I wasn’t really expecting anything extraordinary to happen out of my short stay as a marine conservation volunteer in the municipality of Boljo-on. I had already done this kind of job when I worked for several years as a marine biologist and project manager for various environmental organizations. This time, it was just an overnight assignment, and all that I was expecting was to do some diving for a day, and that was it. But Boljo-on softly enthralled me with its muted, rustic charm.
Boljo-on lies just over a hundred kilometers south of Cebu City. When I arrived there, I was billeted in a humble guest room in the town hall, which was situated right beside the sea. The whole municipality seemed to be narrowly cramped between the steep mountains and the sea, teetering on a very tight ledge along the coastline. It was like the mountain walls shoved the whole place right to very edge of the seaboard. Later did I learn how aptly named the town was, as Boljo-on comes from the Cebuano word buljo which means promontory or headland, a high point of land projecting beyond the line of a coast into the sea.
Boljo-on is actually one of the oldest towns in the south of Cebu and is considered one of the most quaint and picturesque. The history of the place dates back to the 1600s when the town and its parish were created and its narrow coastal plains, bordered by cliffs and luxuriant hills, had a commanding view of the Bohol Strait.
Life in the place trippingly lumbered on with a nonchalant, bucolic air. But what tempted me the most about the place was the old church ground, with its complex of buildings sprawled over a wide, open grass court. On the western side of the entire church ground was situated the main church edifice, to which was annexed a convent and a watchtower. The belfry, which holds four bells and was fronted by a statue of Jose Rizal, stood separately like a small fort, afar from the main church structure. Farther on the western end of the church ground was an antiquated, decrepit ancestral house. I had no idea whether it was part of the church complex or a separate, privately owned dwelling.
I wasn’t able to go inside the main church house that time since it was closed, and so I ventured into the adjacent convent. The place was old and beaten, and little light shone in from the door and from the small open grill windows. It was like walking into the most remote recesses of some old, colonial Spanish garrison. I followed a worn, rundown staircase and came up to a capacious hall whose ceiling was exquisitely covered in faded and abstruse murals. Such an evocative feel effused from the bareness of the place and from the few pieces of carved furniture and antiques inside the room, that I felt some quiet sense of melancholic nostalgia subtly wreak inside me. I later found out from a caretaker that the convent nolonger has residents and only serves as a dying museum.
Yet I felt that the place still held a taciturn spirit that refused to be forgotten. I found out much later through some research that the Boljo-on Church has a rather rich heritage. The Church of Patrocinio de Maria, as it was formally called, is actually one of the country’s last few remaining fortress-churches and is also one of the oldest Augustinian churches in Cebu. Construction of the main building began in 1783 and was later completed in 1841 with the completion of the L-shaped convent. The church, with its open yard, its pseudo-Baroque-Rococo design, and its interior of intricate carvings and bas reliefs, is a veritable showcase of Philippine colonial past. The church’s main nave and transept are supported by 28 pillars that are made of mortar and lime. The retablo and the pulpit are ornately carved, and the Moorish-designed choir loft holds a European pipe organ. The church interior is relatively well-preserved and has undergone little renovation, save for a communion rail of ornate silverwork that was stolen long ago. The adjacent watchtower is unusual because it is Islamic in character, being square rather than curved, thus making it look more like a fortress outpost.
The separate rectangular belfry likewise holds stories of its own. Its erection began in 1801, several years after the construction of the main church building. The belfry has four fort windows where cannons were once placed to defend the town against Moorish pirates, and the sound of its silver bells was said to have reached the nearby towns of Oslob and Alcoy. In 1802, however, Muslim hordes raided the town as local militiamen led by an Augustinian priest strove to defend it. Nonetheless, the marauders made off with the bells, but as stories go, the bells weighed so much that the vintas carrying them eventually sunk.
The collection of religious icons of this parish church of Boljo-on was supposedly one of the best in the Philippines, but most of the artifacts were lost to thieves over the years. Thus, the viewing of these priceless artifacts has been restricted and is done only by appointment through the Boljo-on Heritage Foundation and the parish priest. In 1999, the National Historical Institute declared this church in Boljo-on a national historical landmark because of its distinct Filipino Baroque style. In July 2001, the National Museum thereafter declared it, together with 25 other Philippine churches, a national cultural treasure. Since its commencement in 1999, the church restoration program has been supported and recognized by various local and national institutions. In October 2000, the town council of Boljo-on created the Historical Committee as a token of the council’s active participation in the community-based church restoration program, while in 2001, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts shortlisted the church as one of a few heritage sites that it would assist.
As I took in the sight of the aged church complex and drifted through its forlorn passages, my mind was already pervaded with the haunting inkling that I was roaming around a place of unspoken and unapparent significance. But little did I know of the very solemnity of its being. Its historical essence still remains palpable among the solitude of its pallid walls, but the place has long fallen into desolation, and only stillness draped the panels of its corridors.
Only a shadow of its former self remained, but Boljo-on’s Church of Patrocinio de Maria still held a venerable air. And I found it rather curious, and likewise sad to a point, that a place of such character had fallen into somewhat careless anonymity. But then I guessed that that was where the appeal of the church and of the town lay. It was the very obscurity of Boljo-on that managed to draw out the awe of accidental travelers like me.
Stepping out of the church, I looked around and took notice of the few townsfolk unperturbedly going about their daily affairs. The whole town stirred very little, but it carried itself with a certain asober dignity. I have seen only so little of the whole place, and yet I have managed to know it more than I expected I could. And so with a casual sigh, I walked back out into the streets, leaving the old church and the town to bask in the afterglow of the late afternoon sun.