(#9) Sunsets at Sisiman Bay

(by Tony Mina)

I have qualms.
I have thoughts that sunset is just a distortion of the senses because the sun is either below the horizon or above it. 
And such ambiguity bespeaks that day and night are linked in a way that somehow their overlapping presences are actually one and the same; that there cannot be one without the other; though they cannot exist at the same time.

Now I always wonder how can they be one and the same, always together, yet forever apart?

(Sisiman Bay in Bgy.  Sisiman, Mariveles, Bataan,  is located in a cove at the southern most tip of the Bataan peninsula and is about 165 kilometers from Manila.)

(#8) Enroute To Visita Iglesia in Iloilo

By The Restless

Some things need not necessarily be done during their season. You can visit churches even outside Semana Santa, as a family tour, barkada joyride, honeymoon trip, or what have you.

The Restless Soles went ahead to visit 14 churches in Iloilo and Antique. Undeniably, one of the treasures that Panay Island prides itself is the gift of Catholic faith and tradition which has withstood the test of time, evidenced by the Church structures - some have tried to retain their original edifice; others maintain some little alteration with modern touch; still others have been modernized altogether.

Originally, the practice of visiting seven churches is a Catholic Lenten tradition. Traditionally observed on Maundy Thursday, it could be practiced in any day of the Holy Week. The practice was rooted in visiting the seven churches of Rome which was initiated by Pope Boniface VIII. There are no set of prayers given by the Church except to pray for the intentions of the Pope and recite the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be. Some people have instead opted to pray the Stations of the Cross, the recitation of which is liturgically proper to Good Friday.

Perchance, there were various traditions and practices and significant figures that this number seven have been associated with, including:

1.)Seven Scripture passages of Christ's arrest and trial, 2.)The Seven Last Words, 3.)Seven Holy Wounds (five wounds plus the Scourge marks and His injured left shoulder), 4.)Seven first Christian holy sites in Israel, 5.)Seven Deacons of the Twelve Apostles, 6.)Seven ancient basilicas of Rome (Wikipedia)

1. St. John of Sahagun Parish Church at Tigbauan, Iloilo

Built between 1575 and 1580, this church had seen major reconstructions which was completed in 1867. In 1948, its facade and bell tower survived an earthquake which destroyed the rest of the structure. Restored in stages, it was finished in 1994 boasting an interior which has showcased an elaborate collection of religious mosaics entirely made of ceramic tiles pasted on its walls.

2. St. Nicolas of Tolentino Parish Church at Guimbal, Iloilo

Completed between 1769 and 1774, this church was damaged by World War II and the 1948 earthquake. It is made from yellow-colored limestone and powdered coral stones.

3. Sto. Tomas de Villanueva Parish Church at Miag-ao, Iloilo

This baroque church was constructed between 1787 to 1797. It was damaged by fire in 1898 and during World War II. In 1993, this church was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

4. San Joaquin Parish Church at San Joaquin, Iloilo

Built between 1859 to 1869, this church bears a triangular upper facade that depicts the Battle of Tetouan, the final battle of the Spanish-Morrocan War, chiselled out of limestone and coral bricks. On top of the facade is the image of Our Lady of Sorrows as if mourning over the stupidity of war. Like most of the churches in Panay Island, it was also damaged by World War II and by the 1948 earthquake.

5. San Jose de Nepomuceno Parish Church at Anini-y, Antique

In Anini-y, Antique stands a church that survived World War II and the 1948 earthquake. Built in 1845, it also survived a series of changes of managements -- from one religious order to another, from the religious clergy to the secular and from the Catholics to the Aglipayans and back to the Catholics again.

6. Santa Barbara Parish Church at Santa Barbara, Iloilo

Built in 1845, this church in was used as military headquarters and hospital for revolutionary soldiers who fought against Spain in the late 1800s. In 1991, it was declared a National Landmark by the National Heritage Institute. It is now in the final stages of repairs supervised by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines.

7. San Vicente Ferrer Parish Church and Jaro Diocesan Shrine of San Vicente Ferrer at Leganes, Iloilo

Made from tabigue and red stones, this church was built between 1869 and 1889. Damaged by a typhoon in 1896, it was reconstructed the next year. Damaged again by the 1948 earthquake, it underwent a slow repair process. Major improvements and reconstructions began only in 1997 and peaked in 2008 when it was declared a diocesan shrine.

8. Santa Monica Parish Church at Pavia, Iloilo

Completed in 1862, this church is the only red brick church inside and out in the entire Panay Island.

9. San Agustin Parish Church at Dumangas, Iloilo

Made from red bricks and sea corals, this church was destroyed by fire during World War II after it was used as a military stronghold. In 1983, it was declared a National Landmark.

