The Santa Maria Church

By: Pedro A. Arreola, Jr.

Municipal Secretary

f all catholic sanctuaries in the Ilocos the Santa Maria

church has the most beautiful location. Situated and
majestically sprawled atop a hill, it overlooks the whole
town. From there, one can have a birds eye view of the poblacion and a breath-taking panoramic vista of the verdant fields
and the deep blue sea miles around with the towering Cordillera ranges as solid and austere background to the east and the
distant south.

Graphic from www.backpackingpilipinas.com

Like may other Philippine churches, legend has been
interwoven with the history of this church. It is said that the
original chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Assumption where her statue was enthroned was built at a site in
what is now the present sitio Bulbulala of barangay Maynganay
Norte. It was from there, so the story goes, that the Virgin periodically disappeared and to be discovered and to be found
later sitting on the branch of a guava tree then growing at the
area now occupied by the main altar of the church today.

Father Mariano Dacanay, the Ilocano parish priest here from 1 September 1902 to 27 May 1922 has another variation of this legend
which he assures, was gathered from reliable sources. He relates that the Blessed Virgin was enthroned in another chapel that was formerly
erected below the present church and what is now the East Central Elementary School compound. Father Dacanay adds, that from this chapel, the Virgin Mary made her peregrinations to that guava tree on the knoll.

This version of Father Dacanay of the legend gains greater probability if not credence for today, one of the twin structures bearing the
features and architectural designs of what could have been a chapel or a church by then obtaining standards remains intact in said school
compound and presently used as a classroom for grade school pupils.

Numerous and varying legends or stories about the Virgin Mother have long become part of Philippine religious lore. And if any one
of them could be accepted as truth, then it is the blessed Virgin herself who manifested in a miraculous way her preference of a site for her
permanent home.

Be that as it may, construction of the church and tower on the hill began in 1811 during the ministry of Fr. Juan Cordano, with the bells
for the tower arriving on the following year. Work on the convent was started by Fr. Benigno Fernandez and was finished by Fr. Juan Zollo.
Years later the old brick church and svelte four tiered tower were restored by Father P. Lorenzo while the brick cemetery and chapel were built
by several succeeding Agustinian priests.

In 1822 the church and convent below the hill were razed to the ground. Never-the-less, the zealous energetic Fr. Bernardino Lago
made Santa Maria the spring-board of his missionary activities in the interior settlements of Abra. Consequently, the church and convent
were enlarged to accommodate the growing number of parishioners and visiting or itinerant Agustinian missionaries. This situation explains
the huge size of the reconstructed church with its two side altars and so with the convent which must have been occupied by newly arrived
missionaries who were first taught Iloko psychology while they perfected their knowledge of the Ilocano dialect before they were sent to
far flung mission stations in the hinterlands. Also the convent could have been a retreat house for returning Agustinian missionaries, weary
from their tiring apostolic labors and also a home for sick and aging friars.

In 1863, the church was remodeled. A massive strong wall of stone borders 500 meters long and 8 meters high was built around the
church and convent. All materials like bricks, wood, lime and stone boulders used in these structures were extracted from the people as tributes. And worse they were forced to render free labor. This made the people restless, yet the did not show any manifestation of their resentment if not belligerent attitude towards the authorities despite the inhuman treatment they suffered and their knowledge that the Spaniards
were not invincible after all as shown by the Silang, Sarrat ad Cavite revolts in 1762, 1815 and 1869 respectively.

However, when another renovation work on the convent was made in 1895, the resentment of the people against forced labor and
payment of excessive taxes and tributes reached feverish proportions which resulted in open defiance of church and colonial authorities by
some people who had to leave town with their whole families to settle finally in Nueva Ecija and Pangasinan to escape the ire of the Spanish
church and state officials and their sub alterns.


The Santa Maria church today is a solid, compact piece of architecture with the redoubtable aspects of a fort, further accented by its
unique site. The convent faces the church across the atrium.

The one-nave church, heavily reinforced by massive buttresses from the exterior is severely plain, its austere solidness relieved only
by the lateral bay windows and the apertures on the facade. But then, the vertical projections of the lateral buttresses somehow break up the
walls into a regular sequence of alternating masses, creating a simple but rhythmically floating movement.

The position of the tilted bell tower is unique in the region, being at about the mid-point of the longitudinal axis of the nave instead of
being in line with the facade or forward of it as in almost all other cases.