The new chartreuse house

The Mercado/Rizal family lost their property in Calamba some time before the execution of their second son, our National Hero Jose Rizal. The Spanish friars who then ruled our country took their land away and sent them out of Calamba. They were not alone. This affected their neighbors as well. Their grandiose stone home — bahay na bato — was burned to the ground. The family settled in Old Manila, somewhere in Tondo. There they stayed until long after Rizal’s execution.

The Americans who later took over the Philippines decided to name Jose Rizal as its national hero. They went to see his mother Doña Teodora and offered her the return of the family’s Calamba property. She told them they were not the only ones whose property was taken. “If you will return ours, then you must return everybody’s,” she said. “That would be fair.”

The Mercado/Rizal family never got their Calamba property back. Since it was expropriated by the Spanish frailocracy sometime in the late 1850s, it has always belonged to the Philippine government. Maybe that is why it has been mishandled so much.

It was early on a Monday morning when my cell phone rang. It was Tessy Pettyjohn, who lives in Calamba. “Have you seen the Rizal house? They have painted it yellow-green,” she said. No, I hadn’t seen it and why yellow green? “It looks awful,” she said. “My friend who lives near it is enraged. I will go and take pictures.” I knew immediately that it was something to write about but I also knew I could not write about it unless I had gone to see it myself and I couldn’t do that until the following Saturday.

The week passed with the flurry growing. Saturday I finally went. There it stood painted yellow green or chartreuse. That’s the sophisticated term for the color, also the brand name of some esoteric liqueur of my childhood. I expected to find angry people picketing on the street. I heard the local situation described as “verging on revolution” but it looked like an average Saturday morning. No one was there except the standard handful of Saturday visitors looking through the house. Malou, of the National Historical Commission, was there. She had become a friend of mine when I moved to Calamba. She was smiling pleasantly. “What’s happening here, Malou?” I asked. “I hear people are on the verge of revolting.” 

We stood in front on the side of her office staring at the now chartreuse house. Apparently there is a group of people who don’t like it, mostly the Calamba residents. They really hate the new color. I told Malou I couldn’t blame them.  I think it’s strange myself. Historically, it’s a bahay na bato and those were always painted white not chartreuse. It jolts your eyes. Malou handed me a piece of paper distributed to all visitors. It read:

Brilliant green stalks of rice blanketing lush fields are a common sign among lowland Filipino farming communities. Then and now, verdant rice fields heralding an abundant harvest teemed in Calamba, Laguna. 

Among the town’s successful farmers in the 1850s was the family of Francisco Mercado, who adopted the surname Rizal from the Spanish “ricial” meaning green fields, indicating the family’s occupation as cultivators of the land. To honor the memory of the Rizal family and their way of life, the National Historical Institute (NHI) choose (sic) to paint the Rizal Shrine Calamba in hues of green. This choice is appropriate in the 19th century Philippines, the upper stories of the bahay na bato were painted in a variety of bright tints.

This must be from the NHI chair Ambeth Ocampo, a good friend of mine. It still pains my eyes. I still believe it should have been repainted white but there’s nothing I can do except say that. Malou and I went upstairs. Inside the house is as bare as it used to be. The walls and ceilings are also newly repainted – yellow walls, blue ceilings, inside a chartreuse house. 

Malou said she had talked to the head of the Rizalistas Reyna Yolanda. She said something like, “At last, colors of the environment. He was a real environmentalist.” I suppose that meant that the Rizalistas approved. What about the Knights of Rizal? I asked but just then Malou ran into a group of visitors who demanded her attention and I didn’t get a reply.

Then Tessy called again. What did I think? “I don’t like it myself,” I said, “but what do you want to do? Are you demanding an instant repainting? Because if you are I don’t think they can do it. This is budgeted and that budget has just been spent.”

“I guess the group there has decided to go with what the family says,” she said.

“But the family does not own the property,” I said. “It belongs to the government. I find the color unpleasant to the eyes but I must agree with Malou, the manager. She says at least it has raised Rizal attention again. People are talking about him again and from NHI’s position that’s good.”

Is it good or bad? Depends on the beholder. Can we do anything about it? We can whine and get enraged but in the end, it will remain chartreuse until the next repainting.

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