10. San Nicolas de Tolentino Parish Church at Cabatuan, Iloilo

The major facades of this church are made from coral bricks. Built in 1834, it was destroyed during World War II and damaged by the 1948 earthquake. It has two massive bell towers.

11. San Jose Placer Parish Church across Plaza Libertad, Iloilo City

This church was completed in 1885. Its two bell towers, however, were only added in 1893.

12. Nuestra Senora de la Paz y Buen Viaje Parish Church at Lapaz, Iloilo City

Completed in 1870, this church was destroyed during World War II and only the facade survived. It was fully renovated only in the 1990s.

13. St. Anne Parish Church at Molo, Iloilo City

Built in 1831, this church was used as an evecuation center during World War II. It has been necknamed the "Women's Church" for it has a good number of images of women saints. In 1992, it was declared a National Landmark.

14. St. Elizabeth of Hungary Parish Church, Jaro Metropolitan Cathedral andNational Shrine of Our Lady of Candles at Jaro, Iloilo City

Built in 1864, this church was destroyed by the 1948 earthquake. It was fully restored in 1956.

In the Philippines, the tradition is known as Visita Iglesia. The general practice is to visit seven churches either on Holy Thursday or Good Friday and recite the Stations of the Cross in them. The more pious ones would increase and double the number of churches to visit to fourteen, minding a sense of mortification with the fourteen stations of the cross.

(#7) Visita Iglesia For Her

(By Cento Ron)

In as many instances that I attend Church services for what others call “Sunday obligation,” I always notice women outnumber men in attendance. In our predominantly Catholic populace, it made me ask myself if women are more pious and religious than men, or conversely, if men are less fulfilling of their “obligation” than women.

Of course, one’s commitment or sense of obligation cannot be measured according to Church attendance. This is not even a gender issue. But, aren’t complex things guaranteed by the fulfillment of simple ones?

Elders oftentimes quip this advice to younger women: "choose men, for your lifetime partner, who possess the fear of the Lord, may takot sa Diyos.”

This Holy Week provides an opportunity for women to see, feel, test or check their kind of guy. Likewise, it is a chance for single women to hunt for guys their hearts might fall for.

Why not make the most of the Visita Iglesia moments to nourish not only the spiritual transcendental relationship but also to spice up the emotional more personal tangible one? Should the holy really need to be mutually exclusive from that of the romantic? Can’t there be holy romance or romantic holiness?

The first challenge, if it is a challenge at all, is to invite your guy to attend the mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday. The second challenge is to invite him further to join you for Visita Iglesia.

You can hit three birds in doing Visita Iglesia with your guy: (1.) you fulfil your religious obligation, (2.) you get to influence your guy to fulfil his religious obligation (if he’s not really into it just yet), and (3.) you can have that chance to know him more in between church trips.

The challenge of Visita Iglesia is to visit 14 churches and pray the station of the cross, one station for every church.

Does the challenge sound tough? No, not really, because this act of sacrifice becomes more bearable when shared with someone, especially with the one you intend to share your whole life with. This can happen if your guy presumes to be the right one for you. Otherwise, you might end up bearing a heavier cross. (You can thank in advance Visita Iglesia for that.)

Visita Iglesia can all be done on Holy Thursday until midnight when the Altar of Repose and the churches shall then be closed. However, this activity can spill over to Good Friday. Think two days - two days of sacrifice and mortification, or two days of fun, holy romance, and revelation.

Visita Iglesia can be more meaningful by hiking to the churches. The short and long hike can be telling if your guy can make your visita worthwhile – if his stories can make you switch to sleepwalking mode or can energize you to further proceed; if he makes any sense or he simply concerns himself with non-sense; if he is gentleman enough to take the danger side of the road or is oblivious of any care and concern to those around him; if he has concrete and achievable ambitions and plans or if what he only has is that he has no plans at all; and, the list can go on...

Visita Iglesia can bring you a lot of possibilities. However, one possibility is undeniably clear: for you to determine if your guy is strong and courageous enough, if he is man enough to be your kind of man. As many say, really strong and courageous men know how to bow their heads and bend their knees… to pray.

After everything, look at yourself in front of the mirror.

(#6) The Restless Soles' Visita Iglesia For The Young

By J. Rakista

The Catolico Cerado among us will swear by their forefathers’ knee caps that the celebration of the Holy Week is not complete without the traditional Visita Iglesia which, they will explain, is an extended version of the Stations of the Cross due to the fact that one has to travel from one church to another with each church representing one Station.

