Story and photos by Bernard Testa
ROOTS are needed for a tree to grow. In the case of young Filipinos, their growth could be traced to a house in Kawit, Cavite, where Independence Day celebration has taken roots.
Thus spoke 76-year-old Jose Venerando Vales, a volunteer tour guide to the Aguinaldo Shrine in Kawit, Cavite.
For one, the dried blood on a gauze pad encased in glass at the Aguinaldo ancestral house has an interesting story.
The pad was left inside the body of Emilio Aguinaldo, leader of the Philippine Revolution, Vales said, reading from a card on the medicine cabinet that displayed also canisters of alcohol and pills. Aguinaldo underwent a second surgery at the Philippine General Hospital to remove the gauze, which Vale said could be considered the earliest undoing of medical malpractice.
The main hall opens to a vast space; its red wood floors bathed with sunlight streaming from wide windows.
The ceiling
Crown molding, probably the Betis-style or Macabebe-style, marks the ceilings. On the wall is a panel with the logo of the League of Nations, predecessor of the United Nations, on top of a letter of application for membership to the League. A panel also displays the sun with eight rays (“Lei Marcial”). The last panel is a Tampingco masterpiece titled “Inang Bayan” (motherland).
Marcha Nacional
The dining room’s floor is tiled with the triangle pattern design, which resembles the first patterns in the early flags of the Kataas-taasang, Kagalang-galang na Katipunan ng mgá anak ng Bayan, the revolutionary movement led by Aguinaldo’s rival Andres Bonifacio.
Wooden columns with designs of the Philippine flag form the legs of the main dining table. A relief map of the Philippines was intricately placed over the other tables, some of which were round, some rectangular—all made from Philippine hardwood. One of the tables will lead to a bomb shelter, one of the many secret rooms in the Aguinaldo home.
The kitchen has a skylight and a water tank, which doubles as a source of hot water for the master bedroom. Next to it is the Veterans Hall.
An Erard grand piano from France is carefully placed before the famous wooden balcony where on June 12, 1896, Aguinaldo witnessed the reading of the Acta de la Proclamacion de la Independencia del Pueblo Filipino by Ambrosio Rianzares Bautista. It was also on that balcony that the national flag—sewn in Hong Kong by Marcela Agoncillo, daughter Lorenza Agoncillo and Delfina Rizal Herbosa—was unfurled. One can almost hear the San Francisco de Malabon band playing “Marcha National Filipina,” a hymn composed by Julian Felipe.
Other rooms
There’s also an indoor pool and a bowling alley. The mezzanine-cum-library also served as a raised space for a band during formal gatherings. From there, the band plays music while looking down at guests dancing on the main hall.
The study room has a secret door going to an attic with a secret passage where one can escape through a window and scale down using a rope to a path toward the Marulas River.
On the third floor is a room offering a view of Tagaytay from one window and Mount Makiling from another. It has a lavatory and a love seat made from hardwood and sulihiya (split rattan). A steep 18 steps to the fourth floor is another room that also has an open balcony where one can see the Cavite shoreline facing Calle Real.
On top of the spire one can see the four corners—north, south, east and west—of Manila.
Vales, visits
The Aguinaldo ancestral home, which was built in 1845, was already getting bigger from the original bahay-na-bato (house of stone) even before the Republic’s first President was born on March 22, 1869. He was the seventh of eight children.
According to Vales, Aguinaldo himself entertained guests, especially young people and students.
The tour guide said it was his love for the Aguinaldos and the house that made him work as a gardener in 1979, then utility and eventually tour guide that made his 28 years in the Aguinaldo Shrine worthwhile.
Image credits: Bernard Testa