NEWSFLASH

VISITA IGLESIA IN BOHOL

March 27, 2002 (STAR) by Ruben Defeo - Visita Iglesia Bohol: A Guide To Historic Churches Regalado Trota Jose Manila: National Commission for Culture and the Arts, 2001, 123 pp., illus.

This book takes the reader to a "guided tour," as the blurb puts it, of 47 churches of Bohol, from Alburquerque to Valencia.

As such, it becomes quite an indispensable source book this season of Lent to most Filipinos when paying annual homage to the various churches dotting the country – from the all Dominican churches in Batanes to the largely Recollect churches in Bohol.

The author, Regalado Trota José, a distinguished art historian who specializes in research and writing on Philippine church art, spews out data from a highly informed perspective. The data presented in the book are a product of dedicated and continuing forays in art historical investigation in his chosen field of specialization. His research on Bohol churches is a collaboration with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.

As a guide book to the churches of Bohol, it opens the "visit" to each church with a brief historical overview on how a particular parish has developed through the ages. It continues with a tour of the church complex, aided by informative and descriptive discussions of the parts of the various structures, like the facade, the retablo mayor, the convento and other related sites.

The book text comes with an introductory essay on the beginnings of church architecture in Bohol, from the time it was started by the Jesuits to the time the Recollects continued with the mission to contemporary times when the secular clergy took the reins in the furtherance of the faith. It also provides a glossary that includes Spanish, Visayan and Tagalog terms for easy reference, a listing of Bohol towns per diocese, a listing of the patron saints of Bohol and their feast days, and a full bibliography to benefit students and scholars.

Bohol boasts of several century-old churches, the best known and probably the most publicized of which is in Baclayon. And if José’s discussion of the Baclayon church is used as the benchmark by which he investigates his subject, the reader will surely not be disappointed with the way the rest of the 46 churches of Bohol are discussed.

Understandably, owing to the welter of data available on the Baclayon, the feature on the church is by far the longest, if not the most detailed. Similarly, the Loboc church is accorded the same treatment with eight pages, Loon and Maribojoc with six pages each, and Tagbilaran with five.

The Baclayon feature opens with a crisp historical background on how the Catholic Church pervaded the province of Bohol through the pioneering efforts of Doña Catalina de Bolaños, mother of the island’s encomendero, Pedro Gamboa. Baclayon was the first mission established by the Jesuits when they came to Bohol in November 1596.

Not wont to romanticize data, José includes in his presentation many eye-popping details for the sake of objectivity. Dating of the Baclayon church, along with the many claims that come with it, is a case in point. José writes:

Across the façade the year 1595 is emblazoned, placed a few decades ago in the belief that the present church was built in that year and therefore was the oldest church in the Philippines. Careful study, if not logic would show that this could not have been possible for a village of that time where stonemasonry was not a tradition. The Diocese of Tagbilaran has exerted strong moves to correct this myth, which has unfortunately been propagated for town-centric and tourism interests. The most that ‘1595’ could mean is that in this year a church – more possibly, a chapel of wood and bamboo – was erected in this area by the Spanish encomenderos. The parish, and a more permanent church, would come much later.

Behind the portico begins the rest of the earlier church, built around 1727. The façade is plain; the upper half, now hidden by the extended choirloft, is also bereft of any decoration. The glazed blue tiles leading to the entrance were laid out upon the completion of the portico (around 1875). Above the doorway appears another ‘1595’; the style with which the numbers were written is modern, as is the material on which they were inscribed (cement). On one side of the wall is a partial list of parish priests of Baclayon.

José undoubtedly has an eye for detail.

He pays attention to every nook and cranny of the structures, noting their exterior – school, bell tower, ermita de difuntos (mortuary chapel), market and cemetery, and interior – baptistry, pipe organ, sacristy and ante-sacristy. José even particularizes the retablos into the retablo mayor, the gospel retablo and the epistle retablo.

When available, José also includes biographical notes on the parish priests who had devoted a significant part of their lives in the construction and re-construction, inclusive of possible restoration projects, of Bohol churches. In the discussion of the Baclayon church, José devotes a full page to make palpable the person of Padre José Maria Cabaña del Carmen who spent two-thirds of his life –more than 50 years – in ministering to the Filipinos. Similar essays are written on the lives of Padre Narciso Hernandes de Jesus y Maria of Guindulman, Padre Alonso de Humanes of Loboc and Padre Quiterio Sarigumba of Maribojoc.

Fray Narciso played a vital role in the pacification of the Dagohoy rebels as curate. Padre Alonso, of whom, upon his death many miracles were attributed, devoted 38 years of his life to apostolic work, and Padre Quiterio, himself a Boholano, marked his church renovations with his initials, "P.Q.S."

Contemporary history is just as much a significant part in José’s book. Young readers can relate to the many stories the author included in his exposition. An example of this is the recounting of a recent experience in Loboc, which, had it not been clipped in time, would have caused irreparable shame to the people.

José points to the remains of an unfinished concrete bridge, begun in the 1980s, between the bell tower and the church of Loboc. "While its construction was going on, the driving of pilings threatened the stability of the historic foundations – not to mention the integral wholeness of the tower, church and plaza – until a national outcry stopped this white elephant only a few years ago."

The depth and expanse of the materials that constitute this book could have easily lent for a large format book with sumptuous plates in full color. But José begged to be different. He packaged his valuable materials in an intact publication using a 6 x 9 inches format, in quite the tradition of textbook publishing, accompanied by black-and-white photo reproductions. The decision may have been taken to make the book readily accessible in the market (a copy costs P800), and ergo, cause its wider dissemination. Students and scholars of Philippine culture will certainly benefit from such concerned gesture from the author. For what good is a well-researched project if, upon completion, its output is not read and shared?

The only inconvenience is that the visual materials, which include rare and historical photographs, have been reduced to tiny windows to break the grayness of the text. There are even lapses in the captions. On a few occasions, some pictures are not even captioned, leaving the reader to make out what they are. Additional pages could have been an easy solution so that the visuals are given their appropriate breathing space.

And while in the subject of visuals, the façade of Loon Church, which graces the cover, is not even identified. And in the discussion of the church in the inside pages, the picture of Loay church’s façade has been inadvertently identified as that of Loon.

But these are minor pitfalls when seen in the context of the great contribution the diminutive book has done to Philippine art historical writing. Ten years separate this book from the first book that José wrote in 1991, entitled Simbahan. Church Art in Colonial Philippines, 1565-1898. But clearly, with these two outputs alone, not to mention the various articles he continues to publish in various respectable journals, José establishes himself as a no-nonsense art historian, literally leaving no stone unturned to dig deep into the field he has chosen to investigate – in his case, church art.

Apart from studying anthropology and Philippine studies at the University of the Philippines, José also learned about churches and culture while concertizing for nine years with the UP Madrigal Singers. He is affiliated with the permanent committee for the Cultural Heritage of the Church of the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of the Philippines.

The Cultural Center of the Philippines recognized his work in art history when it named José as one of the 100 Centennial Artists in 1999.

* * * For comments, send e-mail to ruben_david.defeo@up.edu.ph.