I love visiting ruins of buildings built many years ago. Ever since I saw photographs of ancient civilization ruins in Jordan, Egypt, Peru and Israel to name a few, I made it a point that I should go out and see some old ruins here in the Philippines.
Although, the kind of ruins here only predates to the Spanish era and doesn't go way back as those ruins in countries I mentioned. Still, it gives me satisfaction upon seeing up-close some remnants of history through structural remains, even if its only a couple of hundreds years old. So when I found out that there is a Spanish Colonial church ruins in Moalboal, I decided to just head that way for a couple of days. I was also hoping also to squeeze in some swim time in beaches of Moalboal.
After the Sinulog Festival in Cebu City, I joined Toni and her friends Heidy and Paul to Moalboal, which is about 89 kilometers from Cebu City. Along the way we stopped over at Carcar and took another bus heading this way. It was a total of 1 and a half hour of traveling from the city.
The ruins was from what's left of the San Juan Nepomuceno Church that was established as a parish in 1852. It was a stone church named after its patron saint, St. John Nepomuk–a saint of the Czech Republic. Due to natural deterioration of the church brought about by numerous batterings of storms, earthquakes and rust of time throughout the years of its existence, the church was condemned in 2005.
A new church was constructed a few meters from the original church whose facade still remains. Peeking through the gates, you would see the remnants of the tiled flooring and a part of the old altar which still shows a crucifix of Christ. I never bothered with the new church as everyone knows modern churches does not hold a candle–architecturally–compared to Spanish colonial churches.
It's kind of perplexing to think how reverse it has become wherein the old churches are always better looking than the new ones. Like other old churches, the facade shows assortment arrays of lines and squares brought upon by the different columns of bricks and stones used to cast in its construction. There are intricate levels of designs applied on the walls, beams and pillars that leaves the imagination hanging with wonder on how the original structure looked like.
It's like hearing only a part of a story, but still grab your attention and makes you wanting to hear more. But, same with other ruins, it leaves us with enough fire to spruce up our interests and deepen our ongoing search for more historical knowledge through these structures. Hopefully, we get to see an increasing number of preserved sites so we wont have to resort to a ruined state of an old church or a house that only present us a tiny part of its history.
It has surely come a long way from the very first religious activity done inside the church; a baptism administered by Father Agustin Melgar in March 16, 1852 to its present state on the day we visited the church ruins. As I stood in front of the church for a customary solo photograph, I bear in mind that while everything has changed rapidly from what it was like in 1852, some things lingers on. Just like the facade of the San Juan Nepomuceno Church which proves some things last forever and ought to be not forgotten.
