‘Artistic murder’

What in heaven’s name could have happened between February 2012 and June this year that made Melvin Balagot change his mind?

Balagot is the former Manila city building official who approved the permit last year for the demolition of the old Meralco building in Ermita, Manila, an Art Deco structure designed by architect Juan Arellano in 1936, and whose facade features relief sculptures by Italian expatriate sculptor Francesco Ricardo Monti.

The Meralco building has been bought by a company called Greenville Realty Development Corp., which was planning to put up a McDonald’s fast-food outlet in its place. But conservationists took notice of the demolition and raised a ruckus about the thoughtless destruction of another precious heritage building, appealing to the owner to preserve at least the structure’s facade and allow for the building’s adaptive reuse. By this time, much damage has been done; the old building was hollowed out, and only the four-story sculptural relief by Monti, called “The Furies” after the Greek deities of vengeance, was left more or less intact—give or take a head and an arm that were cut off when a cast was made in an attempt to replicate the sculpture.

To his credit, Greenville Realty president Wilson Cham, realizing the value of his property, met and talked with the conservationists. Manila City Hall also issued an order suspending the building’s dismantling. But recently it was found out that Balagot signed another demolition permit on June 7 this year, a few weeks before a new set of elected officials was to enter City Hall.

Now it’s full steam ahead for the obliteration of the Meralco Head Office, a building that architect Paulo Alcazaren (quoted by Ivan Anthony Henares of the Heritage Conservation Society) has described as “one of the key urban edifices in burgeoning Manila, the headquarters of the power and transportation company Meralco (Manila Electric Rail and Light Company). It was one of the most modern commercial buildings in Manila before the war and was designed in the Art Deco-streamline style. It had the country’s first air-conditioned office spaces (Carrier)…”

Why is its demolition being allowed to continue? Because, said architect Wilkie de Lumen of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines: “This is privately owned by the Cham family. It is now the prerogative of the owner since it was not declared a national heritage. Plus, the building was already condemned by the city building official.”

One can forgive the likes of Balagot for issuing the demolition order. Perhaps, like nearly everyone else, he didn’t know much about the building’s cultural and historical importance. The new owners, too, are not the chief culprits for this desecration of heritage; they had bought the dilapidated property in an aboveboard transaction, for straightforward business purposes, and apparently came to know of its unique and significant provenance only later, when the issue had exploded in the media.

The party that should bear the blame for this shocking case of neglect is clearly the government. Despite Republic Act 10066, or the National Cultural Heritage Act of 2009, which mandates the preservation of historic buildings 50 years old and above, why was the old Meralco Head Office not declared a heritage structure or a cultural property, and thereby conceivably spared the wrecking ball despite a change in its ownership?

Its historic and cultural worth is unassailable. Arellano was one of the Philippines’ foremost architects, while Monti, who came to the country in 1930 and stayed for 28 years, saw many of his works become part of Philippine public spaces—among them the sculptures atop the University of Santos Tomas’ main building, the relief murals adorning the lobby of Far Eastern University’s administrative building, the cast of St. Dominic de Guzman at Santo Domingo Church in Quezon City, the bas relief at the doorway of Iloilo City Hall, and the statues in the main building of the University of the Philippines-Visayas.

Henares quotes architect Manolo Noche as saying that “more than any other works by Monti, ‘The Furies’ is his one big commissioned bas relief that is not religious in nature. This should be declared a national work of art. If lost, this is tantamount to artistic murder.”

If the government does not step in, one more crucial link to our past is bound not just to bite the dust, but to become dust, literally—gone for all time. This is criminal carelessness of the highest order.