14/08/2026
KALIBO LANDMARKS GONE FOREVER
Remembering the Civic Landscape We Lost
By Ro Akeanon
Every town has landmarks that become part of the collective memory of its people.
They may not always be grand monuments. Some may be a bandstand, a lagoon, a traffic island, a park grandstand, or a roadside structure. Yet over the years, these places become reference points of everyday life. People meet there, children play around them, celebrations are held nearby, photographs are taken, and generations grow up knowing them as part of the familiar landscape of home.
Kalibo, Aklan once had many such landmarks.
Some have disappeared completely. Others have been demolished or substantially altered in the name of modernization, infrastructure development, traffic management, or redevelopment.
This is a preliminary record of some of the Kalibo landmarks that are now gone—or whose original form has been significantly altered.
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1. THE KALIBO BANDSTAND
The old Kalibo Bandstand, believed to have been constructed sometime in the 1930s, was once an important part of the civic landscape of Kalibo.
The archival photograph featured in this article, identified as “Kalibo Plaza Grandstand 1975,” provides valuable visual evidence of the structure and its role as a venue for public gatherings.
Bandstands were important public spaces during the early decades of the 20th century. They provided venues for concerts, ceremonies, community activities and other civic occasions.
The original Kalibo Bandstand reportedly survived until the 1970s, when it was demolished during the redevelopment of Pastrana Park.
Its disappearance marked the end of an important layer of Kalibo’s early public-space history.
A BANDSTAND RETURNS
Interestingly, the story of Kalibo’s bandstand did not end completely with the demolition of the original structure.
A replica of the bandstand was later constructed within Pastrana Park, on the site formerly occupied by the lagoon.
The replica provides today’s generation with a visual reminder of what once stood in the park.
But a replica can never completely replace an original historic structure.
The original carries the physical evidence, materials, craftsmanship and authentic connection to the past that a reproduction cannot fully reproduce.
Nevertheless, the replica represents an important act of remembrance—and perhaps an example of how historical memory can still be incorporated into a modern public space.
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2. PASTRANA PARK LAGOON
For generations of Kalibonhons, the Pastrana Park Lagoon was one of the park’s most distinctive features.
The lagoon was reportedly constructed in the 1960s, creating a unique landscape within Kalibo’s principal public park.
The archival photograph shows the lagoon as an active public space, with people walking across stepping stones, landscaped surroundings and sculptures positioned within the water.
Unlike the park landscape we know today, the old Pastrana Park included a body of water that contributed significantly to its character and visual identity.
However, according to community recollections, the lagoon was eventually covered after a child drowned in it.
The tragedy reportedly prompted the decision to fill in the lagoon as a safety measure.
By the late 1990s, the lagoon had disappeared from the Pastrana Park landscape.
Today, many younger Kalibonhons may find it difficult to imagine that a lagoon once occupied the very area where the replica bandstand now stands.
The story of the lagoon is also a reminder that historic landscapes are not shaped solely by architectural planning. They are shaped by community experiences, accidents, tragedies, public safety concerns and decisions made in response to them.
The lagoon may be gone, but its memory remains an important part of Kalibo’s urban history.
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3. GOLDEN SAROK ROTONDA
Perhaps one of the most recognizable lost landmarks of modern Kalibo was the Golden Sarok Rotonda.
The structure was reportedly donated by Jose Fernandez and constructed in 1973.
With its distinctive golden sarok motif, it became one of Kalibo’s most recognizable civic landmarks and a familiar reference point for generations of Kalibonhons.
For more than four decades, the Golden Sarok stood at an important intersection and became part of Kalibo’s visual identity.
It was not merely a traffic structure.
It was a place of memory and a symbol associated with Kalibo itself.
When plans were made to address traffic congestion in the area and install a traffic-light system, the future of the Golden Sarok became a matter of public concern.
Following public clamor and a public hearing, it was reportedly agreed that the Golden Sarok landmark would be transferred to a new location rather than demolished.
This was significant.
