By Arpee Lazaro

Are you a Filipino overseas thinking of coming home to retire? Or are you an overseas Filipino worker looking for a new home for your family? You may want to consider a place that has majestic rolling hills, a microclimate, friendly neighbors, and the chance to share the same munisipyo with a couple of national artists and some of the country’s most illustrious visual artists. Angono in the province of Rizal has all that and more.

Truly their citizens could never be prouder. Along their little streets you can see various renditions of National Artist Carlos “Botong” Francisco’s paintings and tributes to another Angono son and National Artist for Music Lucio San Pedro. Angono seems to have a monopoly of talent as most of the country’s visual artists hail from this town.

I remembered the time when Maestro Lucio San Pedro’s untimely demise almost went unnoticed as he passed away at the same time as actor Rico Yan, though Maestro San Pedro’s demise was far less controversial and scandalous.

My wife and I joined a tour that started from Highland Pointe, a part of Filinvest’s Havila which is a township of newly developed residential communities. From there we traversed the entire length of Havila’s township, from Highland Pointe to Mission Hills in Antipolo. Some of the roads were not paved, and while I mused through the rough terrain in the undeveloped areas, I realized that this was a good time to buy from Filinvest, while the graders and the backhoes were still at work.

Anyone with foresight could easily see how the township would make a good investment. The weather was outstanding and it wasn’t so far from Manila. Technically, if the traffic wasn’t so bad at the Ortigas extension, it would have only taken us 30 minutes to get there from Makati’s Central Business District. The phone lines in the area were still part of the Manila landline service, and my Bayantel Wireless had a strong signal. My wife bugged me about getting in touch with one of their sales agents, who I really appreciated because they weren’t so pushy with their sales pitch. The view said it all.

From there, we proceeded with our art tour. We met Carlos “Totong” Francisco II, Botong’s grandson. Why he’s the “second,” I don’t know. Apparently, he was the only one who followed his grandfather’s footsteps and went on to be a painter. Though his other US-based cousins were also in the arts (advertising, graphic arts, and multimedia, etc), Totong stayed in the Philippines and put up “The Second Gallery.”

The picture of the metal bull is their door knocker. The door was really old and decrepit and I almost didn’t notice the knocker. Apparently you need to squint at most areas of his home to see the real treasures. Note the detail on the door knocker.

From Totong’s home, we walked to San Clemente church, also known as the Angono Church. So much restoration work has been done on this church that the original façade was no longer apparent. Along the way there were several renditions of Botong Francisco’s paintings done on the walls of the homes along the road. No one seemed to mind having artwork done on their fence. Angono residents seem to live and breathe art.

Lunch was at the Balaw-Balaw restaurant where we were served crispy pata, baked tahong, kare-kare, crispy kangkong, and mangga and talong ensalada. There was also flowing sago’t gulaman for all members of the tour.

After lunch, we proceeded to galleries of Nemi Miranda, a candidate for this year’s Pambansang Alagad ng Sining or National Artist for the Visual Arts. If he wins this award, that would make him the third National Artist from Angono. Indeed, the townsfolk would cheer him on. His daughter, Katrina Miranda-Tuazon, gave us a demonstration of painting still life. She made it look so easy, and best of all, she gave me the piece she worked on. Katrina is member of the Neo-Angono group of artists. I thanked her to no end.

We hopped on the van and we were shuttled to the Blanco family museum. The Blancos is a family of artists, the mom, the dad (the famous Jose Blanco) and all seven kids. The paintings were indeed a sight to see.

Our last stop: the Angono Petroglyphs. From the words “Petro,” meaning rock, and “glyphs” meaning writings, the Angono Petroglyphs were mostly stickman drawings. However, these drawings were carbon-dated and confirmed to have been in existence since 3,000 BC.

Sadly, vandals who carved their own stickman profanities in the volcanic tuff left damages on the original drawings. Care has been made to put distance between the tourists and the rocks, to avoid further damage from would-be vandals. It is still contested whether the Angono Petroglyphs would be considered as a UN heritage site. Right now, it is under the care of the local government and the National Historical Institute.

As they say, “Huwag maging dayuhan sa sariling bayan.” Do visit Angono when you can. Who knows, you just might end up living in Havila and enjoying it.

Arpee Lazaro explores the metro for the best Pinoy food and writes about it at Pinoy Life at Large, while his wife Noreen blogs about “everything pleasant and Pinoy” at Pinoy Life.

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Artists Cry “Censorship!”
Arpee’s Dining at Balaw-Balaw