[MIAGAO] How Baroque is Your Church?

Thursday, June 23, 2011

[MIAGAO] How Baroque is Your Church?

Considered as the country’s largest municipality comprised by 119 baranggays, Miag-ao is popular mainly because of its church which is on the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list of Baroque Churches in the Philippines. The main campus of the University of the Philippines - Visayas can also be found here, with the entrance around ten minutes walking distance from the church and the plaza.

I placed Miag-ao on top of my Iloilo list because of its location. I was set to arrive late in the afternoon and I only had a day and a half in Iloilo. I was even planning on including Jordan, Guimaras. Silly me. Miag-ao is an hour away by bus from the city proper. In contrast, Jordan in Guimaras is only 15 minutes away by pump boat. Obviously, Miag-ao would take a lot more time for me to reach. So coming directly from the airport, I had the van drop me off at the Molo Bus Terminal. I hopped on a bus going to Miag-ao and arrived there an hour later.

The church is hard to miss since it's situated along the main road. Its baroque architecture accentuates its dominion of the area. Every other building disappears once you set your sight on this church. What immediately caught my attention was the unique façade with its coconut tree engraving along with the saint carrying the child Jesus. Most of the churches I have seen in this lifetime have boring features, with their front walls totally devoid of any design. This one is different. Whoever designed it was totally thinking out of the box. A wedding just ended when I came to visit so I was able to freely roam inside. The interior of the church is not as grandiose as that of St. Anne at Molo. The architects seem to have exhausted all the splendor on the outside walls of the church that nothing was left for the interior once they ended the construction. However, it is the simplicity itself that truly gives an air of serenity inside.

There was nothing much to see except for the church and the UPV campus. Now if you decide to tour the whole UPV campus, there'd be A LOT to see. I forgot how many hectares the total land area of the campus is. I only reached the entrance where the Oblation stood, snapped a photo, and went back to the plaza to wait for a bus back to Iloilo. One hour to get there, another one to see the common tourist sights, and another to get back to the city. It was a bit tiring but not bad at all. If you have more time to spare, try touring the whole UPV campus.