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[av_heading heading=’PEOPLE POWWOW | The Catholic Church that nurtured the nascent Aglipayans’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY HERBERT VEGO
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Sunday, May 28, 2017
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WHEN in Anini-y, Antique, tourists who come to Sira-an Hot Spring and Nogas Island also visit a third tourist attraction, the historic Baroque Roman Catholic Church. A plate marker installed by the National Commission Historical near the huge door identifies it as “Simbahan ng Anini-y” and briefly traces its history in Filipino:
“Ipinatayo ng mga Agustino malapit sa kasalukuyang pook, 1630-1638. Ang kasalukuyang simbahan na yaring koral, ipinatayo 1845. Ipinatayo ni P Jeronimo V. Aquerin ang kumbento, 1879. Sinakop ng mga Aglipayano, 1902. Napasailalim ng Mill Hill Fathers ng Inglatera ang pangangasiwa ng simbahan. Napinsala noong ikalawang digmaang pandaigdig at bagyo 1973.”
The marker summarizes the history of the church as having been originally constructed by Augustinian missionaries in 1630-1638, reconstructed in 1845 out of indigenous corals, temporarily taken over by the Aglipayans (followers of renegade Catholic priest Gregorio Aglipay) in 1902, and regained for the Roman Catholic Church by the Mill Hill fathers of England. It has also recovered from destructions wrought by earthquakes, World War II and a 1973 typhoon.
I spent a whole day interviewing knowledgeable natives and researching church history.
Legend has it that no less than a powerful church official, Fray Hipolito Casimiro, spearheaded the construction of the first structure in eight long years. It was proper and fitting that he assumed the role of first parish priest thereat. Incidentally, the foundations and rubbles of the original church still exist near the reconstructed one.
Even while the old church was still functional, Friar Jeronimo Vaquerin took it upon himself to initiate the construction of the second structure between 1845 and 1879. The natives of the town were the prime workers and carpenters of the church, using coral reefs carved into thick blocks to form an adobe glued with thousands of egg whites and yolks.
The native parishioners of the church, however, were not always subservient to the Spanish government and church leaders. The formation of the nationalistic version of the Church – which would later be known as Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) or Philippine Independent Church — by Fr. Gregorio Aglipay somehow swayed them to defy the Spanish colonizers.
No wonder then that the Spanish friars left the church vacant during the Philippine Revolution (1898 – 1902). This prompted a priest and followers of Aglipay to occupy it in 1902 until 1906 when the Roman Catholic’s Mill Hill Mission reclaimed it.
The strength of the church structure – measuring 60 x 40 meters – proved its mettle in 1948 when the unusually strong intensity-9 Lady Caycay earthquake struck and leveled other structures on Panay Island. The natives believed it was “a miracle” that the edifice survived, considering that Anini-y was the epicenter of that earthquake. The logical explanation, however, is that the massive columns and one-meter thick coral walls were – and are still – strongly held in place by a special blend of lime and straw.
Adjoining the church is a three-storey belfry. Unfortunately, all of its four original brass bells from Europe have been damaged and replaced.
The church’s architecture somehow resembles that of the bigger church in Miag-ao, Iloilo. Why is that so? Both churches had only one designer and were constructed mostly by the same craftsmen from Igbaras, Iloilo.
The Anini-y church is now known as the Parish of St. John of Nepomuceno.
Today’s tourists marvel at the baroque architecture of the massive church, what with its rectangular façade topped by a triangular pediment with a niche in the center, flanked by two windows. It is has three sections divided by decorative pillars.
Another surprise that wows church tourists is the incumbent Mill Hill parish priest, Fr John Ambrose, who speaks the native Kinaray-a dialect. (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
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