It is the oldest house in Tiaong, but long abandoned and decaying from disuse, a relic historied with elements of a colonial past and a war-time occupation by the Japanese, rebuilt from the damage wrought by the bombardment during the American liberation. Now it stands, a dying landmark, prey to vandals and petty thieves stripping it of wires, doors and metal scraps, lovers seeking a trysting place, treasure hunters still in search of Japanese caches of treasures.

The imposing stone structure with the central garden sculpture built in the mid-1920s, is a testament of the efforts and conceptions of two men: Isidro Herrera and an architect of great renown in his time, Tomas Mapua.

The garden sculpture of Elias - in the middle of the horseshoe-shaped pool - was inspired and drawn from Jose Rizal's El Filibusterismo. The sculpture of the half-naked Elias, in his brawn and bravado, subduing the crocodile, holds frozen in time the smoldering rage of the filibusters against the Spanish dictatorship.

Alas, for some, the crocodile has also stood as a symbol of the bourgeosie's cruel greed, and Elias, the common man that takes up the struggle against the collective burgis.

Of the house, many say it's haunted. Headless soldiers in Japanese uniforms. An elderly couple in regal white descending the circular steps. The dragging of chains. The rattling of doorknobs. The heavy cold air that wraps you as you enter the rooms. Some say the spirits have claimed the space and have joined to hinder and stall all efforts to sell or demolish it.

Some of us still suffer a connection with it, a common bond with a shared past, hoping, searching for a way to save it. And I, one of them. I was born in that house, haunting me with memories of the halcyon days of a childhood wrapped in trimmings of provincial gentry, fondly remembered, not for its previleges, but for the wonderful windows that opened, that took us to ricelands, the coconut plantations, the hills and rivers of rural Tiaong, the warmth of its people, the color of their endless stories and mythologies. . . and inevitably, the reason to come back.

Yes. . . the old house, i visit it frequently. It has been stripped empty; the rooms now open, mere joists and beams. Still, easily, when I close my eyes, the sounds of a bygone past engulf and sometimes, a cold air that gently embraces me. Yes, that old stone house, it is both that. Haunted. . . and haunting.