A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE CHURCHES OF PARDO AND NAGA

As the Spanish colonization starts with the mass indoctrination and conversion of the natives to Catholicism, monks and friars also expand their missionary work to the country, especially in Cebu and in the nearby islands of Negros, Panay, Bohol, Leyte and Samar. As a result, the need and concept for a place of worship and devotion appeared. Thus, magnificent and European-influenced churches, designed by Spanish architects and engineers, are constructed by forced manual labor and through the donations and government taxes, in which the influence was brought via the West Indies through the Manila Galleon.

The colonial churches in the country is considered as the most lasting legacy of Spain and three (3) of these churches are listed as World Heritage Sites of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

In connection with the construction of churches and shrines, most Filipino settlements instill Spanish Colonial Architecture in city and municipal planning outlook during the colonial era. The 16th century Leyes de Indias (Laws of the Indies), a series of guidelines, provide plans for the new colonial settlements and intended to impose rational order and European administrative control on the new settlements in the Americas and the Philippines. The planning states the exact location of the church, the orientation of roads that run into the plaza mayor (main plaza), docks and warehouses as well as the width of the street with respect to climatic conditions. The planning also specified the location which the city or municipality must be built.

Today, the Leyes de Indias plan is very visible in modern Philippine cities and municipalities in which the plaza is surrounded by government buildings, schools, churches and other trading establishments, separated by streets and sidewalks.

The Santo Tomas de Villanueva Church of Barangay Pardo, Cebu City and the Archdiocesan Shrine of San Francisco de Asis Church of Naga City have been selected to represent the Spanish colonial architecture respectively.

A wedding scene in the barangay parish of Pardo.

CHURCH OF SANTO TOMAS DE VILLANUEVA - POBLACION PARDO, CEBU CITY

Monitoring five (5) kilometers southwards bounding for Talisay City, lies the barangay of Poblacion Pardo. It was formerly a pueblo (town) formed through the amalgamation of barrios (villages) Bulacao, Inayawan, and Basak [present-day Barangay Basak-Pardo] on March 10, 1863 by decree of Governor-General Rafael de Echague y Bermingham, but this status was short-lived after the erection of the municipality of Cebu in 1901 and became part of its jurisdiction.

The Grotto of the Our Lady of Lourdes
alongside with the church.

As a parish, Pardo was formerly a visita (a satellite community dependent on the central religious house or parish) of San Nicolás [present-day Barangay San Nicolas Proper]. On April 10, 1866, the place was officially separated and became an independent parish and appointed Father Meliton Talegon as the first curate. The parish is under the advocacy of Santo Tomás de Villanueva, a Spanish Augustinian monsignor.

The image of Santo Tomas de Villanueva, giving alms to the poor.
He was a known ascetic, preacher and a writer of the Augustinian friars. 

Before the construction and establishment of the church, San Nicolás parish priest, Father Domingo Sanchez, built a temporary structure. After several years, the provincial government reported that the church made up of light materials such as tabique (building materials consisting of wattle and daub with a mortar finish of mud, sand and lime) and nipa needs repair and assistance due to the structure’s dilapidated state.

The Loon Church is designed by the
Spanish Architect Domingo de Escondrillas. It is considered
as the largest Spanish-designed churches in Bohol.

Father Manuel Ybeas serve as the cura paroco (parish priest) for twenty (20) years from 1873 to 1893. During his administration, he started to replace and construct a new church made up of stronger and compact materials. The details of the construction were designed by Architect Domingo de Escondrillas, a Spanish engineer-architect who designed several edifices in Cebu such as the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral and the San Isidro Labrador Parish in San Fernando. Another notable work of de Escondrillas is the Nuestra Señora dela Luz Church in Loon, which is the biggest and brilliantly-planned church structure in the whole province of Bohol. According to the Augustinian historian Father Pedro Galende, OSA, the main objectives of de Escondrillas on the style of the church are the splendor and budget for the church erection, and the accommodation of the laity. Gallende added that the architect uses a Latin-Byzantine Order on applying the design as there was no other church in the towns of the district pertaining to this style of architecture.

Details of the upper facade.

Entering at the gates of the church, the massive fortress-like façade is the foremost brand of the church and a small portico-like structure known as a porte-cochere serves as a portal to the church interior. One can resemble it to a castle in medieval Spain and Italy. Like most churches in the country, the framework of the structure is made up of finely-cut coral stones fastened with a mixed lime plaster mixture. The single bell tower, with its small veranda at the uppermost portion, overlooks the entire barangay of Poblacion Pardo. Rising to five stories and terminating in a pinnacle, the steeple’s quadrilateral plan is modified by a grouping of supporting posts from the first to the third level and the low-slunged corners of the last two floors. A large circular relief is found at the center of the façade and embellished with the symbol of the Eye of Providence with twelve (12) stars around it, which signifies the eye of God watching through the twelve (12) tribes of Israel. A little lower to the circular pictogram is the symbol of the Order of Saint Augustine, inscribed in low relief, denotes the Augustinians’ administration of the parish.

The Eye of Providence, a plain symbol of  the
Christian Holy Trinity. 

Plain lines dissect the frontage of the church into several portions. On the sides of the facade are cylinder-shaped structures with a domed bastion-like form bay, which can be access at the top of the bell tower.

