Paoay Church

The church of St Augustine in Paoay, in Ilocos Norte on the northwest coast of Luzon, is the clearest example of what Filipinos call earthquake Baroque: the European Baroque church, built heavy and low to survive a land that shakes. Augustinian friars founded the parish in the late seventeenth century, and Father Antonio Estavillo began the present church in 1694; it was completed in 1710. It was declared a National Cultural Treasure in 1973, and in 1993 it became one of four Baroque churches of the Philippines inscribed together on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

What stops visitors is the sides of the building. Twenty-four enormous buttresses march along the flanks and the back, some of them shaped as giant stepped ramps that may have been used to reach the roof. They give the church the look of a fortress, and some writers see in its walls and façade an echo of the temple architecture of Java. The façade itself rises like a stepped pediment, leaning slightly forward, divided by square pilasters and cornices, with finials, niches, rosettes and the Augustinian coat of arms. The walls combine coral stone and brick, bound with a lime mortar that, according to accounts, was mixed with sugarcane juice among other ingredients.

A few metres away stands the separate three-storey bell tower of coral stone, begun in 1793 and deliberately set apart so that a collapse would not bring down the church. It later served as a lookout, for Filipino revolutionaries against Spain in 1898 and for guerrillas against the Japanese in the Second World War. Earthquakes in 1865 and 1885 did real damage.

Paoay Church is still an active parish of the Diocese of Laoag; visitors should be discreet during services. The town is a good base for the rest of northern Ilocos: Paoay Lake, the sand dunes and the Marcos-era mansion known as Malacañang of the North are all nearby, though they are easiest to reach by tricycle.

Getting there

Paoay is about 19 km southwest of Laoag, roughly half an hour by road; jeepneys run from Laoag via Batac, about 5 km away. Laoag International Airport (LAO) is about 13 km from the church.