I've long wanted to visit this place and after braving the three-hour drive to Bagac, Bataan, I was finally able to. Sitting on a vast property close to the sea, Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar is a heritage resort where 18th to early-20th century Philippine houses, or casas , from several parts across the country have been rebuilt and clustered together to resemble a colonial-era Philippine community. There are mansions, stone houses, and even wooden houses on stilts, replete with cobblestone streets, sidewalks, and even bridges. The setting sun casts a silhouette, framed beautifully by an arc from one of the casas. I must admire how the resort owners have scoured the archipelago for such decaying structures, disassembled them, and then reassembled them -- brick by brick, plank by plank, as they say. Not that this endeavor, apart from being business-driven, has been spared from criticism from some sectors who argue that they aren't actually preserving them because the ho