The Balay ni Tana Dicang, an ancestral house located in Talisay, Negros Occidental, joins other houses in the province that memorialize their previous owners by being turned into museums and in the process, assuring their preservation as veritable historical landmarks. In 2002, I was able to visit the two most popular models of such houses: that of the Hofilenas and the Gascons.

What I still vividly remember is that of the Hofilenas, in part because of the energetic Ramon Hofilena who gave our group a very insightful tour in and around Silay City where the antique houses are located. The Hofilena house is remarkable because of its extensive art collection. If my memory serves me right, I saw works by the old masters (Hidalgo and Luna), National Artists (Arturo Luz and Joya) and even sketches by Rizal—not to mention a nude sketch of Ramon himself during his much younger days.

Adjie Lizares, great grandson of Tana Dicang (the matriarch of the Alunan-Lizares clan and after whom the house was named), states the difference of the Balay from the previous two mentioned. “First of all, it is a generation older than the two,” he says. “I know that the Gaston house (which is now Balay Negrense Museum) was built in 1917 and the Hofilena house a decade or so later. Architecture adapts and evolves because of the various influences. Ours is a bahay-na-bato-at-kahoy.”

Despite of such differences, Adjie remarks that the family is happy and proud in contributing another destination to the list of “must-see” sights in Negros. Other houses of note in the list are the Bernardino-Jalandoni (the Pink House in Silay), and the Balay ni Tan Juan Araneta in Bago City. Collectively, the houses bolster the province’s reputation as a haven of cultural heritage and speak about its prosperous past. Negros Occidental, it should be pointed out, was the sugar capital of the world. Individually, the houses, as fine examples of domestic architecture, “have their own distinct stories to tell.”

What makes Balay ni Tana Dicang unique and abreast with the present times is the presence of a gallery devoted to exhibiting the works of contemporary artists. Called the Capitana Gallery or CGallery, it is painted in white, features spot lighting and evokes a modern feel. With its decided local focus, CGallery affirms Negros Occidental’s position as an artistic powerhouse. October (the month when the Masskara Festival is celebrated) will see “Negros Current,” an exhibit featuring the works from the important artists of the province. Albert Avellana is the in-house curator, bringing his expertise in framing artworks in a domestic setting.

The site of Capitana Gallery used to be the original commissary of Tana Dicang where she stored the produce from the family’s farms and “traded the same for wages or for ready money.” The structure of the commissary, says Adjie, “is a floating wall system” where nothing permanent was affixed to it. This means that space can easily be enlarged with minor modification. 

The Balay ni Tana Dicang features other activity areas as well. “The zaguan, which is the silong of the ground floor, is a hall we named after Lolo Inyong (designed) for changing exhibits or functions,” Adjie says. “Here, we had choral groups perform matinees, fund-raisers for over a hundred people, and ‘Dangal ng Lahi,’ (a show featuring) the achievements of the National Artists.” The front garden, on the other hand, will be ready to host social events by December.

As the museum is privately funded, Capitana Gallery and other Balay’s extensions (including the forthcoming museum shop) “are designed to financially sustain the activities of the house—majority of the Balay’s finances are utilized for maintenance of the structure and (payment for) the staff that we need in order to continue our programs. The house should be able to provide for itself and we hope to achieve this within the next three years given to us by the Board of Trustees of the Efigenio & Enrica Lizares Foundation, Inc.”

Adjie admits that the museum is still a “work in progress” and that the family, given the available resources, is doing its best in preserving the integrity of the house, introducing functionality without losing its old-house charm and restoring it to its original form—a gesture, Adjie says, that will make Tana Dicang smile in heaven.

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