Vigan Calesa Tour

Vigan is the capital of Ilocos Sur. It was the Spanish conquistador Juan de Salcedo who led the construction of the city in 1572. Today, Vigan exudes a rich historical culture. As seen in its old houses along its cobblestone streets, the town is a living relic of Spanish influence. Vigan is by far the best preserved heritage town in the Philippines. 

After an hour of discovering Vigan on Foot, we decided to explore the rest of Vigan aboard a calesa, a vintage-type horse drawn carriage that has been widely used throughout the country as the principal mode of transportation during the colonial era until the turn-of-the century. 

When traveling it is always good to have a map, so we dropped by the Heritage Village Administration Office located along Calle Crisologo to get a map of the city before taking the calesa tour. For 150 pesos an hour, the calesa took us to heritage houses, historical landmarks and cultural centers in Vigan. 

From Calle Crisologo we traveled northwest to the downtown passing Plaza Burgos, the cathedral, Plaza Salcedo, Plaza Encarnacion, Plaza Trece Martires for our first stop –the Burgos Museum. 

The Burgos Museum 

The Burgos Museum is a bahay-na-bato. This house is the birth place of the Ilocano hero Padre Jose Burgos. Burgos finished his studies at the University of Santo Tomas. Throughout his ecclesiastical career he has held important positions at Manila Cathedral. He advocated the empowerment of the secular clergy which is frown upon by the Spanish friars. 

Burgos was implicated in Cavite Mutiny which caused him his life. Together with Rev. Gomez and Zamora, he was executed in Bagumbayan in 1872.  

The museum showcases Padre Burgos’ memorabilia, Ilocano cultural and archaeological treasures and antique collection. The 14-piece Estaban Pichay painting depicting the 1807 Basi Revolt is the included in the exhibit. 

Next to the Burgos house, behind the Provincial Capitol is the Carcel or the city jail. The carcel was the birthplace of the 6^th president of the Philippines –Elpidio Quirino.  

The Syquia Mansion 

The Syquia Mansion is the ancestral house of Doña Alicia Syquia-Quirino wife of the 6^th President of the Philippines, Elpidio Quirino. 

However, Doña Alicia did not lived to become first lady because she was one of the casualties of World War II. Elpidio did not remarry. During his term as president, their daughter Doña Victoria (whose beautiful portrait graces the spacious sala) served as the first lady of the 6^th Philippine president. 

The mansion was the official residence of President Elpidio Quirino and it is claimed to be the first Malacanang of the North. Antique furniture and opulent display of European decor is all around the house. Small scale versions of Juan Luna’s Spolarium, Pacto de Sangre and even the extinct People and the Kings (which the original was destroyed during the Liberation of Manila in 1945) hang on the walls. These paintings were exectued by Juan Luna’s Spanish assistant Respal who was brought to the Philippines by the Augustinians in the early 2oth century. 

The Syquias were among the illustrious political families of Vigan. They share this political prominence with the Crisologos.      

The Crisologo Museum 

On our way to our next stop, the calesa passed by a Baroque structure known as the Simbaan a Bassit y Camposanto. Built in 1882, it is dedicated to the Santo Cristo, popularly revered in Ilocos as “Apo Lakay” who is believed to have saved Vigan’s populace from a plague in 1882. 

The Crisologo Museum houses memorabilia of the late Ilocos Congressman Floro Crisologo. The Crisologos were victims of assassinations. Congressman Crisologo was murdered while inside the Vigan Cathedral. The morbid image of the assassinated congressman can viewed in his legal office on the house’s mezzanine. 

His wife on the other hand, former Ilocos Governor Carmeling Crisologo survived an ambushed while onboard a car on May 10, 1961 at San Juan, Ilocos Sur.

The lady governor is the aunt of former Ilocos Sur governor Chavit Singson who owns Baluarte ni Chavit. However, we’ve decided to skip this Vigan destination and proceeded next to Vigan’s famous bed and breakfast resort Villa Angela.   

