Trixie Cruz-Angeles: An Omelet Heritage

By Rose Beatrix C. Angeles (Trixie Cruz-Angeles)

INQUIRER.net

First Posted 14:16:00 05/27/2008

A country without a memory, is a country of madmen. -- George Santayana

The Church of Sto. Tomas de Villanueva in Miag-ao, Iloilo, 

a World Heritage Site, is made of yellow sandstone

If all uninformed tour guides are to be believed, our churches are held together with cement and egg white like the confections they are. In my former life as NCCA's legal conservationist, I've had some side-ripping tourist moments as some enthusiastic guide with more guesswork than research attempted to explain their history factoids with gossip and superstition.

Philippine churches are primary tourism targets and a booming industry surrounds them. Unlike many of their European counter-parts, these churches remain in use, and are thus showcases of continuing history. Over thirty of them have been declared national cultural treasures and World Heritage Sites.

Because of renewed interest in these structures, the informality of accreditation systems for tour guides (not to mention the downright politics of some of their appointments) and too few sources of information on the histories of both the locales and structures, too many have taken up occupations as "tour guides" using savvy business sense and not much else. The result is a disastrous mish mash of misinformation that often bewilders the educated and damages the uninformed.

A common theme among these guides is a small but significant footnote in the construction methods of these churches. Too many times, I have heard a guide say that the churches are made of adobe and were put together using egg whites, which gave rise to local delicacies like the leche flan. To my consternation, this was uttered during a local government-sponsored tour of Iloilo. The guide was referring to the sandstone Miag-ao Church, a World Heritage Site, which has no record of being built with egg whites and is nowhere near a source of adobe. We do know that it is held together with a lime plaster.

Lime plasters were mixed with various materials, according to the Philippine expert on ecclesiastical heritage, Ricky Jose, among them crushed shells, sand, lime, water, animal blood and yes, in some instances, duck eggs. National Museum restoration engineer Orlando Abinion adds that animal manure was also used in some instances. It is the duck eggs that perhaps led to the belief that egg whites were used.

Jose however says that the records are unclear on whether the whole duck egg or just its egg white was mixed in with the plaster. While there is no clear correlation between the building of the churches and delicacies made of egg yolk such as yema, tocino del cielo and leche flan, it's certainly a tantalizing idea. This is not enough, however, to say that all churches are built of adobe and egg whites.

In fact, not all churches were built of adobe. Their locations usually determined the material to be used. Churches in Manila and some from the Southern Tagalog regions were made of adobe, which can still be sourced in these areas, the best of which still comes from Bulacan. When the Intramuros walls were being restored in the 1970s, new blocks of adobe were cut to fill in portions of the walls that had been removed. To ensure authenticity, the stone masons were trained to cut the adobe stone in the same manner as the original stone of the walls were cut.

In the Visayas and parts of Mindanao, many of the churches are made of coral stone, save for others like Miag-ao's Sto. Tomas de Villanueva, which is of sandstone. Others are made of volcanic rock and still others were built using river stone held together with the lime plaster. Others were built with a combination of these materials and locally produced brick, such as those beautiful churches in Northern Luzon. If one looks carefully, the remains of the large hornos (ovens) in which these bricks were baked can still be seen on church grounds. The Tumauini Church is a symphony in various sizes of brick made for the purpose.

However, if we must insist that our churches were built with eggs, the records say that the dome of the Church of the Immaculate Conception, the former parish of the Intramuros now better known as the Manila Cathedral, was sealed in 1780 with a mixture of lime, powdered brick, duck eggs and bamboo sap, again according to Ricky Jose. Two hundred duck eggs are also said to have to have been used on a convento in Imus.

The San Agustin Church in Intramuros, Manila is acknowledged 

as the oldest in the country, built in 1591 and finished in 1607

As far as old churches go in various places in the country, I hear many local tour guides who love to boast that their church is the oldest in the Philippines. However, if the church is not located in Intramuros, then it's not likely to be true. According to curator of the San Agustin church museum, Father Pedro Galende, OJA, two churches were built at the time Miguel Lopez de Legazpi occupied the area that was Raja Matanda's former fort, now known as the Intramuros.

These two churches were San Agustin and what is now the Manila Cathedral. The original church of San Agustin, made of wood and nipa, was built in 1571. The structure burned down in 1574 after the raids directed by the pirate Lima Hong. The structure that was rebuilt also burned down in 1583, when the draperies caught fire during the wake of Governador Ganzalvo Ronquillo. After the structure burned down again in 1586, the Agustinian provincial met with his council and they passed a resolution ordering the building of a stone church.

This stone church, whose construction began in 1591 was finished in 1607, is the same structure standing in Intramuros today. It was declared a World Heritage Site and acknowledged as the oldest church in the country.

This bit of history notwithstanding, the funniest tour guide comment I have ever had the privilege to hear is this nugget from a Northern Luzon guide: "Our church is the oldest church in the entire country. Even before the Spaniards came, it was already there."

(Source: Trixie Cruz-Angeles -- INQUIRER.net)
To know more about Trixie Cruz Angeles, check out: I AM TRIXIE CRUZ