NOTE: This series is based on the findings of a study done in 2018 made possible by a grant from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA). It is Sisay Kita?’s modest contribution to the observance of the Diocese of Virac’s Golden Jubilee on August 27, 2024.
When people ask me what it is that Virac could truly be proud of, something unique to the place, my ready answer is: the ermitas. I got this singular insight from a foreigner, a Malaysian communication expert from the Asian Social Institute, who wondered why there were parish churches at almost every turn along the streets in town. When told that they were merely village chapels, his jaws dropped altogether in bewilderment. Well-traveled throughout the country, the guy asserted that this is not matched in any place in the Philippines.
Having grown up in Virac, the ermitas, or Catholic chapels operating at the basic community level, were fixtures of everyday reality. I did not realize how special they were until an outsider pointed it out to me. Surely, we have the latik, tilmok and tabrilya to brag about, but the ermitas, especially the old ones made of adobe stones, are an imposing and tangible presence, a defining aspect of Virac’s built environment.
But more than the physical, the true significance of the ermitas lies in the wealth of religious-cultural practices these structures generate and sustain, and the implications as regards the people that built them. The ermitas are a testament not only to the Viracnon’s abiding faith, but also their industry, creativity and resourcefulness. In this series, we will argue and demonstrate that the ermitas are largely the initiatives of the folk, more than that of the institutional church itself. And beyond the purely religious, the ermitas are catalysts of community-making at the basic level of the barangays. In short, the ermita is key to the understanding of the Viracnon.
Three generations of ermitas
In 2018, I did a survey of ermitas in Virac as part of a study made possible by a grant from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA). I documented some 81 ermitas found in five parishes (now seven), distributed as follows: 52 barangay-based, six sitio/purok based, and 23 street-based. The first two types of ermitas have their own pastoral councils and operate directly under the parish establishment, while the third have much smaller scopes of operations maintained by some kind of organization and function more autonomously. The barangay-based are the ones definitively called “ermita” but the two other types are referred to as “uru-ermita” or “cruz.” Historically, the first type of ermitas – the barangay-based – came in three generations, in consideration of 1) their built (stone masonry or otherwise, such as reinforced concrete or light materials) and 2) the period they were built (pre- or post-World War II).
First generation ermitas
There is a total of 19 1st generation ermitas, 15 of them barangay-based and four former barangay ermitas that were upgraded to become parish churches. They are the oldest of the ermitas, having been built within the colonial times (Spanish and American). They are relatively larger than all the others and are made of stone masonry, built according to the engineering principles and architectural style of the Spanish period. The structure basically consists of a core of masonry walls of adobe stones held together by some plaster materials, mainly lime. The structural soundness depends on thickness of the walls of up to 130 centimeters since there were no steel bar reinforcement used. While robust, the building can be fitted with only a few windows and doors as these openings weaken the integrity of the structure. As such, the interior is quite darker than desired. The weight of the entire roof, made of hard wood trusses and applied with nipa shingles, is carried by the core of masonry walls. In the olden days before the advent of plywood or flat GI sheets, the trusses were either exposed or concealed by a ceiling of wooden boards or sawali.
There were two kinds of stone adobe used. One was limestone cut from mountainsides, or corrals quarried from sea reefs. As such, ermitas of barangays with easy access to the sea are of corrals (e.g. Palnab, Rawis, Antipolo, Talisoy) while those located inland are of limestone (e.g. Calatagan, Danicop, Buyo, Simamla, Hawan Grande, Palta). The one in Sto. Domingo is quite unique, made of smooth stones from the nearby river. San Vicente Ermita, on the other hand, used a combination of material from the mountain and the sea. According to accounts, these ermitas, surely the community’s mega infrastructure projects, were made possible through the atag or communal work system. All able-bodied folk contributed their due, especially in gathering the stones. Plaster of lime made from bivalve shells and bound by sugarcane juice were mixed in dug-out bancas using paddles.
Architecturally, the stone ermitas have two types of façade design, what may be called as 1) Virac parish church model (now the cathedral), and 2) Bato parish church model. In both cases, it is a basic triangular pediment roofing resting on a rectangular main front wall. In the former however, a bell tower (kampanaryo) stands on either side (mostly on the right). The latter features a belfry at the apex of the triangular roofing, as the recently restored Bato church shows. As for the floor plan, it was of the straightforward rectangular nave, except for Magnesia that adopted the crucificado plan with wings to create the shape of a cross.
Eleven of the 19 old ermitas were built according to the Virac church model. However, in their original state, they did not have bell towers. It was quite difficult (and costly for a barangay) to duplicate the huge kampanaryo of Virac church on a smaller scale. So they must have built a wooden structure to hang the bell. Later, when reinforced concrete techniques became available, these ermitas would build their tall bell towers. This was the case with Rawis, Sta. Elena, Sta. Cruz, Cavinitan, Talisoy, to name a few.
Fewer (eight of them) originally adhered to the Bato church model. This was on account of the engineering challenge involved and the limitation as to the height of only up to half of the main body. Of this we can single out the cases of San Vicente (the finest of its kind), but also Antipolo, Magnesia and Sto. Domingo. Only San Vicente retained the original structure. All the rest tried to elongate later on their belfries by overlaying the original with reinforced concrete extension to achieve a 50-50 ratio of height between the main body and the tower, making for an imposing vertical sweep. The Gogon ermita’s bell tower is a completely modern addition.
