Roperos: Gabaldon buildings

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

THE move at month’s end by various groups to restore what to me is a historical education landmark in our country is a sound cultural plan with strong social overtone. I recall that the term Gabaldon was implanted in my memory early in childhood when, at two years old, I would go on afternoons to the school where my mother was a Grade 1 teacher.

Our house was near the concrete four-room low school building, the first in a row of three buildings of the Balamban Central Elementary School. The far end on the west side of the school grounds was a wooden one called Ybañez building. At the center, also made of wood, was another one that looked older and was painted with a fading green. At the east end, along the provincial road, was the concrete Gabaldon.

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It was in that building where my late mother, Cirila or Lilang, taught. She was one of the seasoned primary grade mentors who were considered tough because they “broke the ground” of the fresh minds of six and seven year olds of our town. I didn’t know then that the building was called Gabaldon.

The first of the four rooms of the squat structure was assigned to my mother. She used to have me taken by one of her pupils so I could play in the school ground. It was not until many years later that I learned that the Gabaldon building was named after the man who passed a law appropriating money to have the buildings constructed in many parts of the country.

Assemblyman Isauro Gabaldon of Nueva Ecija authored a measure in 1907 providing for the construction of buildings patterned after the bahay kubo. It had “a standard design of high ceiling, spacious rooms and corridors and wide windows made of capiz shells.” Restoring the Gabaldon buildings is one of the projects of the Department of Education, the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc., School Rehabilitation Programs, and the League of Municipalities (Cebu).

The initial target is to restore 35 Gabaldon buildings in 11 towns in Cebu. To raise the needed funds, Cebu Province, Rafi, and Cebu Artist, Inc. “are holding fund-raising exhibits featuring paintings that depict Gabaldon buildings in Cebu. Proceeds will be shared between the artists and the restoration program, which will receive 60 percent.

The 40 percent will go to the artists and cost of the exhibition.”

To this day, the Gabaldon building remains both a historical and cultural symbol in our town, on top of being an educational one. During the war, it became an impregnable bastion of Japanese occupation forces, making it a coveted treasure-hunting ground for post-war treasure hunters who believe that beneath the building soldiers had buried a portion of Yamashita’s treasure.