The restoration of San Sebastian Church; from Macapagal to Macapagal Arroyo

Usually, invitations for diplomatic receptions are held in their different embassies in Makati’s posh villages. So I was pleasantly surprised to get an invitation from the Belgian Embassy to come to San Sebastian Church. I did not know then what the Belgians had to do with the church. And as far as I was concerned San Sebastian was a memory from childhood. Using this hunch, I headed towards C.M. Recto and stopped to ask directions. I kept thinking I am sure to see it what with its towering spires. There it was — a church built to withstand wars, earthquakes and typhoons now for most Manilans merely a memory from childhood.

As soon as I entered the Church, the immediacy of traffic outside, the decrepit buildings that surrounded it and the noise and mayhem of the times were shut out by its huge doors. It was as if I was a tourist visiting a Church in Europe.

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Why had I not read about San Sebastian Church in our tourism brochures? We fly all the way to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower, ignorant that the famous French architect Gustave Eiffel had designed a church in the heart of Manila!

Tina Paterno who is helping with the restoration of San Sebastian was speaking when I came in. I caught a few words about its restoration program but I was too distracted by a feeling of strangeness. This is in Manila? What does it mean to have this magnificent European architecture as part of our cultural heritage?

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As Findelle de Jesus, a graphic designer put it in an article “we may not have an Eiffel Tower nor a Statue of Liberty which is famous in all the works of Gustave Eiffel. But look around here in the Metropolitan Manila Area, and you will see landmarks that are significant, unique, and truly a treasure of the arts — the San Sebastian Church.”

But like me, she too had no idea about the distinction of this church until her father told her.

“Why bother to go far? Try considering the San Sebastian Church. It’s just sad that many people didn’t know that the San Sebastian Church is the only Gothic church ever built in the Philippines — or perhaps, in the whole of Asia. If only for that, it is worth visiting.” 

The father shared his knowledge with his daughter. “Despite the discrepancies in the dates of its founding, the San Sebastian Church is the only steel church in Asia built in the late 18th century. It should have celebrated its centennial around 1991. Yet, it seems that not even the Catholic administration paid any interest in its historical significance nor in the fact that it was Alexander Gustave Eiffel who designed it.”

For those who want to know the significance of the French architect here it is: “Alexander Gustave Eiffel was the only man in Europe famous not only for the defining symbol of the Eiffel Tower but also for exporting knockdown steel churches in Latin America. He was a great engineer who also designed bridges, transported to their sites piece by piece, and assembled it like a Lego set. Eiffel was also the one who designed the metal structure of the Statue of Liberty.”

She adds that Ambeth Ocampo wrote how San Sebastian’s significance was reopened when Chinese-American, I.M. Pei, visited the Philippines in the late 70s to find out whether it was true that Gustave Eiffel designed a steel church in Asia. He inspected the church and declared it was indeed true.

“The story goes that San Sebastian began in 1621 when Don Bernardino Castillo, a generous patron and a well-known devotee of San Sebastian donated his lot for the dream of having a steel church in Asia become a reality. The original church, which was made of wood, was burned in 1651 during a Chinese uprising.

The succeeding structures were destroyed by fire and an earthquake in 1859, 1863, and, 1880 destroyed the imposing stone of the church. The exasperated parish priest, Fr. Esteban Martinez approached the Spanish Architect Genero Palacios with a plan to build a fire and earthquake-resistant church made entirely of steel.”

“The present San Sebastian church was ordered knockdown in steel parts from the “Societe Anonime des Enterprises de Travaux Publiques in Brussels, Belgium. The Societe cast all the parts and shipped them piece by piece to Manila (as what Eiffel did in most of his designs). Two Belgian engineers supervised the construction of the church which was later completed and inaugurated in 1891,” Ambeth Ocampo adds.

Its restoration will be a collaborative effort by the Belgians, French and Spanish. Filipinos should support the project because we now own it. Location: Plaza del Carmen, Manila 1011, Philippines phone number: +63 2 523 8411 (Tourism Board).

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From San Sebastian, I was back to reality to congratulate Carmen Suva, the indefatigable girl Friday of all press secretaries from Macapagal to Macapagal-Arroyo. It was her 70th birthday. She received gifts from friends and admirers, but the most precious one was the gift she gave to us by writing the book of her life in Malacañang and the Presidents she had served.

It is a modest undertaking but written by someone who was close to the scene makes the work invaluable, with stories that cannot be found in history books or political analysis of experts. She writes on the day when June 12 became our independence day.

“The change of date was a sensitive issue in 1962 because the US Congress had just rejected the country’s war claims, prompting President Macapagal to postpone a state visit to Washington.

The announcements about the change of the Independence Day celebration from July 4 to June 12 did not get the headline treatment it deserved recalls Maximino Edralin, a reporter of the Philippine Herald.

During that time, Malacañang issued a press release naming the members of the committee that would handle the celebration of the Independence Day on June 12 but failed to explain the significance of the change of date.

Palace reporters in their rush to report back to their respective offices did not have a chance to read it. Edralin narrated that they had wrongfully assumed that June 12 was a mere typographical error, and they uniformly changed the date to July 4. It was only Celestino Vega of Bagong Buhay who had the presence of mind to call for clarification and was able to write the correct story. The significance of the change of date for such a major story in our country’s history came out later.” A gem of a story.