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A Roman Catholic Church made during the Spanish Occupation.

It rained hard just before the start of our photo walk downtown. We were just waiting outside the church taking photos of people lighting up candles. I saw the floors wet with the rain making the scene reflect on the floor. I decided to shoot the scene in HDR to get as much details as possible. The HDR process made the reflections much clearer adding more interest to the photo. It was a quick rain and you can still see the grey clouds clearing up on the upper left corner.

Note: Try to shoot more before and after heavy rains.

Palm Sunday is a Christian moveable feast that always falls on the Sunday before Easter Sunday. The feast commemorates Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned by all four Canonical Gospels (Mark 11:1-11, Matthew 21:1-11, Luke 19:28-44, and John 12:12-19). – Wikipedia

A visita of Carcar established in 1690, Sibonga was placed under Argao’s jurisdiction where it remained for many years. The town became an independent parish to which was assigned a secular priest, Mariano de la Ascensión. The Augustinian, Fr. Próspero Puerto was appointed assistant parish priest from 1833-41, then parish priest from 1846-68. Fr. Puerto built the convento following plans by Bp. Santos Gómez Marañon. Fr. Juan Alonso was parish priest from 1868 to 81. Built of stone and brick, he saw the church completed up to the first story. In 1877, a typhoon damaged the bell tower. Finally, Fr. Enrique Magz completed the church in 1881. Fr. Emiliano Diez was working on improving the church when the Philippine Revolution began in 1898. Msgr. Jeremias Harty, archbishop of Manila, restored the church in 1907.

Heritage features: The church has touches of Gothic in the use of lancet arches for windows and the lone portal of the church. The arches are repeated in a shallow relief surrounding the arch. These terminate in acanthus leaves arranged in a crown. This motif is repeated on church doors. A small rose window, decorated with an iron grille, decorates the pediment.

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