NOTE: This two-part series is adapted from my essay “History of the House of La Inmaculada of Virac” that appeared in the coffee table book “The Cathedral of Virac, Harong ni Ina” published by the Diocese of Virac in 2023. This is my way of celebrating the Virac town fiesta comes December 8.
The Catandunganons take the present neo-Baroque Virac cathedral as a singular landmark, not only of their abiding faith but as proof of their collective métier. But it is merely the culmination of an evolution that went through at least four historical phases. It is desirable to be reminded of these stages, each of them representing an important turn in the Catandunganons’ journey as a people of faith, and essential to answering the question: Sisay kita?
We may identify the four phases as follows: 1) pre-1755, 2) 19th century reconstruction, 2) 1969 modern 3) 21st century neo-Baroque. The first two together belonged to pre-Vatican II period while the next two manifested after Vatican II was enacted. As such, this evolving is a veritable storybook of Philippine Church history. The Spanish-styled 19th century church building was the longest in existence that have lasted for over a century and a half, well into the 20th century such that many of those surviving generations at present have seen it. I have seen the last three of the phases so much of the information in this series are from personal memory and insights.
Pre-1755
According to records, the parish of Virac was established in 1755. Surely, there was already a church structure way before that. What is remarkable is that 1755 was also the year that saw the most devastating of the Moro raids inflicted on the town of Virac, which had been a recurring experience in much of the 18th century not only in Catanduanes but the Bikol region. Some details of that eventful raid were duly inscribed in the Historical Data Papers, a compendium of popular history written in 1953. So the whole of Virac poblacion was razed to the ground, including the church. It can be presumed that this original church may have been made of light materials.
But intense challenges to a community also spawn uncommon valor. The HDP told of the heroism of the people of Virac under the leadership of Francisco Calumpad, gobernadorcillo (mayor) of the town. He evacuated the folk to the safety of Ili in Danicop. He also organized a fight that prevented the raiders from getting at the refugees. But he died in the process. His second-in-command, Diego Manlagnit a.k.a. “Paas,” ably took over and completed the task of warding off the marauders. He also took charge of the rebuilding of the town. According to the HDP, he did a good job. He improved the town’s defense against future raids. A new zoning was established according to a grid pattern of settlement, with the houses fenced for aesthetic and defense purposes. It can be assumed that it was from this undertaking that the current layout of streets took shape, where a main thoroughfare (now the Rizal Avenue) strung together the Taytay-Colawan-Ilawod sections from north to south.
19th century Spanish stone church
The original impetus under Diego Manlagnit was sustained and continued by succeeding town executives in mobilizing the industry and fervor of the Virac folk to build a more presentable physical center of their expression of faith. Such an enterprise was surely made more conducive by the decline of threats from Moro raids after 1755. The new stone-and-mortar Spanish Baroque structure would have risen up through communal work known as atag, the same system that would be used in the construction of the numerous ermitas of the barangays. Folk would gather the stones – of corals from the sea, limestone from the mountainside, and smooth rocks from the riverbeds. Large quantities of apog were produced from bivalve shells, mixed in dug-out boats with sugarcane juice using paddles to make the mortar with which to bind together the stones into thick masonry walls. Lumber from the nearby forests of Danicop and Sto. Niño would have been cut to become beams and trusses for the roof. Later, skilled carpenters and carvers fabricated ornate retablos to house the pantheon of saints presided over by the Inmaculada Concepcion.
Well into the 19th century therefore, the Virac faithful worshipped in a well-appointed parish church. In his talk during the 40th anniversary of the Diocese of Virac, the Jesuit historian Rev. Fr. Jose Arcilla, a Catandunganon, related that in 1817, the Bishop of Nueva Caceres was quite impressed with the church of Virac during his pastoral visit. The Prelate took good note of the stately stone edifice, which while thatched with nipa, boasted of a belfry three-story high with two bronze bells. The interiors were adorned with ornately carved wooden retablos and high-quality appurtenances such as icons, furniture and candelabras.
During the last decade of the American period, the churchyard or patio of the Baroque church took on some important developments implemented under the watch of parish priest Fr. Pedro Oliva, together with assisting clerics Frs. Epifanio Surban and Jose Alberto. It was the building of three monuments, inaugurated one after the other within four months from late 1939 to early 1940. They were laid out to form a triangle within the patio perimeter, with the Cristo Rey at the apex, fittingly located at the very center of the churchyard. The two other corners were occupied by Marian manifestations which stood at both corners on the Ilawod side. Standing atop the globe, the King of Kings is represented with outstretched arms as if to bestow blessings over His dominion. It was unlike the typical rendering as the crowned, be-sceptered and enthroned Sovereign. As such, the Savior-King appears more heart-warming than imposing. Guarded by four angels and watched over by four lamp posts, the monument was favorite backdrop for souvenir photos by the more “macho” religious organizations, such as the Holy Name Society and the Adoradores. It was inaugurated on October 29, 1939.
The right corner of the three-fold statuary is occupied by the Lady of Lourdes, sheltered by a stone grotto and attended by St. Bernadette. This sculptural tableau was a favorite for group pictorials of weddings and first communions. The marker says it was inaugurated on February 11, 1940, feast day of the Lourdes. On the opposite corner stands the Virgen Milagrosa on top of a tall pedestal, gazing down at the world that receives the beams of lights issuing from out of her palms. The marker says that it was a Dolot of the association of the Visita Domiciliaria, which advocated house-to-house devotional visit of the Virgin of the Miraculous Medal image. While smaller versions of the Virgen go the rounds of homes for the devotion, this larger-than-life statue is not much of a favorite for souvenir pictorials apparently because the Mother of God is perched so high up, she cannot be captured within the photo frame. For its part, the marker tells that it was instituted on November 29, 1939.
