El Hogar Filipino | The Filipino Home

It is with a heavy heart that we here at La Familia Viajera have accepted the sadly undeniable fact that there will be no more stopping to the mindless destruction of the El Hogar Filipino, one of Binondo's most iconic edifices.

El Hogar Filipino.
Postcard image courtesy of delcampe.net.

Well, you might say that it's just another one of those abandoned buildings in dirty Manila surrounded by street urchins. You're right. So what's the fuss? Why bother bringing my family there? Why not to a mall or a park where it's safer, cleaner, more enjoyable for the kids, even?

But me and my wife are not like that. We value our Filipino Heritage and Identity. At this early stage in our children's lives, we feel the need to teach them about the importance of heritage. They have to learn to respect it. Disrespecting heritage is tantamount to disrespecting one's national identity, for heritage tells the history of its people, its struggles, vicissitudes, and triumphs.

Never mind if this building has just turned a century this year. Never mind if this building once hosted best-selling Spanish novelist and politician Vicente Blasco Ibáñez in 1924. Never mind if one of the designers of this building was renowned engineer Ramón de Irureta Goyena, half-brother of equally renowned lawyer and poet Tirso de Irureta Goyena. Never mind if Ramón, together with architect Francisco Pérez Múñoz, designed this now beleaguered building in the Beaux-Arts style, an intricate architectural design similar to that of other iconic buildings in other parts of the world such as the Palais Garnier in France, the Buenos Aires House of Culture in Argentina, the Manitoba Legislative Building in Canada, and the San Francisco City Hall in the USA just to name a few. Never mind if this building was built as a gift to the union of Antonio Melián Pavía ("El Conde de Peracamps') and Margarita Zóbel y de Ayala (sister of Enrique Zóbel y de Ayala, the great grandfather of Ayala Corporation's Jaime Augusto and Fernando). Never mind if El Hogar Filipino was one of the very few buildings that survived the last great war...

Krystal, Juantio, Momay, and Jefe in front of THE FILIPINO HOME. To their left is Calle Muelle de la Industria; to their right is Calle Juan Luna. This building also faces Río de Pásig (right beside Calle Muelle de la Industria).

...let's not even bother with the fact that the owners of this building named it El Hogar Filipino which when translated into English will come to mean as "The Filipino Home". There are a million possible choices for a name. But they chose instead to call it The Filipino Home. There was a reason for the name...

My boys in front of the building, playing with an old brick. Geniuses.

...but never mind all those precious facts which seem worthless to those who don't give a damn about this decrepit old building. What matters right now is that, at the very least, and during this building's final moments, I was able to bring my wife and our five children to this very historic building and let them enjoy its marvelous façade even if just for a few minutes of their lives.

"Never too young to begin your appreciation of heritage."
—Gemma Cruz Araneta—

I know that protests against the impending destruction of this building will be all for naught (that is why we took pictures of ourselves with this building this afternoon for posterity, for remembrance, so that our children will be able to show their children and grandchildren that once upon a time they had trod upon historically sacred ground), because the powers that be, whoever they are, are just that: powerful, sly, greedy. According to one priest I interviewed sometime back, heritage conservation is virtually hopeless in a Third World country such as ours.

But we don't give a damn either. We will continue the protests, even in our own little way. Yes, like the Army & Navy Club, Admiral Hotel, and Michel Apartments before it, we know that El Hogar Filipino will surely suffer the same fate. Nevertheless, we will continue the protestations because that is the right thing to do. Simple as that.

We here at La Familia Viajera STRONGLY condemn this heritage crime!

STOP THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FILIPINO HOME! For it is not merely a building you are destroying... you are destroying THE FILIPINO HOME!