Miagao Church

In the coastal town of Miagao, on the southern shore of Panay, stands a church that is half cathedral, half fortress. Santo Tomás de Villanueva was built between 1787 and 1797 on the highest point of the town, with walls thick enough to resist the Moro raids that, after attacks in 1741 and 1754, had driven the town to a safer site, and two massive bell towers that served as lookouts. In 1993 it became one of the four Baroque Churches of the Philippines inscribed by UNESCO.

The glory of the building is its façade, an ochre sheet of carved stone made of adobe, coral and limestone. Instead of a conventional European programme, the relief is a local world: at the centre Saint Christopher, dressed in Filipino clothes, carries the Child Jesus on his back while clutching a coconut palm treated as the tree of life, and around him grow papaya, palms and other native plants. Spanish, Chinese, Muslim and local motifs mingle, and the whole is often described as a Philippine echo of Mexican tequitqui art. Above the door is the patron, Saint Thomas of Villanova, flanked by Saint Henry and Pope Pius VI with their coats of arms.

The two towers do not match: they were commissioned by different priests, and the west tower has four storeys while the east one received its third level only in 1830. The church was damaged in the revolution of 1898, by fire in 1910, in the Second World War and by an earthquake in 1948, and was restored in 1960–62. Inside, a gilded retablo frames a crucifix and saints, and the original late-18th-century image of Saint Thomas is kept in a glass case at the back of the nave.

Getting there

Miagao is about 37 km from Iloilo City; Iloilo International Airport (ILO) is about 35 km away. Jeepneys to Miagao leave from the Mohon terminal in Villa Arevalo, Iloilo, and take about 40 minutes; buses bound for San Jose, Antique, from the Molo terminal also stop at the church plaza.