It suggested that modernization and heritage preservation could potentially coexist: the traffic problem could be addressed while the historic landmark could be retained elsewhere.
However, the agreed transfer did not ultimately take place.
The original Golden Sarok was demolished in 2016, and instead of relocating the historic structure, a new Golden Sarok Shrine arch was constructed near Jollibee Mabini.
The replacement structure may preserve the name and symbolic imagery of the Golden Sarok, but it is not the original 1973 landmark.
This distinction matters.
In heritage conservation, a replica, replacement or commemorative structure cannot simply be treated as equivalent to the original historic fabric. The historical value of the original lies not only in its design, but also in its age, materials, craftsmanship, location, authenticity and accumulated community memories.
The Golden Sarok case therefore raises a particularly important question for Kalibo:
What happens when a community agrees to preserve a landmark through relocation, but the agreed preservation does not ultimately occur?
The issue is not whether Kalibo needed better traffic management.
The issue is whether the community’s desire to retain an important landmark could have been honored while achieving that objective.
Today, the original Golden Sarok is gone.
A new arch near Jollibee Mabini carries forward its name and imagery—but the original 1973 landmark and the history embedded in it are lost.
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4. GODING RAMOS PARK GRANDSTAND / “ECHO”
The Goding Ramos Park Grandstand, also remembered by some as the “Echo,” was another familiar feature of Kalibo’s public landscape.
The grandstand was associated with public activities, gatherings and events in and around the park.
It represented an era when public parks were not simply landscaped spaces but important venues for community life and civic interaction.
The grandstand was demolished in 2017 as part of the redevelopment of Goding Ramos Park.
The redevelopment created a new physical environment, but it also erased another recognizable element of Kalibo’s collective memory.
For those who experienced the old park, the disappearance of the grandstand was not simply a change in architecture.
It was the loss of a familiar place associated with particular events, people and memories.
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5. “ALOHA”
Another distinctive landmark that disappeared from Kalibo’s streetscape was “Aloha,” reportedly donated by the Aklan Mossberg Motorcycle Club and constructed sometime in the 1970s.
For decades, Aloha stood as a familiar feature of the town and became part of the visual memory of generations of Kalibonhons.
Unlike conventional monuments, its importance was rooted largely in its familiarity, history and community association.
Aloha was eventually demolished to give way to the construction of a pedestrian overpass at the site.
The pedestrian overpass was subsequently constructed in 2025 and inaugurated in 2026.
The overpass serves an important public purpose by providing pedestrians with a safer means of crossing the busy roadway.
Yet its construction also resulted in the permanent disappearance of another familiar element of Kalibo’s historic streetscape.
This presents an important heritage-planning question:
When new infrastructure is necessary, must an old landmark necessarily disappear—or can modernization and heritage preservation coexist?
Aloha may not have been a grand architectural monument, but its value lay in its history, community association, familiarity and place within the everyday landscape of Kalibo.
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6. ROXAS AVENUE CENTER ISLAND
The Roxas Avenue center island was another important element of Kalibo’s historic streetscape.
The center island was reportedly constructed in the 1960s and later improved through the involvement of the Rotary Club of Kalibo in 1973.
For decades, it formed part of the physical character of Roxas Avenue.
Generations of Kalibonhons encountered it as part of their daily journeys through the town.
The photographs preserved in this collection provide a valuable record of how Kalibo’s streetscape and civic landmarks once looked.
In 2023, the center island was demolished in connection with the Department of Transportation’s biking-lane project.
The project may have had legitimate transportation and mobility objectives. However, its implementation also resulted in the disappearance of a streetscape feature that had existed for decades.
Again, the question is not whether Kalibo should modernize.
It is whether modernization can be undertaken without unnecessarily erasing the physical evidence of the town’s past.
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MORE THAN STRUCTURES: THEY WERE MEMORIES
It is easy to look at these landmarks individually and say:
“They were old. They had to go.”
But heritage conservation asks a more difficult question:
What exactly did we lose when they disappeared?
We lost physical objects, certainly.
But we also lost reference points of memory.