But nobody does the Visita Iglesia alone. You will go with your parents, or brothers and sisters, or relatives, or friends. Or if you feel romantic about it, you can ask your girlfriend’s parents to allow you to bring her with you so that you can savor that once-a-year chance to be able to recall the Passion and Death of the Lord with your life’s most beautiful girl by your side. It can be a metaphysical experience, mind you, to meditate together on the most brutal and violent murder that led to the birth of the Church where, in the future, you sure are going to marry her.

And since churches are usually located very far away in between, you will have all the time in the world to exchange with each other those sweet nothings you’ve always exchanged before – this time in between Stations of the Cross – in between fourteen Stations of the Cross. Fourteen. That's fourteen chances to show her that you can be fun to be with and that there's no one else who can make her smile, laugh and giggle on the eve of the most beautiful Good Friday of her life.

Traditionally, the First Station of the Cross is where you will attend the commemoration of the Lord’s Last Supper. It’s just like your usual Sunday Mass except for the presence of twelve men dressed in bathrobes with multi-colored sashes and large belts. They will wear sandals showing their newly pedicured toes prepared for the one and perhaps only chance in their life that a priest shall wash their feet. You will recognize some of your jobless neighbors among them and feel proud about it; and I mean it in an ironic way.

The Scriptural Readings shall be longer and the priest’s homily shall expectedly be more boring than last year’s, but you will not be able to sleep through it because the church shall be warmer and there shall be more attendees than the usual Mass.

You will wait until the end of the Mass. You will wait until the altar has been laid bare, and the images of the angels and saints have been covered with purple cloths, and the consecrated hosts in an Olympic-sized cup shall have been solemnly transferred to another altar bedecked with flowers and candles and lights and what-have-you. It is called the Altar of Repose.

You will approach the Altar of Repose by making the double genuflect, but, of course, you already know why you should do that. Invite your girlfriend to kneel beside you – always choose the shortest available kneeler. And as your elbow is but barely touching hers, you will begin to offer the longest possible silent prayer in your life. You will know when to stop by your knees’ reaction to this new experience called “kneeling.”

Then you will stand and begin to offer the First Station of the Cross.

After reciting together the First Station from your prayer booklet entitled "STATIONS OF THE CROSS: The New Way of the Cross", you will do the double genuflect again and then off you go to the next church in your itinerary. Don’t forget the sweet nothings.

Once you arrive at the next church, you will look for the Altar of Repose and finding it, don’t forget to do the double genuflect again. Don’t forget too to find a kneeler and to offer the very important silent prayer while your elbow is barely touching hers.

After the silent prayer, you will stand and begin to offer the Second Station of the Cross.

Twelve more churches and you will have completed the sweetest Visita Iglesia of your life. It will be sweeter yet when, along the way to one of those churches, she will allow you to hold her hand.

And for a while there, those exchanges of sweet nothings will stop to give way to a secret prayer asking the Lord not to let that moment end.

(#5) CHILDREN OF PARAW

By J. Rakista



It felt like a certain part of me was still asleep when these Restless Soles were standing in the middle of the famed dark gray beach of Villa, Iloilo City at 4:45 in the chilly morning of February 22, 2015, the last day of the 43rd Annual Iloilo Paraw Regatta Festival. What fully shook off the remains of sleep was a certain horizontal glow with a bit of neon green around it hovering over the island of Guimaras. It didn't last long that by the moment I finished rubbing off from my eyes last night’s debris from my short trip to the dreamland, it was already gone.

I looked around and realized that my travel buddies had already dissolved into the crowd who, like us, also hoped that God would grant us a sunrise that could blend beautifully with the man-made colors of the outrigger boats’ sails.

I took my little camera out from my backpack, readied my tripod and began to take pictures; it was, after all, the reason why we woke up in the wee hours and cut short our soles’ rest.

With the crowd, I hurried to roam around looking for an angle that has never been done before, trying to discover a new composition in an event that has already been photographed in a number of ways for 43 festivals now, and praying for that one elusive shot of a lifetime while all the time keeping an eye at the ever-changing colors of dawn.

It took me more than three hundred crappy over-the-top shots and two almost aimless trips through and around that part of the beach being used for boat parking to realize that one had to sometimes put down his camera to be able to see it all.

Perhaps, this is what the organizers of the annual Paraw Regatta haven't considered even after 43 years. In one fleeting moment after another fleeting moment, one would be able to witness a spectacle like no other: man-made colors being united with God's breaking dawn -- two creations becoming one. And in different hues and saturations at that. And repeatedly, still.

