OLD TOWN TAAL: A HOP, SKIP AND JUMP AWAY FROM MANILA

Visit to Taal, Batangas maybe 15 years ago left me with the pleasant memory of a small, charming hill town, awash with history and heritage homes that benefitted from a healthy population of local individuals interested in preserving these for posterity, converting them into house museums, restaurants and characterful accommodations.

- LISA ONGPIN PERIQUET

Our hosts for this 2024 trip, Mike and Patty Rodriguez, were one such couple, having purchased land in 2013 with a fantastic view of Taal Lake on which they built a farmhouse-style resthouse. A few years later, they bought an uninhabitable antique house in the town, probably from the 1850s, which they dryly refer to as "the ruins," and painstakingly restored it. Both properties now function as bed and breakfast-type accommodations in the different settings of town and country. Mike, with his longstanding interest in Philippine history, also had a hand in the recently concluded restoration of the shrine of Our Lady of Caysasay, a beloved and ancient religious icon of Taal heritage.

Finally fulfilling a yearlong standing invitation from the Rodriguezes, my sister Joanna Duarte, friend in heritage Ivan Man Dy and I drove two hours and a bit on a rainy day last September to revisit "old town Taal." While tooling along the Palico-Balayan-Batangas road on the outskirts of the town, one could already spot many antique houses, adaptively repurposed.