Other important features of the 1st generation ermitas were the patio fencing and the interiors, principally the altar. Only Magnesia and Antipolo had preserved their stone masonry fence. Talisoy used to have one but it was demolished. As for the altar, we can assume that these old ermitas had retablo altars made of carved wood. The design was distinctive, heavily carved with Baroque decorative motifs and painted mahogany-and-silver (or gold). They were also rendered in deep volume making for cavernous niches encased in glass. Unfortunately, only a few of the original can be seen now: in Simamla, Sto, Domingo, Calatagan and San Vicente. The others had been destroyed by the elements (anay, bagyo), or else willfully given up in favor of modern designs as a concession to “progress” even if incongruous with the architecture. Later, they would sustain another round of changes in order to re-Baroque-ize in a bid to go back to the old look, and with a vengeance (becoming more Baroque than Baroque, with the gold even gold-ier!).
The fate of the altars of these old ermitas was repeated on the building itself. Through time, alterations were made due to combined effects of natural deterioration/destruction and human intervention of various motives. In the 1960s onwards, the basic tendency was to “modernize” the ermitas, especially because the new technology of reinforced concrete offered possibilities. The stakeholders were eager to demonstrate their openness to “progress.” They were readily willing to give up the “old” and “antique” look; they did not want to appear “traditional” and “backward.” The spirit of the Vatican II reforms boosted this trend. The Church was trying to be relevant to the modern times took physical manifestation by way of changes in ecclesiastical art, particularly architecture.
But there were practical considerations such as adding new space for those ermitas that were upgraded to being parish churches. This was the case of Magnesia, Palta and Buyo. The extension was done on either or both ends of the main nave of the church, the altar side and the entrance side. Either ways, they needed to demolish the part and when they reconstructed, they did not attempt at fidelity to stylistic integrity but either feigned “oldness” or altogether employed modern motifs. This resulted in the current hybrid look of the old ermitas. In most cases, what remained were the thick stone masonry walls which were concealed with a layer of smooth palitada. So the altar and facade took on that minimalist and sleek sensibility of the modern.
The most arresting hybrid version can be seen in the case of the ermita in Sto. Niño: its thoroughly modernist façade in in utter contradiction of the old main body. But some others tried to maintain the old feel in their exteriors, such as in the case of Rawis, Sta. Elena, Sta. Cruz, Palta and Sto. Domingo. Among the best of these hybrids that had retained stylistic integrity were that of Gogon, Talisoy and San Vicente. Hawan Grande used to display uninterrupted full rustic glory of its exterior side and rear walls, but is now obliterated in parts by the construction of concrete su-ab.
Meanwhile, Antipolo church is a class all its own. Patterned after the Bato church model, it employed cut and polished corral adobe in its facade, never seen in any other old ermitas in Virac. It applied more sophisticated design features in emulation of its model in Bato. Its interiors used to have lavish Baroque embellishments not only on the retablo altar but on other aspects such as the cornices. But many of them disappeared through time. Recently, it was fitted with a front entrance canopy, feigning neo-classic motifs that did not quite blend with the original Baroque sensibility.
Second generation ermitas
After the Second World War, there happened a frenzy of building new barangay-based ermitas entirely done using reinforced concrete technology. The 1930s saw the start of carving out of new barangays from old ones, due to increasing population and the need for more efficient political management. This trend would peak in the 1960s. Alongside such development was the building of respective ermitas, the ermita being a catalyst for community-making and a proof of a barangay’s mettle. All these led to the materialization of the 2nd generation of ermitas.
With the post-war push for progress and modernization, the new set of ermitas took shape according to modernist design principles. Reinforced concrete offered new possibilities not allowed by the old technique such as more windows and doors to make for well-lighted and ventilated interior. Heavy masonry walls gave way to light and sleek structure. Function was priority and so decorative embellishments were minimized in favor of simple lines. The more noteworthy of this type are the ermitas of Balite, Pajo Baguio, San Isidro Village and San Roque. This generation of ermitas are way smaller in size than the first generation. Some cases, however, were first generation structures that were demolished completely to give way to a modern building, such as in the case of San Pablo. The one in Rawis is a special case. Built during “peacetime” as a first generation ermita made of corral stones, the entire structure was transferred in the early 1950s, stone by stone, to a new location farther from the seashore in order to avoid the constant battery of storm surges from the sea.
It is worthy to mention that the 60s-70s was the heyday of political patronage in Catanduanes. Many of the 2nd generation ermitas were financed to considerable extent by donations from politicians, principally the Albertos. A case-in-point was the ermita of Sto. Cristo. It used to be made of wood but in 1969 they launched a concretization of the ermita through a generous financial grant by a line-up of who’s who in Virac politics led by the Albertos.
Third generation ermitas
A third set of ermitas came about with the creation of four new parishes centered in the large rural barangays. Palta became parish in 1955, followed by Magnesia in 1956, Buyo in 2008, Antipolo in 2015, Bigaa and Calatagan in 2023. These parishes took administrative jurisdiction over respective seat barangays plus a host of other barangays/sitios in their vicinities. While the satellite barangays/sitios had their own existing ermitas mostly of the second-generation types, the seat barangays, being large compact communities, were subdivided into street-based councils taken after the pre-existing divisions clustering around respective cruzes (small street-side chaplets or shrines) devoted to particular patron saints. These formerly modest houses of worship were upgraded to become formal ermitas thus creating the 3rd generation. Needless to say, they are smaller in size and built in the modern style. All the new parishes are dotted with this type. The latest addition is the one devoted to the Lady of Lourdes at West Garden subdivision under the new parish of Bigaa.
In Part 2 we discuss the historical context by which the ermitas, and the concomitant ermita establishment in Virac, had developed.