Agenda treats Rizal’s home

Termites do not just threaten our most-treasured homes— they can also wreck havoc on our historical and cultural legacies as well.

After all, they are unmindful of the structures they infest so much so that they will not even spare the ancestral home of a national hero like Dr. Jose Rizal in Calamba, Laguna.

"Termite infestation is one of the biggest problems we face every year," says Ludovico Badoy, executive director of the National Historical Institute (NHI), the agency tasked with the preservation of Philippine antiquities and historical monuments and sites. "And we spend hundreds of thousands of pesos just to keep them at bay."

NHI’s Architect Veronica Dado, adds that most ancestral homes are made of wood.

"And the home of Dr. Rizal is even surrounded by trees," she says.

Wood, as we all know, is the staple food of termites. From their central colonies, they can create tunnels in the soil in constant search for wood to eat. These often turn out to be dead trees or, unfortunately, wooden structures like our homes.

Once they find cracks and crevices in structures like these, they will bore into them or, worse, create pencil-sized mud tunnels from ground levels to where their wood frame begins. And this can happen in only a matter of months.

"These are national shrines," says Dado of the sites under the NHI’s care. "We should be very careful in maintaining them. Hindi lang dapat basta-basta. These are our legacies to the future generations."

This is why Pycor, Inc. and Agenda have made it their mission to help agencies like the NHI in preserving historic sites such as Dr. Rizal’s home.

The NHI recently signed an agreement with Pycor for free comprehensive termite and wood treatment of the national hero’s ancestral home.

"We are very happy to have civic-minded companies like them to help us in this problem," says Badoy.

Pycor, one of the country’s leading pest control product distributors, is known for introducing innovative products and pioneering groundbreaking programs. Pycor has commissioned Rentokil, a leading pest control company which extensively uses Agenda to administer treatment for the Rizal Shrine.

For more information on Pycor and Agenda, please call the Agenda Toll-Free Customer Service Hotline 1-800-10-TERMITE (for PLDT subscribers) or (02) 732-0778 or visit their website at www.agenda.ph.