But this church did not only serve strictly religious purpose. During strong typhoons that regularly battered Catanduanes, the folk, especially those from nearby seaside communities would take refuge behind the strong stone walls of La Inmaculada’s abode. During the Japanese occupation in the 1940s the Virac parish church played a crucial role in the liberation of Virac from the enemies in the first week of February 1945. It was used as the command post of the guerilla operations led by Maj. Salvador Rodulfo. With its thick stone walls, the church was a virtual fortress. The patio, protected by masonry fences, served both as encampment of the guerilla fighters and as artillery line of firing. The third level of the belfry was where a machine gun was mounted, affording a most advantageous position against the enemy. But over and above military utility, the church offered an added premium: the guerillas were afforded spiritual and psychic gearing up for their dangerous and life-sacrificing task. Surely, it was an enterprise made remarkable: to fight for freedom from a hallowed ground, albeit with the irony of having to stage a shooting war from the house of peace.
It would have been that the strategy that will inflict the final blow on the enemy was hatched in the church. According to Maj. Rodulfo, he met his top brass to discuss the details of the strategy under the gaze of the saints before whose altar they supplicated for guidance and grace of victory. The plan was to use large bales of abaca as cover to push on to the enemy holding place and when close enough the bales will be dosed with petrol and lit in order to burn the garrison and its defenders. By the wee hours of February 8, 1945, even while the munisipyo and its occupants were still smoldering in flames, the church bells started to peal incessantly to announce the Liberation of Virac. People came out of their hiding places, congregated inside the church and celebrated their victory with a Holy Mass.
My own generation, born at the break of the 1950s and 60s, were the last to experience the 19th century Spanish stone church of Virac in its glory. There, we took our first communion. When we were in our late childhood in the late 60s, we witnessed its demolition to give way to a new and modern house of worship. So how did the antique church look like just before its demise?
The old Spanish era church took the Roman crucificado floor plan, or a cross with the elongated vertical line. This vertical part consisted of the central nave that accommodated the worshipping congregation seated in two rows of pews. The length was exactly as it is in the present cathedral. The walls were of stone masonry of up to a meter thick and without steel reinforcement. The roof was of corrugated GI sheets. The belfry was as it is now, except that the roofing was of flat GI sheets fashioned as a dome.
The façade was of modest design, without elaborate decorative elements typical of Baroque design. It had four pilasters topped by finials. The two inner columns bracketed the main door and the two outer ones defined the entire width of the church. The basic flatness of the façade was textured by the pilasters and two sets of shallow molded horizontal bands running across and divided the front wall into three horizontal tiered sections. The triangular pediment that defined the roof had a cross at the apex. It featured a central rose window, just below of which was a niche that housed a statue of the Inmaculada. On both sides were square windows screened by slender balusters. The façade was white-washed but the belfry, while finished with plaster, remained unpainted. There was an exterior stone stairway at the lowest rung of the three-tiered belfry. The main door was topped by a rounded arch. It was of hard wood fitted with two secondary service openings used when the main door itself was not flung open for major occasions.
The interior was rather dark even on daytime, with one door on the left side wall and a few windows. The right side openings were obstructed with the attached wooden building of the Immaculate Conception Academy (ICA). There were side doors at both ends of the horizontal part of the cross floor plan, the right of which served churchgoers from the east (Colawan and Taytay areas), and the left those from northwest (San Roque and beyond). Old photos indicate that the main altar and the secondary ones on both sides were of wooden retablo. However, during our time in the 60s, the main altar was already altered with a modernist design that seemed to have pre-dated the spirit of Vatican II. The ornate retablo had given way to a minimalist concrete niche that framed the Inmaculada, finished with marble. It had a line of electric bulbs on both side edges and crowned with the Marian “M” symbol similarly outlined with light bulbs. On both sides of the niche were high relief sculptures of the Sacred Hear of Jesus and Mary, in larger-than-life, full-body rendering.
At the foot of the Inmaculada was the sagrario that housed the Blessed Sacrament lined on both sides with candelabras. Fronting this set-up was the main altar platform where the priest officiated mass, his back to the congregation during the pre-Vatican II days. The main sanctuary was fenced off with a communion rail of molded iron. A side door at the left led to the sacristy.
There used to be a pulpit perched on the right corner where the central nave ends. It did not have a canopy roofing. There was, too, a choir loft at the entrance end of the church, above the main door. Along both sides of the wall were the Via Crucis icons and statues of saints that were not accommodated in the side retablos. Incorporated into the lower parts of the walls were lapidas of the dead, indicating secondary burials of prominent citizens.
There was an interior archway leading to the ground floor of the belfry where baptisms used to be held. In our time, this part had been denigrated as a dingy and dark storeroom where some precocious children reported to have seen dwarves. Outside, on the opposite wall fronting this door was a large mural painting depicting purgatory. On the foreground was the fiery lagoon, with human souls in varying degrees of immersion, some barely visible but some already quite emerged out of the fire. A few were floating up to the heavens and being pulled up by the Virgin Mary borne on a vessel of clouds and attended by a host of angels. It was a grim but fitting reminder to the faithful who had just taken entrance as regards their business in coming to church. Below the painting was an inscription that said it was donated by Doña Maria Molod y Nobleza. A few steps from the main door were a pair of marble fonts containing holy water for dipping of fingers before making sign of the cross. They were watched over by life-sized angels, their wings clipped down, and bearing doves whose heads glistened from the constant rubbing by churchgoers to imbibe additional supernatural vitalities.
The old Spanish stone church was formidable, dank and dark and smelled of a mixture of burning candles and pungent kullapnit droppings. But it inspired ancient Catholic piety that warmed the heart. In Part 2, we discuss its evolving in form as it took on the imperatives of a modernizing society.