INFANTA, Quezon – Five steps of mossy concrete stairs and three pillars remain in front, surrounded by cracked, coarse walls and thin columns with surprisingly rust-free steel bars protruding from the top. Rows of concrete beams that once supported wooden floors lay a few feet above ground.

The nearly century-old Gabaldon-type school building has been reduced to its present state of deterioration in one corner of the compound of the Infanta Central Elementary School in Infanta town in northern Quezon. Iron sheets on its porch fence off students loitering on the grassy lot staked with banana plants.

“I have fond memories of the Gabaldon. It’s my only other connection to Infanta, other than the Church. And so it pains me to see it sitting the way it is right now,” said Mila Garcia Glodava, president of the US-based Metro Infanta Foundation (MIF). The nonprofit organization unites Filipino expatriates living abroad through an Internet website to initiate and fund worthy causes back home, especially in northern Quezon.

Together with the Infanta municipal government and the Infanta Central Parents-Teachers Community Association, the foundation launched a P15-million project to restore the Gabaldon building on July 25 in a program complete with brass band music, song and dance numbers.

Unfinished business

The proponents aim to raise the amount through solicitations, donations and other activities for the rehabilitation work that is expected to be finished by 2011.

Infanta Mayor Grace America told Glodava that her reelection “made me realize that God is so good in giving me additional time to work on my unfinished business.”

“I think the local government and the people of Infanta are now ready to accept the challenge of restoring the school building which was instrumental for what we are all today,” America said. She called Gabaldon “the most dominant structure for education, the center of learning” of the past in which many residents learned their ABCs.

According to the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, the structure was named after Assemblyman Isauro Gabaldon, author of Act 1801 of the National Assembly, which provided an appropriation of P1 million for the building of elementary schools throughout the country.

The original design of the Infanta structure, when it was constructed from 1911 to 1916, housed nine classrooms, a library, a property room, a principal’s office and an assembly hall. It had concrete posts, wood floorings and walls, capiz shell windows and doors made from hardwood species from the Sierra Madre, the MIF said.

The town “presidente,” Gregorio Rutaquio, donated the land, said retired diplomat Rodolfo Arizala, citing the book about Infanta titled “Labong ng Kawayan” (Bamboo Shoots). Arizala now resides in Santiago, Chile.

During World War II, Japanese soldiers used the Gabaldon as headquarters and garrison where many Filipinos were imprisoned and tortured, he said. It was destroyed during the war but rehabilitated under the War Damage Act of the United States after the liberation and used again as an elementary school building.

Alumni recollection

Councilor Zenaida Sol, 69, who graduated at Infanta Central in 1951, still vividly remembers the U-shaped Gabaldon. It then had 12 classrooms – two in front and five each in both wings – all with wide capiz shell windows.

“Both wings had concrete stairs leading to the open cemented space in the middle which was used as venue for school programs and other school activities. Nowadays, it is used as drying space for palay,” she said over the phone.

She said the building was used only by Grade 5 and 6 pupils. When she reached Grade 6, one of the classrooms was converted into a library, she said.

In his recollection in the MIF website, a certain Cocoy muses in Filipino: “I remember the seesaw, the flagpole, staircase, corridors and wooden slabs of flooring made shiny by coconut husks, the wrought iron railings and capiz windows which made electric fans unnecessary because of the cool breeze from the farm.”

Councilor Rex Gamara, who graduated from the school in 1985, remembered most the spacious library. “Gabaldon was one of the school buildings on the campus but what only remained of it during our time was the huge library. There were no more usable classrooms then,” he said.

Gentle breeze

“With the gentle wind freely rushing in, the library was really one conducive place for reading books and making assignments,” Gamara said.

He said that after their graduation, the Gabaldon was no longer used. This led to its total deterioration.

America recalled that the building was again heavily damaged at the height of Typhoon “Yoling” in 1972. But because the government had no funds for its repair, it was not rehabilitated.

Glodava said she began entertaining the idea of rebuilding the Gabaldon in a visit to the country in 1995. After several e-mail exchanges, formal talks between the local government and the MIF started in 2003.

In 2004, however, a typhoon hit northern Quezon and derailed the school reconstruction plans as the entire community focused its attention on projects to revive the town and put people back on their feet again.

“I’m glad though that my persistence seems to be paying off. Now all parties are involved,” Glodava told the Inquirer in an e-mail.

The MIF vows to raise $200,000 (roughly P9 million) as its share of the Gabaldon project. It started raising funds last year and has already donated $50,000.

“Gabaldon is (part of many) fond and special memories (of) Infantahins. Its rehabilitation has long been everybody’s dream. We’re all excited to see her rise again,” Glodava said.