YAP-SANDIEGO

“In 1614, the church of Parian was built. Then after around 60 years later, the house was put up,” said Sandiego, who is a descendant of original owners Don Juan Yap and his wife Doña Maria Florido. The couple’s eldest daughter married Don Mariano Sandiego of Obando, Bulacan–who was then the cabeza de barangay (barangay chief during the Spanish colonial period) of Parian where the structure is located.

 

The house’s roof and walls are 95 percent original, according to Sandiego, making this edifice that he and his family continue to live in during weekends a little over 300 years old.

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The things inside are not nearly as ancient as the structure but some, like the huge mirror in the living room, are over a hundred years old. The mirror that now adorns the second-floor wall of the Sandiego ancestral home was used on several occasions by Negros native Pantaleon Villegas, better known as Leon Kilat, who led the revolution against the Spaniards in Cebu in 1898.

Some of the images of saints have missing hands, stolen or sold because these were made of ivory which was how they used to do them back then.

Sandiego, who acquired ownership of the house in early 2000, did expensive restoration work on the structure in 2003 and has since opened it and his antique collection to the public.