Owner wants Navotas ‘Century House’ relocated to Bataan

(Last of 2 parts)

MANILA, Philippines — Nory Sebastian, 61, said her husband Eufronio told tales of sneaking into the backyard of Navotas’ Century House and getting a lashing from a hunchback caretaker who served the family.

“We were able to get inside the house a long time ago,” she said.

Sebastian said the house was known as a “museum” because of the horde of preserved animals such as various species of birds, including an eagle.

“There was a preserved eagle, there were santol trees in the backyard and even preserved snakes inside. There were antique furniture dating back to the Spanish period,” Sebastian said.

“When you go inside, you would be scared. The houses then were only nipa huts. Going inside an antique house, you would really gape in awe,” she added.

Gloria Salimpade, who is 63, added that the house used to be called “Bahay ng Bulabog,” which the two elderly women translate to “House of Fright” probably because of frightening stories, such as those of a white lady or a gigantic bat.

Salimpade quickly put to rest “barbers’ tales” about the century-old house.

In an interview with The STAR, 62-year-old Grace Ignacio said the family would not allow the city government to declare the house as a heritage site.

She added that she is in talks with the Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar in Bataan, a known tourist destination where heritage houses have been transferred as a tourism business venture after being uprooted from its original sites.

Ignacio said the house became known as Bahay ng Bulabog because her great-grandfather, Potenciano Gabriel, who built the house, used to wake up his men from sleep to start off a day of work in the fishpond.

Although she confirmed seeing the preserved species of birds inside the house, these have long been divided among the family heirs, leaving nothing but creaking floor panes and capiz windows that are close to falling down on passersby below.

She said the house was named “Century House” in the 1980s, when they set up the antique house as a plastic and linoleum warestore and fondly called it “Century House Merchandise Store.”

The house serves as stockroom for plastic wares store since they closed shop after armed men held up the store and shot dead one of their helpers who tried to escape.

She deemed it costly and beyond the family means to preserve the house, preferring instead to have it relocated in Bataan where it would be maintained instead of handing it to the Navotas government.

Her family is not as wealthy as the surviving kin of Don Ramon Santos, whose ancestral house in Navotas was disassembled piece by piece and rebuilt in Antipolo City.

“We don’t have any plan of preserving it. What we need is the land. Although we hope to keep it as an inspiration, the maintenance is too costly,” Ignacio said.

Asked about losing its historic identity once the house is transferred elsewhere, she said, “Wala namang forever (There is no forever).”

“But why would I give it to the government? Our ancestors worked hard to build the house. The house is our inspiration from him,” she added.