The old Bandstand belonged to the generation of our grandparents.
The Pastrana Park Lagoon belonged to the childhood memories of another generation.
The Golden Sarok became part of Kalibo’s visual identity for more than four decades.
The Goding Ramos Park Grandstand was associated with public gatherings and community activities.
Aloha became a familiar landmark of the town’s streetscape.
The Roxas Avenue center island represented another layer of Kalibo’s post-war urban development.
Each disappearance makes it more difficult for future generations to understand what Kalibo once looked like and how its public spaces evolved.
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WHAT ABOUT THE NATIONAL HERITAGE LAW?
This discussion also needs to be placed within the context of Philippine heritage law.
The National Cultural Heritage Act of 2009 (Republic Act No. 10066) established a national framework for identifying, protecting, preserving and conserving the country’s cultural heritage. The law has since been strengthened by Republic Act No. 11961, which amended RA 10066.
One of the important mechanisms under the heritage framework is the documentation and inventory of cultural properties.
The National Commission for Culture and the Arts explains that a Local Cultural Inventory (LCI) is a catalogue of documented tangible and intangible cultural properties maintained by an LGU. The NCCA also recognizes cultural mapping as one of the ways LGUs can identify and document their cultural resources. (TALAPAMANA)
This is particularly relevant to Kalibo.
CULTURAL MAPPING HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE
Kalibo has undertaken cultural mapping, an important step toward identifying and documenting the town’s cultural resources.
That work should not simply remain a completed project or a document on a shelf.
It should become a living heritage-management tool.
The information gathered through cultural mapping can help planners, local officials, property owners, developers, educators and the community understand which places, structures, landscapes and traditions possess cultural significance.
The NCCA specifically identifies cultural mapping, archival research and comprehensive surveys of heritage structures as ways of developing and maintaining a local cultural inventory. (TALAPAMANA)
That means the work already undertaken in Kalibo provides an important foundation.
The next question is:
How is that heritage information being used when new infrastructure, redevelopment or demolition is proposed?
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THE PHILIPPINE REGISTRY OF HERITAGE
Another important development is the Philippine Registry of Heritage (PRH), or Talapamana ng Pilipinas.
The PRH serves as the central repository of information concerning cultural properties in the Philippines deemed significant to the country’s cultural heritage. The current registry system is grounded in the heritage framework established under RA 10066, as amended by RA 11961. (TALAPAMANA)
The registry is not simply an online catalogue.
According to the NCCA, the registry plays an important role in identifying cultural resources, increasing public awareness, assisting land-use planners and developers, and facilitating the protection, preservation and conservation of cultural property. (TALAPAMANA)
This is precisely why the completion and proper submission of Kalibo’s cultural inventory matter.
If culturally significant properties are properly documented and entered into the appropriate heritage inventory and registry mechanisms, decision-makers have a stronger factual basis for considering their significance before a project results in their alteration or removal.
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DOCUMENTATION SHOULD COME BEFORE DEMOLITION
There is an important distinction between documentation and preservation.
Recording a landmark does not necessarily mean that the landmark has been physically protected.
A photograph of a demolished building cannot substitute for the building itself.
A cultural map cannot recreate a destroyed landscape.
A registry entry cannot restore an authentic historic structure once it has been demolished.
Documentation is therefore not the end of heritage conservation.
It should be the beginning of informed heritage management.
The NCCA itself recognizes the importance of documenting cultural properties and maintaining local cultural inventories as tools for heritage protection. (TALAPAMANA)
For Kalibo, the hope is that the cultural mapping already undertaken, together with the Local Cultural Inventory and the Philippine Registry of Heritage, will help address precisely this concern:
That heritage significance should be considered before—not after—a landmark is lost.
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DEVELOPMENT AND HERITAGE SHOULD NOT BE ENEMIES
This is not an argument against development.
Kalibo needs better roads, safer intersections, improved pedestrian facilities, efficient traffic management and modern public infrastructure.
But development and heritage conservation should not automatically be treated as opposing objectives.
