Gone

I feel very very sad. I dunno why I only blog here when I'm sad and I certainly would not want this to be a habit but here I am updating this blog because I'm sad.

Tonight, my photo artist friend Babak Niaraki and I drove around the city to look for subjects to photograph for the pictures for my poetry book. We were looking for doors. Good doors. Solid doors, bamboo doors, battered doors, shattered doors. Basta, doors. We passed by my favorite ruins. This is the Laguda Mansion at Gen. Hughes St., near Colegio del Sagrado Corazon De Jesus. He told me that a new hotel was being constructed, and I didn't realize what he was telling me until I saw that the ruins were gone. Nothing left! Everything was cleared out and the hotel he was telling me about will rise in the same exact spot where the ruins were.

It broke my heart! Gone! Nada! Nothing.

I have always been proud of those ruins. I have always found deep mystery and beauty in those ruins. Remember an old post I wrote about Fort San Pedro, calling the place my secret sanctuary? These ruins are actually somewhere near, and every time I'd go to Fort San Pedro, I would pass by these ruins all the time.

Those ruins have always meant so much for me. I find beauty in the structure. It represented so much for me and it has always been poetic for me. I always told myself that if I had the money, I would buy the property, secure the ruins by checking its structural integrity and augmenting it if needed be or restoring it, then having an open air cafe on it. Now its gone. Razed and bulldozed to the ground. I dunno what else to say. My heart simply bleeds. I feel at a loss.

Here are photos taken from the net of how the ruins looked like.



Credit: Photo above by Marcos Chymera exploreILOILO.com
Suceeding Photos from http://ilonggos.net



I scanned my old friendster account remembering I once posted pictures I took with my cellphone camera. I found two. Only two of them.


Tonight I mourn yet another personal and artistic loss. No more grand photo shoot by the ruins. No more performance poetry sessions to be held there. No more book launch. Goodbye my favorite ruins.