The Ordoveza house before the demolition. (THE ORDOVEZA HOUSE IN MAJAYJAY, LAGUNA FACEBOOK PAGE)
THE OLDEST house in Luzon and the second oldest in the Philippines has been demolished without any national culture agency or local government unit coming to its rescue.
It will be reconstructed at the controversial Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar in Bagac, Bataan, sources said.
Owned by architect and construction and development mogul Jose Rizalino Acuzar, Las Casas Filipinas has been buying up very old houses around the country, demolishing and reconstituting them in his hometown in Bataan. He has made the complex of reconstructed houses a “heritage resort.”
Although Acuzar has been praised for saving the structures, he has also earned criticism for removing them from their original geography, thus destroying their physical, social and historical moorings.
Since Bagac is a seaside town, Acuzar has also been criticized for exposing the structures to the elements that might only hasten their deterioration.
Casa Ordoveza was constructed in 1744. It is believed to be the oldest bahay-na-bato in the country after the still-existing Jesuit House (built 1730), now the Museo de Parian, in Cebu City.
In the journal article, “Casa Ordoveza of Majayjay, Laguna: The Evolution of a Provincial Ilustrado Family (1637-1990)” published in the Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society in March 1991, historian Luciano P.R. Santiago writes that Casa Ordoveza was located on what was then “camino real” or the royal street (now Blumentritt Street) built by Majayjay gobernadorcillo Don Lorenzo Pangotangan.
Pangotangan (moneylender in Tagalog) changed their family’s surname to Ordoveza in 1849, notes Santiago.
Santiago takes notice of the historical significance of the dilapidated but still at that time, surviving, structure.
“The longevity of the Ordoveza house as well as its continuous possession by the same family for two-and-a-half centuries,” writes Santiago, “constitutes a rare occurrence in the Philippines, a country which has suffered since time immemorial from many a calamity both natural and manmade.”
Last year, a book about the house and the family was published. “Casa Ordoveza: The Story of an Illustrious Filipino Clan” was authored by Santiago.
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