(#1) Charmed by Lizares Mansion

(By Tony Mina)

Haunted as it may have seemed to be in the past decades, eerie stories about the Lizares Mansion in Tabuc Suba, Jaro, Iloilo City could be just shoved aside as urban legends or mere folktales that may have spread by word of mouth  around the city. 

Standing firmly in the course of history, the mansion exudes magnitude and firmness, unwilling to let go of the glorious past; standing regally, the mansion is a telltale that Jaro was once a bastion of the wealthy landlords in Panay Island.
The Lizares Mansion was designed by a foremost architect of that time by the name of Architect Andres Pardo de Tavera Luna de San Pedro, the son of Juan Luna.  A  fusion of American and Spanish architecture, it still is one of the most elegant structures in Iloilo City.
Built in 1935 and finished in 1937 by Don Emiliano Lizares for his wife Conchita Gamboa and their two sons and three daughters, the mansion has two main floors, three separate labyrinth-like basements (now buried under hardened mud after a series of floods that hit the area) and an attic.
It has a winding wooden staircase, the steps of which are made from hardwood and with intricately designed railings of solid irons. It has large bedrooms and was said to have 59 doors which indicate the intricacy of its layout.
When World War II broke out, the family left for a safe hiding place in Pototan, Iloilo. The mansion was then used as headquarters of the Japanese army. 
It was believed that the basement was turned into a dumping ground for tortured Filipinos.
The family reclaimed the mansion right after the Liberation of Panay; but life was never the same again. In 1950, Don Emiliano Lizares died and his widow left for Manila, leasing the mansion to a businessman who turned it into a casino. The city mayor later ordered that the casino be closed, claiming that it corrupted the Ilonggos. After that, the mansion was left to the hands of a caretaker named Tio Doroy Finolan who, with his wife, kept intact whatever was left by the Japanese occupation and the eventual attack by the Ilonggo guerillas.
In 1962 the Lizares Mansion was sold to the Dominicans, and subsequently in 1963, was converted into a House of Formation for young Dominicans in the Philippines.

It must have been during those Sunday masses held in the chapel, that  the tales of  Mang Macio (not his real name) arose to give proofs to the eerie stories of the place. He alleged to be one of the Ilonggo guerrillas who pillaged  the Japanese fortifications of the mansion during the Liberation of Panay from the Japanese Imperial Armies.  His detailed stories of Japanese soldiers caught and brutally hanged from the railings of the ballroom (now converted into a chapel) were so alive in his memories that he would attend every Sunday mass but chose to stay outside the chapel.
He would add, that not wanting to die in the hands of the guerrillas, the Japanese garrison opted to hide in the basement under the staircase awaiting formal surrender.  Irate and vengeful, the Ilonggo guerillas poured drums of gasoline into the Japanese hiding place, and set them ablaze.
Mang Macio's story may have just been a baseless heroism and valor to brag to the younger generation until recently when a resident priest of the mansion, Fr. Larry de Dios, OP, showed this writer some charred chunks under those molded slabs at the base of the staircase.

(Most rooms have at least four doors that lead to either baths or  connected to another smaller room)

(The kind of hinge that was prevalent in most architectures in 1930's)

(Old stainless faucet with octagonal base)

(Don Lizares had penchants on auspicious number 8s of Chinese Astrology)

In 1978, the Lizares Mansion compound became the home of Angelicum School Iloilo.

A loosened hardwood moulding at staircase's base revealed some proofs of charred planks that bespeak of the tortured and burnt Japanese invaders who occupied the mansion during the second world war.

  

The Lizares Mansion was indeed a witness of a tumultuously depressing period.  It was barely inhabited by the real owners before it could be squandered to the filthy hands of the Japanese, thereby smearing its alluring stance with bad vibes and ill repute.

But time heals all wounds. Its regal beauty protected itself from being known as just a haunted dwelling.  The scars of the past  were now redeemed. And the mansion claimed another level of glory.