Paoay Church, Ilocos Norte
Part 22 of a series
DAY 3
After our brief visit to Batac, we headed to a nearby town, Paoay, to check out its centuries old baroque church, which is among the four baroque churches in the Philippines designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. From Batac, we just drived through Marcos Avenue which directly connects to Paoay.
The St. Augustine Church in Paoay, Ilocos Norte.
Built of coral blocks and stucco-plastered bricks, the church’s architecture is a unique combination of Gothic, Baroque and Oriental. Construction of the present church began in 1704 and was completed in 1894.
A few meters away is the coralstone belltower which served as observation post of the “Katipuneros” during the Philippine Revolution.
Paoay Church is included in the UNESCO’s World Heritage List.
The facade of the church, even as it is beginning to lean towards the front, still manages to be as equally impressive as the buttresses. Viewed from the side, the giant buttresses look like huge volutes making the facade appear as a massive pediment rising from the ground. The facade is divided vertically by square pilasters that extend from the ground and all the way to the top of the pediment.
The Gothic affinity of the church is suggested by the vertical movement of the pilasters and the finials that cap them at the top of the pediment. The facade is also divided horizontally by stringed cornices that extend all the way to the edges. The cornices extend to the sides of the church and wrap each buttresses around, adding attention and articulation to the massive side supports. At the apex is a niche, while the otherwise stark plaster finish is embellished with crenallations, niches, rosettes, and the Augustinian coat-of-arms.
The facade is complemented with a belltower located at its right hand side. Belltowers are a very important element in the overall composition of colonial churches, both for its function and aesthetics.
For practical purposes, belltowers were used as a communication device to the townspeople. In the case of the Paoay belltower, it also played, ironically, an explicit role in the lives of the Filipinos during the war.
As one enters the edifice, the church abruptly relinquishes the powerful strength of the massive buttresses that they discharge at the exterior. Inside, the church has a very solemn, almost sentimental ambiance. The interior looks bare and empty.
Regalado Jose mentions in his book that the ceiling was once painted with a scene similar to that of the Sistine Chapel in Italy. Unfortunately, the original ceiling is no longer in existence today. What is left is a cavernous maze of trusswork with exposed and rusting corrugated roof sheets.
Compared to its still magnificent exterior, the Paoay church looks austere and stark inside, with but a few old images of saints and a simple wooden cross at the altar, that it is hard to imagine now how it looked like a hundred years ago.
Only on Sundays does the Parish enjoy quite a number of worshippers. It is sad to think that on any other day, except for an intermittent bus loads of Taiwanese tourists, the church suffers from the lack of patronage.
Notice that each pew has names on it? Those are the names of the donors who helped make it possible to have those pews there. I find it ironic though, especially inside a church whose leaders bash those politicians who have infrastructure projects just to have their huge names on it and those people who donate just because they want to be recognized. Ego-boosting acts, no? I believe that if you give, you should give because your heart tells you to, not because you want to be recognized.
The plaque reads, “This cemented path was constructed through the kindness of ex-vice mayor and Mrs. Timoteo Labtis and family (February 28, 1975).”
It is impossible not to be compelled by the exotic quality of the church, as demonstrated by the huge and powerful buttresses. Yet, there is also a sense of humility behind such exuberant assertion, as expressed by the pensive interior. But the most enduring impression, perhaps, that any visitor takes with him as he departs from the church, are the poignant memories of a tumultuous yet glorious past of a nation, imbedded among the layers and heaps of huge stones and bricks that make a church.
(…to be continued)
