At Home with Ino Manalo: The house where history lives

Manila, Philippines - Wait… are those birds a-chirping and butterflies a-fluttering? Yes, we are in a spacious house with white walls, high ceilings, wrought-iron grills, busts of Rizal and Mabini, paneled windows with greens, blues and auburns jutting into view. This is not in Bohol with the faraway hum of kids from the Loboc Children’s Choir, or the gurgling river headed for Busay Falls. We are in the house of historian and culture vanguard Ino Manalo on F.B. Harrison in Pasay City. I repeat, F.B. Harrison. If you go out of the compound, turn left, walk for a bit, you’d see the buses of destruction hurrying blindly on EDSA toward Roxas Boulevard. Just a few blocks away is SM Mall of Asia, for crying out loud. But there is a piece of the province where Ino lives, there are pieces of the past as well.

Ino Manalo — historian, fictionist, illustrator, former museum director, and author of diverse titles (from a book of children’s fables to a guidebook on the house of Emilio Aguinaldo, the home of Philippine Independence) — is currently working on a cultural tourism project with Bea Zobel in Baclayon and Dauis in Bohol. When he was still a student at the University of the Philippines, Manalo encountered professors such as Felipe de Leon, Jack Pilar, Oscar Evangelista, and Armando Bonifacio, who were very adamant or even militant about the need to understand Philippine history and culture as a basis for national development.

Manalo shares, “(History and culture) must be part of our understanding of where our country is going or should go. These (professors) led the way and ingrained in (me) this kind of perspective. I began to do more research about it, travel around the country, and started to understand that there are many nuances about the way we live that (have disappeared) from the national picture.”

Finding out what those nuances are, then afterwards sharing them with fellow Filipinos, is Ino’s advocacy; it is what fuels his fire. And what a joy it is to go on a tour of, say, Quiapo, Laguna, or Bohol with Ino providing “local color” commentary.

I remember being part of this trip where Manalo took us to Baclayon Church, the oldest stone church in the country, with its surreal synthesis of Baroque and Neo-Classical architecture grayed with years, floods and lots of stories; as well as to Tuburan Heritage Museum and the Loboc Museum to get a glimpse of saints in glass cages, silver halos, paintings by Father Alger, as well as saxophones played by legendary Boholano musicians such as Gregorio Sarigumba. Ino could talk about Boholano history for hours. But what about the history of his current home?

“I believe that houses like this one have more to say about how we Filipinos should live,” he explains. He points to the sliding doors and windows. “Bukas talaga, so hindi ka nakahiwalay sa iyong kapaligiran at meron kang interaction sa iyong environment.”

The air circulates. Leaves quiver. And at night the bats come flying out. Bats? Yes, kolonaknit in Ilonggo. Just like the ones that frightened the young Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins.

“And also the way the other houses are situated — bukas din sila. Naririnig naming iyong kapitbahay. Nagi-interact kami with them. May community spirit dito because of the setting.”

Ino’s neighbors include art gallery owner Albert Avellana, percussionist Butch Aldana (formerly of Pinikpikan) who jams with his cohorts occasionally, and an interior designer.

“I used to live in a townhouse, na luxurious pero dikit-dikit at nagkaka-initan sa parking space, so naiiba ang relations ng mga neighbors,” he stresses, adding what a joy it would be to live in the province and lead a more organic, integrated life. “I try to reflect that in my house (on F.B. Harrison). Sana more people with the resources could live this way as opposed to living in those boxed houses and condominiums. This is much more gracious, and really not that expensive. Dito pagpasok mo, kita mo ’yung neighbors. You could say, ‘Uy ang ganda ng damit mo.’ Many areas in Makati are not like this — very expensive real estate, but you don’t even know your neighbors.”

Working in the cultural scene, Manalo has gained many friends all over the world. He gets amazed when he visits the houses of those connected to the field of heritage preservation. “Iyong mga bahay nila mga old houses na ni-restore. Finally now, I feel so proud that I have a home that reflects my philosophy, my views on life.”

The compound was built for middle-income families by the owners of Baguio Oil (“Ang order ni Misis!”) in the late ’40s right after the war. One could just imagine what the place looked like during that era, what with the nearby sea, clusters upon clusters of trees, the fresh and fumeless breeze. But even now, the place where Manalo lives is dotted with all things past, provincial and undeniably Filipino. Very nicely put together. Aside from paintings and sculptures, there are urnas (or elaborately carved or painted home altars from Bohol, which Ino started collecting as a teenager), San Vicente Ferrer figurines, bed-sheets from Ilocos, oars mounted inside a bathroom — everything quirky and quintessentially Pinoy.

“There is practically very little here that is not from the Philippines,” he points out, admitting that he also likes sparse Zen-like interiors, something Scandinavian. “But every time I buy European-style furniture, nasasayangan ako sa pera which I’d rather use to buy something Filipino na mas mahirap hanapin. Iyong mga Western pieces naman tuloy-tuloy lang ang production.” 

Some of the pieces are, according to Ino, “recycled”: items passed down to him by the elders in the Manalo family — from an old vase from his great grandfather to an antique narra bench from his grandmother Loreto Ledesma-Mapa.

He points to his sofa set. “These are very basic 1950s furniture. At that time, hindi pa rare ang narra. Some of the pieces in my dining set are made of acacia wood. They were bought by my grandma at Don Bosco Technical School.”

Ino also brought in accent pieces from the North, from the Visayas, and from Mindanao. He used to have this shop called Tahanan where he worked with Philippine crafts from all over the country and tried to show that the handiwork of local craftsmen could be used in the contemporary lifestyle. Filipino images were integrated into furniture and décor as part of the design such as old photos, maps, the sun with eight rays — local color, as what fiction writers would say. Ideally, says Ino, your home should always reflect your country. And judging from the interiors and décor of his house, the man practices what he preaches. His visitors from abroad can’t help but marvel.

“There was an Ukrainian magazine team that was brought here by the DOT (Department of Tourism), would you believe? Tuwang-tuwa sila.” 

Imagine a reader in Ukraine browsing that magazine, seeing a historian’s house in a land far, far away, and marveling at the exoticism, the elegance, the Ino Manalo of it all.

Just dig it.

The past and the present on the same page.