MANILA, Philippines - I like my 19th century fresh.? Joey Panlilio was rephrasing the famous line of fashion giant Karl Lagerfeld who was explaining in one interview his fuss and fascination with his mansion in Montecarlo.

Panlilio, a hardline advocate of heritage and conservation, doesn?t have his own mansion to speak of. What he has is perhaps even better. As executive director of Museo De La Salle, he has the ambitious task of the maintenance and growth of what is arguably the biggest lifestyle museum in the country-biggest in terms of size and bequeathed acquisitions.

The light showers had just cooled that humid October day last year, when the Museo held La Naval procession. The intermittent rain didn?t dampen the candlelit procession that brought the resplendent carroza bearing Nuestra Señora del Santissimo Rosario de La Naval around the Museo. In fact the fine-as-needle rain was like a gauze curtain through which you glimpsed the tableau of a procession as it slowly went past the aged trees around the Museo. As the endless threads of candlelight stirred in the dark, you felt as if you were sneaking a peek into a past long gone?an intruder into a century of genteel lifestyle, elaborate rites and pious devotion to the Virgin.

That night, true to his word of keeping the 19th century ?fresh,? Panlilio replicated that tradition for his 21st century guests on a 21st century harried pace. We say harried because many of the guests were caught up in traffic, and a few, like us, had to leave shortly for Makati because it was a busy Friday evening.

But for that ethereal moment, the Virgin of La Naval had the limelight all to herself, on that all-white carroza covered with pristine white blossoms and glistening silver accents. It was her coming-out event in a way, her image recently retrieved from the Santos Joven-Panlilio?s ancestral home that was buried in lahar in Bacolor, Pampanga. (The image has been with the family since the 18th century.)

The vast two-story Museo De La Salle is an act of both retrieval, conservation, and as we learned from Bro. Andrew Gonzalez?s message of 2003?an act of ?letting go.?

Today marks the anniversary of the cornerstone laying in 1998.

Now on its eighth year, it draws foreign and local tourists to the nearly 30-hectare campus of De La Salle University in Dasmariñas, Cavite, a 45-minute drive from Makati. Indeed it is a good weekend destination. (Museo is open Tuesdays to Saturdays, and by appointment, on Sundays.)

A reproduction (in liberal terms) of the 19th century Filipino ?bahay na bato,? the Museo has the architecture details, furniture, home accents and art objects of a 19th century Christian home.

Today there?s a café on the ground floor where guests can dine overlooking the garden, and upstairs an azotea where they can have merienda amid the scent of sampaguita or champaca.

The garden, now available for wedding receptions and other events, has old Philippine trees and flowering plants.

As many know now, the Museo was the vision of Brother Gonzalez, FSC. When De La Salle opened its college in Cavite, Brother Gonzalez knew that to build a community, the La Salle Brothers had to go beyond academics and science, and into sports and culture. Having built the Palaruang De La Salle gym, he shifted his focus to building a church, reminiscent of medieval villages where the church would be the center of settlement. Even then the De La Salle community had already patterned its 28 hectares after the Hispanic ?pueblo? in the style of Vigan and Intramuros?with ?puertas? along the old Aguinaldo highway.

Pinatubo

Then came the Mt. Pinatubo eruption in 1991 and in 1994, the lahar that buried towns of Pampanga, among them the historic and culture-rich Bacolor.

?God works in mysterious ways. We need to discern the signs of the times, see His finger writing on the wall?? Bro. Gonzalez said in his message at the Museo blessing in 2000. ?The museum we are dedicating is a product of boldness, chance, risk-taking, but likewise vision and faith.?

Lahar buried Bacolor, its houses and its priceless heirloom pieces, including those in the ancestral home of the Santos Joven-Panlilios. ?I suggested to him [Jose Ricardo or ?Joey,? a son of the Panlilios] my dream of building a 19th century Philippine Spanish house on the Cavite campus,? Brother Gonzalez recalled in his message. ?My idea was to retrieve the work in Bacolor, dig up what could be spared, provide the Panlilio family a repository of their collection??

With the full support of the entire De La Salle community led by Bro. Roly Dizon, the museum was built. Major remnants of the Santos Joven-Panlilio home?from the house parts to the colonial furniture?were incorporated in the Museo.

Christian heritage

Also behind the Museo, aside from Brothers Gonzalez and Dizon, were Bro. Armin Luistro, FSC, Bro. Edmundo Fernandez, FSC, Bro. Gus Boquer, FSC, president of DLSU Dasmarinas; Dr. Carmelita Quebengco, and Bro. Manuel Pajarillo, FSC.

Brother Gonzalez explained in his 2000 message, ?My dream is to make this corner of Cavite and the province a place where Christian heritage will be maintained to give the present and the future generations of students a feel for the rich past that Joey and I experienced as young people growing up in the post-War; living the liturgical cycle of the calendar with its observance of Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter done with traditional processions and celebrations??

In time the Museo became the repository of family heirlooms, including furniture, donated or lent for long-term display by some leading collectors, notably Marie Theresa Lammoglia-Virata, Paulino and Hetty Que, Vicky Vizcarra Amalingan, Jaime Laya, Fe Sarmiento-Panlilio.

In 2003 came the biggest turnover to the Museo from a family?the Philippine lifestyle collection of Domingo and Carmen Guevara. The collection consisted of about 700 objects collected through the decades by the industrialist and his wife-from furniture to indigenous fabrics, photographs.

Letting go

Brother Gonzalez himself donated his clan?s heirloom possessions?those of the Arnedo-Gonzalez family of Sulipan, Apalit, Pampanga.

At the turnover rites in 2003, Brother Gonzalez titled his remarks ?The Fine Art of Letting Go??an articulation that bore a mix of exhilaration (over the process of acquiring fine objects), melancholia and ultimately, acceptance and humility in the face of mortality.

His words of wisdom: ?The joy in the process of acquiring, exchanging, purchasing, completing a collection and then displaying it for optimal benefit of those interested in the field is often more important than the acquisition activities themselves. What happens then when one has had this fulfillment and one is in the process of slowing down and inevitably facing the prospect of mortality??

He said that one inevitably realized that institutions?more than families and heirs?have greater chances of passing these culture objects down the generations.

Brother Gonzalez talked of his own separation from the family heirlooms: ?Having gone through a similar experience with our own family?s modest collection, so painstakingly collected by my grandparents and parents, I built up some of the collection not much in furniture but in crystal and silver, and now in the last phase of my life realize that I must let go and let go graciously, to the point of making it a fine art.?

Indeed the Museo is both a retrieval of the past, and relinquishing of it. It is man?s surrender to time.