Slowly, the crowd got denser and it became easy to get lost in it. Lost in that crowd, we became one with it too. For it awoke the inner child in each of us – our appreciation for the simple joys brought about by utterly simple things around us; our sense of wonder in discovering something new and colorful and beautiful; and our resolve, when it’s over and done, to be there again next time and experience it once more.

Oblivious of the other parts of the festival, these Restless Soles, along the beach, would walk, run, and perhaps dance a little. Then we'd pause a while and trace the horizon and watch the boatmen prepare their sails. And then we'd pause a little more and examine the dark sand that stuck unevenly at our feet. And then again we'd pause some more and realize that, after those countless walking, running and perhaps dancing, after those countless almost aimless strolls with those countless nameless and almost faceless expectators, and after those countless color changes in the sky and the sea, the sun would just effortlessly show its might and fade almost everything in its path as it always did a countless times before.

Without being there, one would never know how the fading of the horizon’s multi-color light show gave way to the slow and dramatic unveiling of those native outrigger boats that proudly fly their colorful sails for everyone to see. The Paraw we call them.

For more information about the annual Iloilo Paraw Regatta Festival, visit its official site: http://iloiloparawregatta.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=3&Itemid=3

(#4) Passing Through the Graves of San Joaquin Cemetery

By Cento Ron

The previous night, these Restless Soles were anxious to make the most of our Panay trip, and reach as many remarkable places as possible. We agreed to head south of the island and kept ourselves open for pleasant surprises along the way.

Before the streaks of dawn, we were already hitting the road to southwest of Iloilo City on our way to Antique.

 Just as the sun was rising at the horizon, we were standing by the roadside facing the San Joaquin Cemetery, with soft light illuminating the chapel. This was supposed to be a mere short stopover, a kidney-break at that, considering that my two travel buddies had been here the other afternoon. The majestic structure simply beholden us and made us spend more time than expected marveling at its classic grandeur.

The San Joaquin Cemetery Chapel sits a little elevated from the national road, following its terrain through a flight of 20 steps from the ground level by the gate. Its construction which dates back to 1892 is ascribed to Fray Mariano Vamba, the last Augustinian Parish Priest of the town.

Perhaps, the most photographed angle of this majestic cultural treasure is by the roadside capturing and using its lone gate as a frame to the Baroque-inspired architecture.

We took several pictures of the chapel, all from different perspectives. Despite the varied viewpoints, a common sight loomed at our horizon, that is, that this cemetery must have been deliberately built along the national road as a visual reminder to all passersby that no matter where everyone is heading towards, we are all merely passing by. And, eventually, we shall be heading towards a single destination.

What a way to start our day! We tried to take a piece of memory through our photography. Subtly, we were also confronted by our mortality. We knew that stacking meaningful memories shall usher us through in this passing journey.

(#3) Cabatuan Graves Encounter

By Cento Ron


Is there any better way to be confronted with your mortality than being where the once or, otherwise, forever brave mortals lay?

One idle afternoon, these Restless Soles, together with friends from way, way back, were dragged to one of the structurally grandest cemeteries we’ve visited in Iloilo -- the Cabatuan Catholic Cemetery.

As we alighted from our borrowed car, silence greeted us save for some uneven rhythm orchestrated from a distance by two grave diggers with a pair of shovels hitting pebbles, gravels and rock bottoms. The humid afternoon breeze provided little soothing comfort. The three conspicuously arched gates stole our attention leading our gaze towards the massive centerpiece, standing wide and tall over other visible structures, the cemetery chapel.

The undeniably Spanish structure accentuates Roman and Byzantine influences. The marker indicates that this was built in February 4, 1894 by Fr. Juan Porras. Order pervades the entire vicinity through a perfect square enclosed by well-crafted steel railings through solid limestone base, with the chapel as the anchor of all other structures.

Due to harsh afternoon sunlight, we borrowed shade from several mid-rise condo-type tombs while waiting for our cameras to snap what beyond our eyes can capture. We had not seen each other for more than 8 months now, and as we exchanged captured landscapes through our view finders, we also exchanged stories -- stories that date back to almost three decades ago, and counting.

While stories were shared, we waited for clouds to form at the horizon. We waited… and waited. Moments passed, but the clouds seemed to elude us. There were too few of them. After several camera clicks and stories shared, we left the place.

My thoughts wandered. I wondered what possible common story do the disparate graves, grave-owners, and grave-dwellers share?

We took shelter at the Lizares Mansion, now Angelicum School, in Tabuc Suba, Jaro, Iloilo City, which became our home for a couple of days. Although not strangers to the Mansion having been there for several occasions, we still found ourselves charmed by it. ( http://restless-soles.blogspot.com/2015/02/haunted-as-it-may-have-seemed-to-be-in.html )