Villa Angela

We thought that we had enough of ancestral houses but we were told not to miss Villa Angela, an ancestral house converted into a bed and breakfast inn. 

Tom Cruise is one of the famous celebrity guess of this bed and breakfast resort. The American icon stayed at Villa Angela during the filming of a war movie in Vigan. According Angela Versoza, Cruise stayed in the biggest room in the house called Cuarto del Senor- a room with a king size four-post bed. Rooms such as the Cuarto de los Hijas and Cuarto de los Hijos are filled with heirloom pieces such as four-post beds, tres marias (dresser), kinka lamps, aparador (closet) and comodas (chest drawer).

The house and its rooms were used as the set for the remake of the 1996 film Maruja, a Mars Ravelo classic which starred Carmina Villaruel and the controversial Rustom Padilla now popularly known as Bebe Candaghari. 

Pagburnayan

Burnay is the famous Ilocano jar. It is made in Vigan and traditionally used for storing water, basi, vinegar and bagoong. Pagburnayan is where the clay jars of varied shapes, designs and sizes are made. 

We watched how these burnays are made using one of the earliest inventions of man –the potter’s wheel, which is powered by a series of kicks. Hand-mold pots are dried then are fired in a kiln which we learned was built hundred of years ago. 

Vigan is also famous for making terracotta pots, the well-known Vigan floor tiles and bricks. Terracota bricks are Vigan’s indigenous construction material. This is evident in the old houses we visited and most especially in the town of Bantay where the town’s famous landmark is the all-brick belltower. 

Bantay 

Off the city limits of Vigan is the town of Bantay. The town is the traditional sentinel to the town of Vigan. It was founded in 1591 by the Augustinians where they built a church dedicated to the founder of their order. 

Enshrined in the brick church is the miraculous and the greatly venerated image of the Nuestra Señora de Caridad, possibly the oldest Marian image in Ilocos. Unfortunately, the ivory parts of the 50-inch image (the head and hands) where stolen in 1928. 

The famous landmark in Bantay is the all-brick bell tower which stands on a hill 200 meters away from the church. 

In our recent Ilocos tour, we’ve seen a number of churches whose bell tower is detached from the nave -a characteristic of colonial church architecture in the Philippines known as Earthquake Baroque. 

This is second part of a series. Click for part one -Vigan on Foot, part three – Ilocos Earthquake Baroque

Vigan on Foot

Vigan in Ilocos Sur is a place brimming with nostalgia of a bygone era when the Calesas Rule the cobblestone streets of the former Ciudad Fernandina de Bigan. Named in honor of King Fernando of Spain, it was the seat of the Roman Catholic faith in Northern Luzon for several hundred years.

With its rows of well-preserved ancestral houses and colonial architecture that represent a European trading town in East and Southeast Asia , Vigan was inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List of Site and Monuments on December 2, 1999. 

While traversing along the cobblestone streets of the historic city on foot and later on a calesa, we found ourselves drawn in the stillness and elegance of a setting straight out of colonial Philippines.  

Plaza Salcedo 

After enduring a solid eight hour drive from Manila, we’ve finally reached Vigan and parked our vehicle along Plaza Salcedo. Bound by the provincial capitol, the city hall, the Arzopizpado, and the cathedral, the plaza was the center of secular and ecclesiastical power during the colonial period. It is the same plaza where Ilocano heroine Maria Josefa Gabriela Silang y Cariño was hanged in 1763. The execution site is marked by a white obelisk.

Plaza Salcedo is named after the Spanish conquistador Juan de Salcedo who arrived in Vigan and established Villa Fernandina de Bigan in 1572. Salcedo also built the first chapel that would later evolve into a cathedral which elevated Vigan from a villa to a ciudad. 

Vigan Cathedral 

The year was 1758 when the seat of the ancient diocese of Nueva Segovia was transferred from Lallo, Cagayan Valley to Vigan by virtue of a Spanish Royal Decree elevating Vigan’s status into a city named Ciudad Fernandina de Bigan. This ushered Vigan as the center of ecclesiastical influence in the north.

