We have a new office

We are pleased to announce our new office at the 2nd Floor, The Pinnacle Business Center along Ricarze St., San Jose, Antique. The entrance is by JF Mart. Our new office will have a dance studio and a gift shop, and in the future maybe an art gallery. Visit us there.

Datu Lubay Toys Museum

Welcome to Datu Lubay Toys Museum. After almost a year of renovation and preparation, we are ready to open the museum. Official opening is scheduled on April 25, 2010. Here is the gate, along Progreso St., made of old bed posts. The house is covered by a thick foliage of mango trees. We do not want to cut the branches, though.

The entrance is of antique kitchen doors. It's called the Door of Ten Blue Moons.

This is the first section of the gallery: An exhibit of international costume dolls. We have porcelain dolls from Japan, Korea, China, Thailand, and a collection of Precious Moments dolls. There is a cloth doll form Kenya, terra cotta doll from India, also a collection of Wizard of Oz dolls given by Peter Nery. We also have a Cory Aquino doll and a Sam Milby doll among the Philippine dolls collection. Still wanting a display case is the Barbie Dolls of the World collection.
This is the section on performing arts. We have Chinese masks, Burmese, Indian, Indonesian puppets, Sarawak ritual dolls, Vietnamese water puppets, miniature musical instruments, etc. Our pride is the Ramayana quartet by original Bangkok Dolls, and statuettes of Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, and Strauss from Austria, and a bust of Homer. These Western masters are displayed alongside Asian folk musicians - a terracotta band from Thailand, for example. The legong dancers and water puppets are displayed with Sesame Street!

We are still doing the Balay-balay (Play House) section and the toy cars section.

Datu Lubay's first project

Datu Lubay Center gets its first project as implementer of the Lihok Bisaya in Antique. Lihok Bisaya is an intercommittee program in the Visayas of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts. The task is to develop sustainable creative industries in the area. Our site is Barangay 4, San Jose, where the center is located. It is also an opportune time for the center to make its impact in the community.
Phase 1, ground-working the plan is being implemented this quarter. We will have our first organizational workshop this weekend (Oct 25-27) at the Gov. Santos Capadocia Memorial School. In the works are meeting with technology resource persons to train on livelihood production.
The center is now holding office at the ground floor of Balay ni Datu Lubay. The second level will be renovated as the museum of toys

Datu Lubay Center logo

The Datu Lubay Center logo symbolizes creativity, peace, and beauty. Like a lotus flower or hands clasped in prayer, it symbolizes the creative space and force that it envisions.

Datu Lubay House turns green

DATU LUBAY HOUSE along Gobierno Street

The repainting of the Datu Lubay House is going on. The roof has been painted with red oxide and looks brand new. The wall facing Gobierno Street is done. Now it looks like a humongous blackboard. My mother said it looks like an elementary school. Well, Datu Lubay House is an alternative education center. The school image would do well.

Why the house is blackboard green is by circumstance. I went to buy paint from a friend's hardware store. I wanted the house to be a bright, sunny yellow to make it a cheerful house by the corner. But there's only one can of egg yellow enamel paint left. I needed two cans, so I asked for an available color. There was apple green, which I thought was close to the original color of the house. There were traces of light green on the wooden walls. So i picked up the apple green, but when the painters started, it was a dark green - pine green must have been more apt. To break the boring blackboard facade, I asked them to paint the windows white. I guess it will be OK for the meantime. Painting the concrete base wall and the adjacent structure, which is a sari-sari store, a light green will do the trick. The painters are now working on the Progreso Street side of the house. After this we have to stop the job and wait for additional funds.

Datu Lubay House

The Datu Lubay Center is now being renovated. I have sequestered a house my family has inherited from an unmarried grandmother. This house by the corner of Gobierno and Progreso streets was owned by our great grandparents Emiliano Delos Santos and Felicitas Esguerra. It has been left in almost decrepit condition, although still habitable.

We started with fixing the roof yesterday. Today, the carpenters are fixing the overhang for the lower windows and the latticework for the upper windows fronting Gobierno streets. Next we shall repaint it to make it more cheerful, and start remodelling the ground floor for our office and work shops. I still upstairs for the meantime.

The Datu Lubay House shall be the home of the Datu Lubay Doll Collection; eventually we shall turn it into a children's museum. It is a quite ambitious project, but we are optimistic we could do it. We already have outlined the modules for the exhibits. Eventually there will be an extension for the entrance side facing Progreso street.


This is how the house looks now. The carpenters have torn down the window eaves above the lower windows.

The carpenters fixing the roof.

The facade along Gobierno Street. We are fixing the windows and repainting the walls a cheerful yellow. This house shall soon be the Datu Lubay House.