Google Doodle features Las Piñas Bamboo Organ

LAS PIÑAS, Philippines — Technology company Google Doodle yesterday  featured the Las Piñas Bamboo Organ to mark the creation of the country’s oldest, largest and only known bamboo pipe organ in existence 195 years ago.

The construction of the bamboo organ took over eight years, using 1,031 pipes, 902 of which are made of native bamboo.

The instrument is still being played daily at the St. Joseph Parish Church in Las Piñas since it was restored 44 years ago.

“A monument to sustainable building and technological sophistication, the bamboo organ stands as a symbol of what’s possible when design draws from native resources, labor and the ingenuity of its nation’s people,” Google said in a statement.

The instrument was a brainchild of Fray Diego Cera dela Virgen del Carmen, the first parish priest of Las Piñas.

The bamboo organ was declared a National Cultural Treasure by the National Museum of the Philippines in 2003.

In 1972, the organ was shipped to Bonn, Germany, where it was restored after sustaining damage due to natural disasters since the 1880s. Its homecoming in 1975 gave birth to the International Bamboo Organ Festival every February.