebu
Lola Remedios and her Sayas
Lunch with F. Sionil Jose

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tags: Cebu, Philippines, Parian, history, religious, santos collection, Sugbo