The Augustinians built a church in a distinctive Baroque architecture with the bell tower situated a distance away from the main church building. At the back side of the cathedral is the Museo San Pablo which is claimed as the first and only museum in the region committed to conservation of religious heritage through a distinct faith-culture approach. 

East of the cathedral is the 18^th century Arzobispado, the official residence of the Archbishop of Nueva Segovia. In 1889, the building served as headquarters to General Emilio Aguinaldo. The arzobispado currently houses the Museo Nueva Segovia which features ecclesiastical artifacts and archdiocesan archives. 

Plaza Burgos 

Off to the side of the cathedral is Plaza Burgos, a landmark tribute to the city’s most illustrious at the same time tragic citizen, Padre Jose Burgos of the Gomburza triumvirate. The execution of priests Gomez, Burgos and Zamora (hence GOM-BUR-ZA) in 1872 was a prelude to the war of independence during the generation that followed.  

It was lunch time when we’ve decided to take a tricycle ride just off Plaza Burgos to bring us to Café Uno, a restaurant and coffee shop housed inside Grandpa’s Inn. Surrounded by Café Uno’s old world ambience, we were served with a hefty lunch of bulalo, chopsuey and the Ilocano favorite bagnet, a fried air-dried pork belly that is a hybrid of cholesterol-filled chicharon and lechon kawali.

 Calle Mena Crisologo 

The stretch of Calle Mena Crisologo is the main shopping area that extents west of the cathedral. Since the stretch is closed to motorized vehicles, only pedestrians and the quaint calesas rule the cobblestone streets.

The clip-clop of the horse-drawn calesas on the cobblestone road alongside with ancestral houses of the Kamistisuhan District (Chinese Quarters) evokes the nostalgia of the historic Spanish colonial era.

 

Our eyes opened wide upon seeing antique religious icons and furniture together with reproduction of their kinds and equally interesting old pieces sold in the many stores that line both sides of Calle Crisologo and its periphery. Part of our exciting experience is to haggle for a price lower that what the dealer has initially stated.

 

For our take home, we both a decorative harp, an old plantsa (iron),  a couple of bauls with mother of pearl inlays and for pasalubong to our friends, we both some souvenir items like the abanico, tobaccos, Ilocano inabel,  a colorful yet sturdy cloth woven in Ilocos and in La Union. We are also making arrangement to have an old comoda and mesa altar delivered to our home.

After a few walks here and there, we decided to take a calesa for a guided tour of the heritage city.

 

Part one of a series. Click here for part two -Vigan Calesa Tour

Dr. Cuanang’s Ilocano-Mexican Weekend Home

 

After spending hours at the Refreshing Silangan Gardens, we went inside the weekend home of premier Filipino art patron, Dr. Joven Cuanang.

According to one of the caretakers, old materials were used in the construction of this weekend home. Salvaged wood were recycled to become doors and beams. Centuries-old bricks from Batac, Ilocos Norte were laid on the interior wall.

 

The rich culture of the Antipolo town is depicted in the various artworks. A huge Elmer Borlongan painting of a traditional Antipolo Pilgrimage hangs with a Phyllis Zaballero acrylic on canvas in the dining area.

 

Another Borlongan painting of an Antipolo Marian procession that overlooks turn-of-the century furniture including a “mariposa” three-seat sofa, butacas (lounging chair) and a marble top center table. A Jose Santos III “tres marias” hangs above the fireplace.

 

A number of art events and private gatherings were held in the spacious interior. At the time of our visit, preparations for the Julius and Tin-tin Babao wedding anniversary were being held. 

 

The Cuanang weekend home was designed by Antipolo-based artist Tony Leaño. The architecture is inspired by Ilocano and Mexican design tradition or Il-Mex. 

Speaking of Ilocano, I am writing this article while spending the last leg of our Ilocos tour in Pagudpod, Ilocos Norte. I’ll be sharing our great Ilocos experience soon. 

Related links: 

Pinto Art Gallery in Hilly Antipolo City

Refreshing Retreat at the Silangan Gardens