Arayat’s Bale Batu: An Artist’s Burial Temple

Bale Batu, a pyramidal-shaped structure at the foot of Mount Arayat, was “hand-made” by a local artist named Jesus Padilla. Apung Susing, as he was known by his fellow artists, spent more than half of his life building this temple out of cement and pulverized mountain rocks he obtained from selling vegetables in the lowland.

” He was adamant about succeeding. “I laughed when he showed me the design drawing and said he was going to build it.”Aside from the unusual element of the structure, I told him he didn’t have any resources, to begin with,” Apung Susing’s wife Teresita explained.

The Bale Batu undertaking began in the early 1970s, but due to financial constraints, it remained a work in progress for nearly four decades. The design, which was influenced by bale pinaud or bale kubu with four-sided constructions, was created by Apung Susing’s vision. Later, the design was changed to add a cone-shaped foundation that supports a cement and pulverized mountain rock top.

Apung Teresita claims that when Apung Susing fell ill, she was summoned by his sickbedside and instructed to prepare tinola (a soup containing tenderized chicken meat).

-Teresita Padilla, wife of Apung susing

Many earthquakes have occurred, but none of them have been strong enough to topple the hand-crafted edifice. One of the primary ingredients protecting the edifice from collapsing, according to Teresita, was a mixture of pulverized rocks generated from Apung Susing’s grandfather’s formula. Apung Susing, who had never finished high school, she claimed, had previously experimented with the component and applied it onto Bale Batu.

Apung Teresita claims that when Apung Susing fell ill, she was summoned by his sickbedside and instructed to prepare tinola (a soup containing tenderized chicken meat). When Apung Susing lay down on the bed that he built for himself out of wood in the center of the Bale Batu, he lost his breath shortly thereafter.

His Bale Batu had become his final resting place. (end)