CARCAR FAMILIES: A Genealogy Blog for Carcar

Timoteo Barcenilla-Petrona Alcordo House

(of Leon Kilat notoriety; also known as Dodoy Jaen’s House)

Jose Rizal   St.

Erected:

present owner: Leto E. Sato

——-

Hands down the biggest and architecturally the grandest house in Carcar. A microcosm of the interweaving of Carcar genealogy can be viewed through this house–that is, for people with the eye and stomach for byzantine intricacies. And if there’s to be a historical heritage structure in Carcar that should be preserved, this house is it–with particular emphasis on the very room the hero was did in. The others have to be the ruins of the original church at Tuyom (or Sialo), the various watch towers and the present church. No other Carcar spot comes close. Many other homes and landmarks are specimens and beautification projects at best, but these sites I mentioned (maybe together with the Ocaña-Napo archaeological-subject hills) are the ones with real historical bearing.

[Addendum (20-Oct-2009): Ang kalimot wa’y gahom (Forgetting is no excuse). Another house with potential historical value is the family home of Archbishop Teofilo Camomot who died in 1988, and for whom a cause for sainthood had been advanced. Once the beloved monsignor makes even beatification, forget the so-called So-and-So ancestral houses, the Camomot House is going to crowd the “Leon Kilat” as the most important house in Carcar. Along with his transplanted grave at the DST convent in Valladolid.]

When Leon Kilat was killed in the house in 1898, the spacious azotea was not yet there I was told. But it was since that single incident that the house won its hundred years of fame in Cebu history.

At the time of Kilat’s assassination, the owner of the house was Don Timoteo Barcia Barcenilla (Kapitan Tiyoy) and his wife Doña Petrona Alcorisa Alcordo. Petrona’s brother, Doroteo, was himself another gobernadorcillo of the town but had died two years previously. The tailor called to measure Kilat for a uniform, Segundo Alcoseba Alcordo, was a son of another brother of Petrona, Lucio.

Segundo Alcordo’s son became one of the more famous products of the town: engineering professor and Dean, Amancio Alesna Alcordo.

Capitan Tiyoy Barcenilla and Petrona Alcordo’s only child, Felipa, married Segundo Alcoseba (first cousin of Segundo Alcordo) in 1881. The union’s descendants include the two grandchildren–the brother generals Emilio and Alfonso Alcoseba–and the Sandiegos. Felipa and Segundo Alcoseba’s son Vicente wrote the saga of Leon Kilat’s death in Carcar, Ang Kamatayon. It is a gripping story, especially since Vicente himself was present in the house when Leon Kilat was killed. Kapitan Tiyoy died in 1907.

But how and when ownership of the house was transferred, probably the respective families would know, but it did change hands to Don Leocadio Jaen (Kapitan Kadyo), also a major player in the Leon Kilat story. Leocadio’s wife was Anacleta Noel and his sister Victoria was the mother of Filomena Jaen, wife of Florencio (Kapitan Insyong) Noel.

In any event, Leocadio died in 1906 and his son and only surviving direct heir, Vicente (Dodoy) Jaen, inherited the house, but since he and his wife Francisca Alegado Mercado had no children of their own, after their deaths, the house was assumed by the daughters of Dodoy’s older half-sister, Josefa Regis (daughter of his mother Anacleta Noel by the latter’s first husband). Josefa’s younger brother, Antonio, is the forefather of the Regis families of Gen. Luna st.

Josefa Regis was married to Nicanor Ocaña Enriquez by whom she had three daughters Andrea, Soledad (Sofia in Baptismal) and Antonina (Antonia in Baptismal). Antonina’s son Leto Sato now runs the house. Talk of the town is how also keenly interested are other collateral heirs. All kinds of rumors about deals and sales are passed around town. The naughtier of the gossips (and most of them are naughty) all concur Leto, a lawyer, will not take these claims lying down–lying maybe, but not lying down, the quip goes.