The church is currently undergoing renovation and modernization of the church’s interior and roof.  The interior forms an inside look of a dome with the dove symbol at the center, depicting the Holy Spirit (third person of the Holy Trinity), and on the corners are the pictures of four (4) evangelists, San Lucas, San Mateo, San Juan and San Marcos. But the solid walls, reredos (altar artistic background) and several elements exists are authentic and genuine. The altar has five reredos containing an image of a particular devotion. The main altar reredo, with an altar canopy, contains an icon of Santo Tomás de Villanueva as amidst four panels painted with religious images of San Roque, San Miguel el Arcángel, San Vicente Ferrer, and the Blessed Virgin Mary, carrying the child Jesus .

The main altar retablo of the church.

The parish convent, though quite modern in look from the outside, still retains some of its original form in the interiors. The structure is mainly composed of stone and wood. At the second level of the rectory is a spacious foyer adorned with painted ceilings, and well sculpted decorative screens.

The parish is celebrating its annual fiesta, commencing on the 1st
of October and culminating on the 10th of the month, in honor
of Senior San Francisco de Asis.

CHURCH OF SAN FRANCISCO DE ASIS - NAGA CITY

Naga City is located in the south-central part of the province, a forty-five (45) minute jeepney ride from Barangay Poblacion Pardo.

The name of the city comes from the word, Naga, referring to the country’s national tree, the Narra. The town folks believed that the area has thick foliages of Narra trees. Since then, the settlers of this place used the word, Naga, a Cebuano derivative for the tree, to name the place as abundant with Narra trees.

The Balay Dakbayan (City Hall) of Naga

The city is one of the visitas of San Nicolás. It was established as an independent municipio (municipality) and parroquia (parish) on June 12, 1829 under the patronage of San Francisco de Asis, founder of the Franciscan Friars Minor. During the parochial administration of Father Simon Aguirre in 1850, the church structure was constructed. The layout of the structure was based on the plans of the expert church-builder, Bishop Santos Gomez Marañon. In 1855, the stone convent was built under the tenure of Father Enrique Magaz. He served as the curate of Naga on 1857 until 1864.

During World War II, the church complex was heavily damaged by frequent bombings and air raids. Also the belfry and convent were not spared by the war and were totally destroyed. Through the efforts of Monsignor Cesar Alcoseba, the new church belfry was constructed on 1979. A new rectory that replaced the destroyed one was built in the mid-1970s by Father Arturo Tecson.

The details of the church facade.

The façade of the church shows the heavy elaboration of figures such as angels playing musical instruments, human faces and flowery ornaments provides a much better interpretation and view of the Kingdom of God. Sightseers and passersby cannot avoid a second glance at the complex patterns and creative statures inscribed at the frontage of the church.

According to the locals, the façade is the central feature of the church. Attested by this statement, an old devotee (or a parishioner) of the church remarked, “Nindot kaayo ning simbahana uy!, kahibawo ba mo [speaking to her fellow devotees] nga ang portada o atubangan sa simbahan sa Naga nag-inusara ra gayud sa tibuok probinsya.” (“Oy! The church is very beautiful and grandeur, do you know that the decorated frontage of the church is the only façade that is very well-defined and enrich with inscriptions in the entire province of Cebu!). According to the author of Spanish Churches in the Philippines, Coseteng stated that the carvings of images and symbols in basso relievo (moldings) are similar to the Islamic and indigenous Central American influences called Tequitequi.

Praedicate Evangelium Creaturae -
Preach the gospel to every living being

Above the front entrance of the church and situated at the centermost portion of the frontage is an engraving portraying the first Catholic Mass in the country held in Limasawa, an island in the province of Southern Leyte. Surrounding the unique illustration is inscribed the year “1521” and the Latin words Praedicate Evangelium Creaturae, which when loosely translated means “Preach the gospel to every creature.”

The church is easy to access because it sits at the junction of the national highway and is equidistant to the Plaza Bonifacio, City Hall Complex and the Metro Gaisano Supermart. The church also supervises a school that caters the information of the Catholic Faith to the Naga youths.

Like most churches in the Philippines, whether old or modern in design, it is cruciform in shape and thick buttresses with domes support the structure.

The elegant decoration of the altar retablo of the church.

San Francisco with the Messiah, shown as the
center most piece of the retablo

Similar to Santo Tomas de Villanueva Church in Pardo, much of the inside interiors are currently refurbished and nothing remains to the original. Another feature of the church is the five (5) church altars, one main and four side altars, with each altar containing the images of San Roque, San Antonio de Padua, Nuestra Seniora del Carmen and the Virgen del Perpetuo Soccoro. Two of the side altars which contain the images of San Roque and the Nuestra Seniora del Carmen has its own tabernacles, proof to the pious devotion of the Naga faithful to the church. The large neo-classical style of the main altar contains the image of the primera patron of the city, San Francisco de Asis, embracing the Crucified Christ.

The life-size pedestal of San Francisco de Asis,
facing the west, in the plaza.

On the rectory lies a huge statue of San Francisco de Asis, signifying its importance and impact in the religious side of the people of Naga.

Bibliography:

Files of the Saint Thomas of Villanova Parish of Pardo, Cebu City

Devotees of Saint Francis of Assisi Parish of Naga City

Files of the Saint Francis of Assisi Parish of Naga City

Atutubo, Rankin, Bernardino, Hukom, Sta. Ana-Rankin and Gonzalez. Philippine History and Government, Quezon City; Phoenix Publishing House, 2007

http://www.ewtn.com/library/mary/francis.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_colonial_architecture

http://www.admu.edu.ph/offices/mirlab/panublion/index.html

http://michael.strawberrysearch.com/Pardo/?p=304

http://www.ngkhai.com/pointcebu/culture/church/nagach.htm

http://www.naga-cebu.com/