MANILA, Philippines - The International Council for Monuments and Sites (Icomos) sets aside April 18 as International Day for Monuments and Sites, a day when the Icomos national committees put up a global celebration highlighting monuments and sites.

Passed during the Unesco general conference in 1983, the special day is an opportunity to raise public awareness about the diverse heritage existing in the world today, its vulnerability, and the efforts being done to protect and conserve it.

This year’s theme, “Religious Heritage and Sacred Places,” is very appropriate to the Philippines where the majority of the population routinely associates heritage with religious monuments, particularly the string of Spanish colonial churches that encircles most of the islands of the archipelago.

Very significant to the theme is the recent destruction of the Spanish colonial church and convento in Oslob, Cebu, which was gutted down by fire on March 27, a sad lesson on the vulnerability of religious heritage.

The church dedicated to Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception in the coastal town of Oslob (117 km south of Cebu City) is one of the massive coral-stone church-fortresses constructed by the Augustinian Fray Julian Bermejo to protect the southern coastline of Cebu from Moro pirate raids common at that time. The cornerstone of the church dated its construction in 1830.

The fire, attributed to faulty electrical wiring, started at 1:45 a.m. in the room of Fr. Valentino Gemelo, the parish priest.

Although some of the original church walls survived, the fire reduced most of the church into rubble and completely demolished the convento.

As of last week, the local fire marshal has not released his findings so the rubble can be removed or disturbed.

When inspected by conservation architect members of Icomos Philippines, surviving coral-stone walls appeared to have severe cracks running through them, requiring a thorough structural investigation to determine if the burnt-out church ruins can still be reused.

“The belfry is unscathed,” confirms a report by the Cebu Archdiocesan Commission for Church Heritage. “It [belfry] has the original wooden interior structure dating from the latter part of the 19th century, and the 11 bells [the most that have been found in a single Spanish-period belltower] remain. The floor boards and stair railings are unstable.”

The three-story belfry was originally built in 1858 by Augustinian Fr. Apolinar Alvarez.

The disaster has brought together an unprecedented number of church-heritage authorities, conservation specialists from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, and the Cebu provincial government.

Very much involved is the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, which has been actively working in the southern Cebu coastal towns in community-building and heritage-tourism programs.

The various entities are working with the parish priest and the Oslob congregation to determine the future of their church.

No preventive measures

What about prevention measures that could have saved the church from total devastation?

The fire could have been contained because the church is located about 50 meters from the fire station. However, the Oslob fire marshal reported to the Cebu Daily News “they could not respond because their two fire trucks were defective.”

“The fire trucks from nearby towns of Santander, Dalaguete, Argao and Sibonga arrived past 2 a.m. but the fire had already engulfed the church and convent,” the report added.

“The fire department in Boljoon town [next and most proximate to Oslob] failed to send fire trucks because these were also defective.”

So it seems that the fire raged unabated.

The lessons to be learned are obvious.

It was the third fire in Oslob church in 66 years.

The first happened in 1942 when guerrillas burned it down during World War II because it was believed Japanese were hiding inside the structure. From that fire, only coral-stone walls and columns survived.

In 1955, another fire of unknown origin gutted the entire complex, leaving only the masonry walls, wrote Fr. Pedro Galende in his book “Angels in Stone.”

Parishioners rebuilt the convent in 1977 and completed restoration of the church in 1980, following plans earlier prepared by Bishop Santos Gomez Marañon, who also restored the façade and belfry of the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral, the former Bishop’s Palace next to the cathedral, and the now iconic Magellan’s Cross kiosk that is a prime Cebu tourist destination.

The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, enshrined in a glass case at the center of the altar, survived the fire, but other religious artifacts and church records were lost.

Now the question for Oslob residents is how to rebuild their church.

There is need for documentation, a full record of architectural plans and photographs, as well as a catalog of all church treasures to guide any future restoration or even reconstruction.

Another pressing matter is disaster preparedness. This means the town should have fire trucks that work and fire drills to teach local residents how to cope with fire and other disasters.

The burden for adequate disaster control is not on government authorities alone. The Catholic hierarchy, as the owner of churches, should institute its own protective policies and measures as well.

What a sad way to learn that stringent disaster control is very essential to heritage conservation now that Oslob has been lost to the flames!

E-mail the author at pride.place@gmail.com