Casa Lubao“The Lubao House is my family’s ancestral home. My maternal great grandparents, Valentin Arrastia and Francisca Salgado, built the plantation house in Lubao, Pampanga in the early 1900s. It sat directly in front of the Lubao Municipal Hall. From here, they managed their rice and sugar hacienda and raised nine children.

“They were a close knit family, and though the children moved to Manila and other Pampanga towns when they married, they often came home to visit. The grandchildren relished summer breaks at the Lubao residence. They enjoyed sleeping huddled together in the living room and delighted in the visits of Apung Palu, an elderly woman who entertained them with bedtime stories.

Valentin and Francisca died before World War II. Their children maintained the Lubao House as the family provincial home. During the war, the Japanese took possession of the house and used it as a garrison. They had planned to burn it down, but a Japanese colonel stopped them because he had been Francisca’s driver for 10 years, and was beholden by the kindness of the Arrastia family (it turns out he was one of many Japanese soldiers who infiltrated Filipino communities years before the war, pretending to be gardeners and drivers).

“After the war, daughter Juanita Arrastia (my lola) and her husband, Dr. Wenceslao Vitug (my lolo), acquired the Lubao House. She was the most sentimental about the family home and was brokenhearted at the family’s decision to sell it. So my Lolo gifted it to her by procuring a mortgage and buying out the shares of her siblings.

“It became known as the Arrastia-Vitug home. It was their secondary residence, their primary home being in Manila. On weekends, they drove out to Lubao to manage the house and farm, and to attend to the needs of the families that served them. The house remained in Dr. and Mrs. Vitug’s family for three generations.

“The original structure of the house had a wooden upper floor and concrete ground floor, a variation of the ‘bahay na bato’ style of architecture combining Filipino, Spanish, and American design elements. It had large rooms and high ceilings. In typical colonial design, it had a straight, grand staircase that led directly up to the front door.

“My Lola was a very superstitious woman, and when an illness hit her young son, Luisito, she had the staircase torn down and rebuilt with a twist and turn, facing away from the front gate. A structure of lattice wood panels was also built around it to prevent bad luck or negative energy from flowing directly into the home.”