Catholic funeral mass · Family home & parish · Lipa
Andres Villanueva
White flowers, open door · May 2026 · Five nights of visitors
“He asked to be home. So we brought everyone home to him.”
The wake for Andres Villanueva — Lolo Andres to four generations — was held at home, in the sala where he had taken his coffee every morning for forty years. Five nights, the door open, the way he had asked.
His granddaughter Bea kept the schedule: which night the cousins from Batangas City would come, who was bringing food on Wednesday, what time the prayers began. Nobody had to ring the family to ask — the page said where, and when, and how to send an abuloy for those who could not come in person.
The nights
Neighbors came after dinner and stayed late over coffee. The photographs the visitors took those evenings — hands held, old friends arriving, the room full at eleven at night — went quietly into one gallery, where the family found pictures of people they had not seen in years.
From Dubai
His eldest son, Ramon, could not fly home in time. He kept vigil on a screen — the funeral mass and the interment streamed live from the parish — and the family propped the phone where Lolo would have wanted him to stand.
What they said
- “He asked to be home. So we brought everyone home to him.” — Bea, granddaughter
- “I watched the mass from Dubai with my own children beside me. We were there.” — Ramon, son
- “That is what he was to this street.” — Mang Ben, neighbor
The palette
The team
The Villanueva family used one page to tell everyone where and when — the vigil nights, the mass, the interment — collected every photograph in one gallery, and kept the door open for family abroad through the live stream. The abuloy went straight to the family’s own account.