Before demolishing an old structure or removing an established element of the urban landscape, planners and decision-makers should ask:
Is it documented?
Is it included in the Local Cultural Inventory?
Has its heritage significance been assessed?
Can it be preserved?
Can it be incorporated into the new design?
Can it be relocated?
Can the project be redesigned to retain it?
If removal is unavoidable, has its historical significance been properly recorded and interpreted?
And most importantly:
Has the applicable heritage-law and registry framework been properly considered?
These questions become particularly important when dealing with structures and landscape features that have existed for several decades and have acquired strong community associations.
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WHEN PUBLIC CONSULTATION PRODUCES AN AGREEMENT
The Golden Sarok experience also highlights another important principle.
When a public hearing or consultation produces an understanding that a historic landmark will be preserved or relocated, that commitment should not disappear when the project moves into implementation.
There should be a clear record of:
* what was agreed;
* who was responsible for implementing it;
* where the landmark would be relocated;
* what preservation measures were required;
* and whether those commitments were actually carried out.
Public participation is meaningful only when the results of that participation are taken seriously.
Otherwise, consultation risks becoming merely procedural rather than genuinely participatory.
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KALIBO’S VANISHING URBAN MEMORY
The disappearance of these landmarks should encourage Kalibo to seriously examine how it manages its historic urban landscape.
Heritage is not limited to churches, ancestral houses, museums and officially declared monuments.
Heritage can also be found in parks, streets, bridges, public buildings, civic structures, landscapes and ordinary places that generations of people have known.
Urban heritage is, in many ways, the physical memory of a community.
When these elements disappear one by one, the town can gradually lose the visual continuity that connects the present generation with those who came before.
A town can become physically modern while becoming increasingly disconnected from its historical character.
Kalibo deserves better.
As we continue to modernize, let us not make the mistake of believing that progress requires the erasure of everything that came before.
The challenge is to build a Kalibo that is modern, functional and safe—but still recognizably Kalibo.
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BEFORE THE NEXT LANDMARK DISAPPEARS
Perhaps the greatest lesson from these lost landmarks is that heritage conservation must begin before demolition is proposed—not after the landmark is already gone.
There should be a continuing and updated inventory of Kalibo’s historic structures, landscapes, streetscapes and civic landmarks.
The cultural mapping already undertaken should be continuously updated.
The Local Cultural Inventory should be maintained and properly integrated into local planning.
Significant cultural properties should be considered for appropriate registration in the Philippine Registry of Heritage.
Old photographs should be collected.
Oral histories should be recorded.
Construction and demolition dates should be established through archival research.
Government records and project documents should be preserved.
And where a historic feature has to be removed for a compelling public purpose, its historical significance should first be assessed and its memory properly documented and interpreted.
Where public consultation produces an agreement to preserve or relocate a landmark, the implementation of that agreement should likewise be documented and subject to accountability.
The goal should not be to stop Kalibo from changing.
The goal should be to ensure that Kalibo changes intelligently, with knowledge of what it is changing and what it stands to lose.
Because once the bulldozers arrive, it may already be too late.
A city can build something new without necessarily destroying everything old.
And for the landmarks that are already gone, our responsibility is to remember, document and teach their stories—so that they do not disappear a second time from the historical memory of Kalibo.
THE LANDMARKS MAY BE GONE.
BUT THEIR STORIES SHOULD NOT BE.
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RO AKEANON
Documenting Aklan’s History, Heritage and Cultural Memory
Historical note: Some dates, origins and circumstances in this article are based on currently available community recollections, archival photographs and other records and should be further corroborated through municipal records, newspapers, organizational records, project documents and other primary sources. Ro Akeanon welcomes additional photographs, documents and firsthand accounts that can help establish the definitive history of these lost Kalibo landmarks.
Heritage-law note: This article discusses heritage principles for public-history and civic awareness purposes. Whether a particular landmark was legally protected, registered, declared, or subject to a specific heritage-law requirement at the time of its alteration or demolition requires verification from the relevant government records and authorities.
