Locals of Biñan in Laguna will definitely not forget the day that their city won for them a piece of history. After countless court proceedings, midnight deals, and even family disputes, the city has made history that now signals to define its identity for the future generation.
In 2010, word spread like wildfire that the 600 square-meter Alberto House was to be sold and transferred to Bagac, Bataan.
The 200-year-old ancestral house of Teodora Alonso, Dr. Jose Rizal’s mother, sits right at the heart of Biñan, fronting the city’s Rotonda and plaza, with the old municipal building and Iglesia on its left. It is where our national hero’s mother lived before she got married.
More than 140 years after Rizal’s stay at his mother’s ancestral home, the Alberto House’s present owner, Gerardo Alberto, reportedly sold the house to Jose “Jerry” Acuzar, owner of Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar, a heritage resort in Bagac, Bataan.
The city government allocated P55 million to purchase the property and to reconstruct, to as close to the original design as possible, the house, using adobe bricks and hardwood, according to a report from the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Part of the plan is to build a museum that showcases Rizal’s maternal ancestry on one wing and a bed and breakfast on the other.
Biñan City Mayor Walfredo “Arman” Dimaguila Jr. said the Alberto Mansion should complement Rizal’s heritage house in the hero’s hometown in Calamba City, also in Laguna.
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