Vigan: A touch of romance, dose of nostalgia

Author: Camille Pilar
Column: Life & Entertainment

One will never know what it is like to be a Filipino until one has visited Vigan.

Vigan, a name once or twice encountered on the Philippine map, somewhere up in Ilocos Sur, a place made familiar by the tinge of history lessons, of identity gained and lost. Yet it is a place buried in books, a fairy tale place scratched out of this country’s consciousness more attuned to economic instability and personal gain. Through periods named after invader after invader, and within the time frame of buildings built and battles won and lost, we have arrived here, the 21st century where no one bothers to bend backwards and glimpse at what we were like once upon a time.

It is almost impossible to imagine that Vigan used to be an island. Centuries ago, it was surrounded by interconnected rivers streaked with water plants, one of which is the origin of the place’s name. Vigan, in all its antiquity and surprising yet gentle touches of modernity, is a place with personality. Vigan is the old, wise character in this country’s story.

“Once upon a time” is all the time in Vigan and such is the wondrous air about the place. It is the third oldest city in the country, but far more preserved than Cebu and congested Manila. While Intramuros and Magellan’s Cross have given way to a new colonizer—progress—Vigan basks in untouched historical glory. After all, at the heart of Vigan is a love story. It was the love of a Japanese officer for a Filipina that spared the place from America’s bombing spree. Today, the same vein of love and salvation throbs in every street and corner of Vigan.

A page out of tine

I first stepped on Vigan Street—cobbled, not cemented—after a 10-hour bus ride from Manila. The moment my shoe kissed the ground, I knew there was something special there, and all dizziness from the bus ride disappeared like magic.

Yet magic is mere understatement. What Vigan cleaves to is time, culture, history, our story. Things better than magic because they hold no trick, they are real. I was once a student of Philippine history but in Vigan, I was its comrade, its longtime friend.

I found myself at the entrance of Plaza Salcedo: to my right was the municipio, exuding the air of centuries-old State affairs amidst the fresh coat of paint, and to my left was the grand Vigan Cathedral, whose tiles are as old as our country’s name, with its belfry towering over every head and every roof in sight. There I was, a witness to the once marriage of Church and State. The city hall and the church were built side by side at the town center by Spaniards bewildered by the number of tiny, separate (thus unconquerable) barangays in the islands, as an effort to integrate the communities in an urban planning project we have come to learn as the reduccion. This plaza complex still stands in Vigan today, and for long minutes, I could not shake off the chill of experiencing firsthand what it was like to be bajo la campana or under the bell.

All roads across all barrios in Vigan lead to the town center. From the center, I, along with another writer and our tour guide, meandered into lanes which boasted stone houses with sliding capiz windows and narrow balconies. They were uniform in size, big and boxy, though each house had a slight peculiarity—daintier brass lamplights, intricate woodcarving by Chinese artisans on the doors, roofs, pipes and gates—to set it apart from the houses beside it. These houses were actually mansions, the closer you lived to the plaza, the richer you were.

We found a cozy place called Grandpa’s Inn at Calle Bonifacio and there we found elegant rooms, an exquisite restaurant and a lovely little coffee shop inside an authentic Spanish house converted to accommodate the said amenities. The stone walls bore the cracks and corners of age yet they stood formidable as if they were built only yesterday. An antique piano was on display and around it were different wind instruments, and the setup was reminiscent of bands that entertained the elite at parties in the bulwagan (ballroom). Huge paintings and dioramas covered the walls and antique tables, benches, typewriters, telephones and vintage sewing machines turned tabletops filled the place with a touch of romance and a heavy dose of nostalgia. These were feelings conjured in almost all the houses in Vigan.

After settling in our rooms, we were welcomed by an Ilocano feast for dinner at Kusina Felicitas. We were served various interesting dishes such as the bulbulong salad, a medley of kamote and ampalaya leaves, and the poqui poqui, an eggplant omelet. Our main meal consisted of baby back ribs and the renowned bagnet, a pork dish similar to the lechon kawali, and the famous Vigan longganisa came in the morning. Only in Ilocos can you use the words “sensual” and “cholesterol” in the same sentence.

The next day, I woke up to the sound of calesas clip-clopping outside my window. It was a soothing sound unlike any sound in the city, where we wake up to the rude grumbling of tricycles and various car engines. The vehicles of choice in Vigan today are either motorcycles, compact enough to zip through the tiny streets, or the calesas, a not-so- quiet reminder of our colonial past. These horse-driven carriages are a living testament to our colonization, as horses did not exist in the islands before the Spaniards came.

Making poets weep

A first-time traveler to Vigan, I traversed the many in-roads on foot, forefinger poised above the camera shutter. A few turns took me to Calle Crisologo, the main heritage street lined with restored houses, souvenir shops, antique shops and other centuries-old memorabilia. If there was one place in the entire world melancholic enough to make the poets weep, it would be Crisologo Street. Crisologo is most memorable for its expanse of cobblestones, stretching over a kilometer, where local and tourist feet slow down on purpose to breathe in the sights of antiquity and linger a while longer to appreciate the majestic mix of Chinese, Castillian and Mexican architecture.

One need only step into the Syquia mansion for time to stand perfectly still. The mansion was a dowry from the parents of Alicia Syquia to Elpidio Quirino, president of the Philippines from 1948 to 1953. The original residents of the mansion, the Syquias, were part of the Chinese mestizo elite. Heavy wooden chests, intricate beds and benches, fine-detailed figurines, Spanish mirrors and collections of trinkets, unmoved from their original positions, bore traces of the old Galleon trade and Chinese mercantilism. Contrary to the myth, we could not find Quirino’s golden toilet anywhere, but three original Amorsolo paintings added all the needed prestige to the place. How the mansion thwarts theft is a secret known only to the current caretaker, who is a fourth-generation Syquia himself.

History is alive in Vigan every day yet not too many people are aware of it. To reawaken the ardor for origins, Vice Mayor Franz Ranches and lawyer Everin Molina spearheaded this year’s weeklong celebration of all things Vigan. The festivities in Vigan started on May 1 to celebrate Labor Day since Isabelo de los Reyes (considered the Father of Philippine Labor for establishing the first labor union in the country in 1902) is from Vigan. Isabelo is the son of Leona Florentino, a poet during the Spanish era, and is known to be the mother of Philippine women’s literature.

The festival also highlighted the province’s premier products, fine abel iloco fabrics and the burnay jars, the production of which is a skill passed from mother to daughter, and from father to son. A strand of modern culture is interwoven with the old in contests such as the Barangay Idol and the Vigan Amazing Race, where the clues and destinations revolve around Vigan’s colorful tale.

As the afternoon sun rose on, the cobbled streets burst with the music and colors of street dancing with each dancer’s costume carrying a different story.

“Viva Vigan!” the crowd exclaimed. I looked around a sea of faces—locals, foreigners, enthralled city-dwellers—all oblivious to the sun’s heat, smiling, laughing along with feet pounding the pavements in a rhythm in sync with our heartbeats. As the cameras clicked away, the bell tower looked on, surveying its nth fiesta in a span of four hundred years.

At the end of it all, one can retreat into one of the pews in the Vigan Cathedral and silently thank the heavenly Father for places like Vigan, not choked but gently stroked by the hands of time across the turns of many centuries. There, a McDonald’s with capiz windows, a marketplace of mixed dialects, a calesa awaiting passengers, and there, a young couple sitting on an antique bench, a longganisa vendor, a painted carabao. Vigan restores the historian and awakens the poet, the Filipino, the dreaming child, in whoever visits, re-visits and finally, stays.

Source: Manila Standard Today

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