Fascinated by the Churches – Part Un

I finally had the time to take photos of the old churches in Southern Cebu. While most people decided to celebrate Independence Day with family and friends, I drove down to the southern towns and marvel at the churches that I visited.

Several months ago, I stood in front of the churches in Carcar, Argao, Boljoon and Oslob and I walked around these places of worship to see if there were old buildings and houses as well. 

Some of the old stone houses and buildings have been brought down and were replaced with newer structures.  Churches on the other hand could not be easily replaced.  Thankfully, in almost all the southern towns of Cebu, much of the old forms of these worship sites have been retained.

This is the old church of San Fernando, Cebu. It is dedicated to St. Isidore the Laborer. The parish recently celebrated its 150th anniversary. The church is gothic in style and it made me remember the Sta. Ana church of Molo, Iloilo.

Like most gothic-styled churches,  this church has lancet arches, grouped in three with the center being the main door and two small arches that have steep and pointed openings on the side that traced the niches of the missing religious stone figures.

The San Fernando Church being gothic-styled had its version of the rose windows. The most intricate window could be found at the center of the facade. The church interior on the other hand had been altered, save for the high-pointed arched windows and doors which allowed the light to penetrate and strike the transept and the nave.

I moved on, more than a dozen kilometers away, beyond Carcar and into the poblacion of Sibonga. A typical Spanish colonial set-up, the town center is the plaza that is surrounded with the presidencia (town hall), the escuela, the iglesia and of course the convento.

The town’s church wasbuilt in honor of  La Nuestra Senora del Pilar de Zaragoza. Just like the San Fernando Church, it is gothic-inspired. It’s high and massive; the facade is flanked by two bell towers with plain spires. The facade is rather plain with a rose window being the only detail at its pediment. There were three arches with the center being the main door. At the tip of this arch is a crown of leaves.

The facade may be simple compared to its interior. The church was built according to the design of Fr. Maranon. As the town flourished as the tobacco center in the island, male residents were forced to work on the church’s structure. Several interruptions in the construction were either caused by natural calamities or the revolution.

But in 1907, the church was finally restored. Personally, the most beautiful part of the church is its ceiling. A certain Raymund Francia painted the wooden ceiling in themes of red and brown.  Looking upwards, I remembered similar ceilings in Argao, Carcar and Boljoon.

Supporting the ceiling are several wooden arches.  The two rows of pointed arches cut the nave into 3 parts.  It may not have a transept but the altar and the retablo are crowned with the painting on creation.

In the same compound as the church, a huge convent was constructed like a stone house. It was built in similar way as the church: through forced labor or polo.

The structure has seen better days. The rooms and the halls were emptied of its colonial past. Nothing could be seen at the ground floor, except for the semi-circular wooden details on some of its walls. The office of the parish is in one of the rooms in the ground floor.

Near the side entrance of the convent are flights of stairs leading to the second floor where the priests live.  Lights entering the 3 windows at the landing hit on the wooden floors of the convento’s sala. Huge grilled square windows come face to face with 4 old paintings that were framed in gothic arches. One huge painting on the wall may have been the focal ornament of what used to be the dining hall of the friars.

In Sibonga, the popularity of Simala as a pilgrim site has grown so fast for several years now. It is found at the town’s interior, at Lindogon Hills where the church sits on a huge complex that houses the Marian Monks.

I have made a couple of visits to Simala before and I have seen how the church is continuously constructed and expanded. Even up to now, the church remains unfinished. Several infrastructure and amenities like decent comfort rooms and covered walkways are yet to be installed.

From Sibonga, I drove back to Carcar to re-fuel and hit the road leading to the southwestern towns. The first stop was the Santa Ana Church in Barili.

Barili used to be the biggest parish in the south. It is also one of two secular parishes outside of the Cebu City. Near the main entrance of the church, a billboard of  Santa Ana Shrine Museum was placed at the left side. It showed how huge the structure was. 

The present state of the church is a little different from what it was before. The detached bell tower was gone. A new tower is now attached to the church. One could still see the old stone layers at its base but everything else are plastered with cement.

I thought at first that Barili, being one of the most interesting towns in the island, holds a cluster of old buildings and houses. The encomienda started way before the 17th century. The parish was established in 1614.  Barili used to have a thriving tobacco industry. Somehow, tobacco was replaced now by their most famous product: Shamrock delicacies. Much of its past are reflected though on a dozen or so ancestral houses. A long pre-war building still stands today: the Hospicio de San Jose de Barili was founded by Don Pedro Cui and his sister Benigna.

It was said that the Japanese forces landed in these very shore of Japitan on April 10, 1942. The troops then captured the town and established their Barracks in Barili.

A little down south is the town of Dumanjug. At the poblacion across the public elementary school is the St. Francis of Assisi Church. A lot of visitors claimed that this is one of the most beautiful churches in southwest Cebu and I could see why.

They say that it’s style is neo-classical. The bell tower is almost cylindrical. Taking a closer look, the belfry actually has 12 sides. The pale coral stones add to the aesthetics of the church.

The church was said to be designed and built by local inhabitants. The colonial structure was made of local stones, limestone and native wood.

The founding fathers were said to be Capitan Municipal Pedro Ricamora and the town curate, Father Agustin Melgar.

The town’s name is a story in itself. Dumanjug was a contraction of “Duman” and “nahulog”. Duman was the most famous ”tuba” gatherer in the village. He has had several coconut trees. On the day that the spanish civil guards visited the place, Duman died from a fall from one of the trees.

The Spanish guards asked for the name of the village but the natives could not understand what the visitors were asking. For the lack of answers, they merely responded “si Duman nahulog” (Duman fell).

The visitors thought that it’s the name of the place. Hence, the village was called Dumanjug. A statue near the town’s agora was erected as a marker of the origin of the town’s name.

I was very excited to drop by the poblacion of Moalboal, a town known for its Panagsama Beach, Pescador Island and of course its dive sites. I wanted to see their old church.

Back when I was still young, I remembered how the church looked. It was made of coral stones that were darkened by the salty breeze and moss. The old wooden doors were huge. The church sits on top of hill which was just a few meters from the highway.

This particular visit to Moalboal church made my heart sink. It is quite difficult to understand why the parish priest insisted on bringing the church down. A lot of people say that the church must have to go because the columns and the support are already weak.

The priest opted to build a new church beside the old one with the money collected from the parishioners, not considering the historical and cultural value that the old church has.

The parish priest left the town and was assigned somewhere else, but he would always be remembered for leaving the old church in ruins. From the rubbles of stupidity, only the facade and the altar remained standing. The church floor was still intact.

No one could say what the parish plan to do with what’s left of the church. But there’s an unofficial moratorium on any further demolition of the place of worship. It’s disheartening to take pictures of the destroyed church, knowing fully well that its destruction was not caused by a natural calamity.

Moalboal is left with a marker similar to Macau’s St. Paul Church ruins but it was done in poor taste. The priest may have been possessed by some weird and unheavenly spirit that eventually consumed him in shame. It’s the first time I’ve seen an old Cebu church in this sad state.

(to be continued)