THIS is really about how modern reality collides with turn-of-the-century Vigan. It is also about how the town must strictly protect its historic heritage of old houses from the unnecessary modern encroachments that threaten them.

Collisions with houses really happen. I have seen scars. Large soft-drink delivery trucks (okay, they are Coca-Cola trucks) rumble through the narrow Vigan streets to the warehouse situated among the old houses that form the core of the Vigan heritage zone. There has not yet been a serious accident between a house and a truck. If there had been one, it may have gone unreported. But delivery trucks periodically nick the facades of the houses on their route, inflicting what could be serious structural damage to the historic structures. The strong engine vibrations further loosen up the powdery cracks in the old structures. Those trucks are truly a serious threat.

I am told Coca-Cola is now constructing a new warehouse in its original location within the Vigan heritage zone where warehouse constructions are not allowed. It must be stopped.

Vigan enjoys an image of turn-of-the-century romance. That is what the postcards show. However, there are still so many little things to refine that could further improve the quality of life in Vigan.

On one visit to Vigan, I was awakened from deep travel-weary sleep by the noise of LPG gas bottles being unloaded (or thrown off) from a truck to the depot next door. I was billeted at Villa Angela, a majestic Vigan mansion converted into a charming bed-and-breakfast establishment.

The racket continued for what I thought was an interminable stretch of time. It did not do much for my quality of life that night, but it made me thankful I was not a Vigan resident who has to suffer the noise every night.

Tricycles continue to threaten pedestrians, polluting the town with their noise and emissions, making touristic walks in the streets a deafening and life-threatening experience.

These are small details a host attends to before guests come to make things perfect. This is the time to attend to details because guests are beginning to trickle in.

More and more Pinoys are embracing the historic and artistic value of the Spanish colonial heritage. They are leading the momentum that brings attention and support for Vigan.

Former Vigan residents are also returning. A hardy bunch of Manileños, enamored with reestablishing a connection to their roots, is setting up their second homes there.

One of these people is my friend Ramon, a true Manileño with family roots in Quiapo. After buying a ''fixer-upper'' house in Vigan, he spent the past months with Ilocano construction craftsmen he has trained in the traditional skills necessary to conserving his ''new'' old house.

The house has been transformed into something that suits Ilocano colonial, folk and modern traditions, a mix of the new and the old. As a result, the house has developed a wonderful texture and a delightful personality of its own.

More important, the house is a lesson for most of us. It shows how conservation is really a mix of things. It demands exacting scientific treatment such as using original lime mortar to cover the peeling walls and not cement which damages the original bricks.

What you do after taking care of the scientific details is strictly to your own liking, as well as your budget. Conservation is also combining plain walls under high ceilings with huge modern art murals, combining heirloom furniture with the latest Italian designs, installing really functional plumbing that flushes into a septic tank. It is positioning your state-of-the art computer, modem and scanner on a narra table inherited from an ancestor.

The house shows that conservation is not making a museum out of old houses to replicate an uncomfortable and unaffordable lifestyle of a century past. Rather conservation should make a house that is totally livable in today's context complete with the amenities we have become used to.

There are more people like Ramon who are investing their energies and personal finances in restoring Vigan. However, they have more to consider than just construction issues.

I found out about the Coca-Cola collision course when I noticed a patchwork of plastering on Ramon's street facade. Then I saw a truck loaded with cases and bottles swinging down the road to negotiate a corner to turn from one narrow street to another. The width of the street could in no way accommodate the size of the truck.

I did not have to ask how the facade got nicked. Enlightened, I wondered how many more facades were seriously damaged by the trucks, and how many those trucks further deteriorate with their rumblings just a few feet away from the wooden front doors of the structures. We are we still so cavalier about our heritage.

The events of the past few months were not encouraging. The conservation efforts for Intramuros went down the drain with the illegal construction of houses on top of the wall that appear to have been left to decay into ruins on top of the walls instead of being removed. The Bulletin building, for instance, continues its defiant rise high above the prescribed three-story Intramuros height restriction.

The threats and the threatened

Taking care that our old towns do not disappear requires much more than simply conserving the individual structures. In fact, conserving the structures, time-consuming and expensive at it may be, is actually the easier and simpler thing to do in the chain of requirements that it takes to undertake successful urban conservation.

Urban conservation, what Intramuros and Vigan are set on doing, requires a broad overview that the historic structures are protected from the complex network of threats that endanger them: collisions from delivery trucks, vehicular vibrations, inefficient street drainage.

People are both the threats and the threatened. In the case of being threatened, residents and visitors cough from dust, choke from tricycle emissions, suffer the noise of unloading gas bottles in the middle of the night, trip on broken sidewalks, and grope through dark streets at night.

As Ramon has shown in his house, undertaking conservation aims to produce pleasant surroundings to live in. However, there still is a lot of work to be done by all sectors to make our heritage towns really pleasant to live in. Actually, it's not just our heritage towns but practically each city in the country that needs an upgrade.