Admiring a National Cultural Treasure in Boljoon

Alex, Jay, and I admiring the carved facade and bell tower of Boljoon church.

One of the occupational hazards of motherhood is the high probability of being afflicted with the treacherous disease of myopia. The tendency to hyper focus on our children's welfare is ever present as the home becomes our world and we become consumed with domestic dilemmas.  This weekend, we took an energizing trip to Cebu and I saw the big picture again. What a relief it was to  view the world from a wide-angled lens.  We spent the weekend exploring an island and swimming with whale sharks, and on our way home, we stopped by the picturesque town of Boljoon, along the coast, to admire the town's national cultural treasure, its lovely stone church, which is the oldest of its kind in Cebu. I saw in the church's facade, the coming together of worlds - architectural influences from Europe, filtered through the Americas, combined with Asian flavor.  This building tells a story of confluence - it tells the history of our nation, and our identity as a people. We see a bit of Spain, and a bit of Mexico...and a bit of China - and a lot of Cebu. Our travel companion, Alex, points out a pair of lions carved into the stone, on the base of the entrance arch, on either side of the church doors - a traditional feature in Chinese architecture.  The church's bell tower looks like the  church steeple in some little Mexican pueblo wearing a Chinese pagoda-like roof on its head.  

The painted ceiling and steel beams over the church's nave.

Inside, the nave is long and grand, with a beautifully painted ceiling running its entire length. The building has been retrofitted with steel beams to hold the structure in place. It borrows a lot from Europe, and yet, it holds its own distinct personality as a church from our side of the world - it shows in the local materials used - coral stone walls, lumber from our native trees - the church offers a strong sense of place - we are here in the islands. It is a place of worship, but also built for defense - a fortress of sorts, to protect the townspeople from Moro raids. The belfry is at the same time a watch tower. The church is poised, facing the sea, like a rook in a game of chess, standing guard. 

St. Michael the Archangel facing the sea.

That the church is ever prepared for battle is seen in the choice of a warrior saint on the entrance arch. I could almost hear the fervent recitation of the powerful prayer for protection against strong adversaries: "St. Michael the Archangel defend us in battle...". I recite this prayer countless times myself, when I am alone with my children and the dogs howl in the middle of the night.

The main altar.

In keeping with folk tradition when visiting a church for the first time, I approached the altar to ask for three wishes. I stared at the old santos and imagined the countless petitions surrendered at their feet  through the centuries.  These statues are not just statues - they are not merely inanimate objects or symbols of faith - they are alive and infused with a spirit force fueled by the people's belief in their intercessory power. I prayed for health - my children's, my husband's, my parents', my own - and that of my career's. I can pray for these things anywhere else, in front of my own altar at home, or at any of the usual churches I visit for Sunday mass. But I wanted to leave my prayer here, in this potent place. An old church always feels more efficacious to me, because I feel as though I am tapping into a collective prayer that has gained momentum through many generations.  

The choir loft, adorned with elaborate wooden cut-outs. 

Outside, next to the church, is a striking building made of stone and wood. It is marked thus: Escuela Catolica on top, with the year 1940 inscribed above the entrance door on the ground floor. As we posed for a photo on the front steps, we could hear a haunting rendition of the song "Yaweh I know you are near" being sung by unseen old women hidden somewhere inside the old building.  Each note seemed to drag a tad bit longer than prescribed, with superfluous trills and vibratos, giving the song a chant-like quality, akin to the delivery of the pasyon. Their singing makes the familiar song sound foreign to me, even if I know the song by heart.  I am amazed at how a modern song in English is made to sound like a melody that harks back to Spanish times - even older! Did our babaylans communicate with their anitos in this voice? The old women's singing, as with the church's architecture, are acts of translation, and appropriation - of localizing the foreign by stamping our unique flavor on things borrowed, and making them our own.  

Escuela Catolica, a stone and wood building built in 1940.

My mind wanders back to my current occupation of being mother to two young children. I think of my own acts of localization. I read up on research and medical advise on parenting and child rearing borrowed from elsewhere, but I rarely apply what I read to the letter - always, or at least more often than not, I will add a twist - or translate things to suit my environment by using materials available to me. Foreign recipes end up having ingredients substituted to include bahay kubo vegetables. Foreign children's stories end up being translocated to our forests and seas.  Foreign melodies are wedded to local words. In such a way am I a Filipino mother, global and local - always on the internet virtually exploring the world, but forever striving to root my kids in this, their Philippine reality. I embrace the foreign but make it my own. Just like those women chanting their song. Just like the church builders in Boljoon carving things Spanish and Chinese onto Cebuano coral stone.