It’s Holy Week again and it’s time for our yearly Visita Iglesia. This could’ve been the 20th year I will be doing it if only I haven’t spent those 8 Holy Weeks in Japan.

This year, I chose to visit the churches in Laguna together with my sisters. Laguna has a total of 86 Catholic churches with 26 of them being built between the 16th and 19th centuries. We have just visited a few of them to do the “Station of the Cross”.

1. San Antonio de Padua Church of Pila

We started with the church I am familiar with. I have lived in Pila for 6 weeks during the field practice of my MPH studies in 2007. The Church of Pila known as San Antonio de Padua Church is the first Antonine parish church in the Philippines built in 1581 and probably in Asia.

The church complex of San Antonio de Padua is part of the Pila Historic Town Center together with the town center of Pila and 35 old houses and buildings proclaimed as a National Historical Landmark by the National Historical Institute.

2. Immaculate Conception Church of Sta. Cruz

Sta. Cruz is the capital of Laguna province. I still remember going there for our midterm and final presentations of my MPH field practice. However, it was my first time to enter the Immaculate Conception church of Sta. Cruz. It was built in 1608 and reconstructed in 1948 after it has been destroyed by a fire. Similar to the Pila church, the Immaculate Conception church is a Baroque church.

3. Our Lady of Guadalupe Church of Pagsanjan

Next on our list is Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Pagsanjan. Founded in 1687, it is the oldest church in the Philippines under the patronship of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The images of the patroness, both the original (destroyed by the bombings) and the currently installed were gifts from Mexico.

4. San Sebastian Church of Lumban

Lumban was the first Franciscan mission settlement in the Philippines. The church of Lumban with St. Francis of Assissi as its original patron was finished in 1600. It became the first stone church in Laguna and the first Franciscan building outside Manila made out of stone. It was in the 18th century that the town finally adopted Saint Sebastian as its patron saint.

5. St. John the Baptist Church of Kalayaan

Formerly a part of Lumban and Paete, our next stop is the small town of Kalayaan. The municipality was so small that it is just consists of 3 barangays. One of which is the Barangay Longos where the St. John the Baptist Church is located. The old stone church was founded by the Franciscans and was built in 1669.

The facade of the church is quite preserved but its roof was destroyed by the typhoon in 2006. Due to lack of funds to reconstruct the roof into its original form, they used galvanized iron for it’s roof and steel trusses.

6. St. James the Apostle of Paete

It was on my last days in Laguna during my MPH field practice that I have visited the churches in the municipalities of Paete, Pakil and Pangil. So it was kinda reminiscing of those days when I went back there this holy week.

Paete is a municipality famous for its craftsmen highly skilled in wood carving and its embellishment. So it’s already expected to see a lot of their products being sold outside the church. St. James the Apostle Church was founded in 1580 and has undergone several reconstructions due to earthquakes. The church also has a dark history as it served as a dungeon and torture house to the people of Paete during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in World War II.

7. St. Peter of Alcantara Church of Pakil

Among all the churches on this list, it is the St. Peter of Alcantara Church of Pakil that has impressed me the most. I really like the altar where there is a pantheon of 14 saints housed in an elaborately carved niche with the Archangel Michael towering above. The exterior also is not of Baroque style but with Corinthian and Ionic architectures.

8. Our Lady of Nativity Church of Pangil

The original Nuestra Señora de la Natividad Church was built in 1611. It currently housed the statue of the pregnant Virgin Mary locally known as Nuestra Señora de la O which is said to be a gift from King Carlos III of Spain. Unluckily, we haven’t seen this statue as all the images were covered with the purple cloth until Easter.

9. Sts. Peter and Paul Church of Siniloan

It was nearly night when we reached the Sts. Peter and Paul Church of Siniloan. The original church was founded in 1604 and was reconstructed several times losing traces of its classical and Spanish style. It was reconstructed into its current modernized look in celebration of its quadricentennial anniversary in 2004.

10. St. John the Baptist Church of Calamba

St. John the Baptist Church was actually not a part of our list. Due to time constraint, we skipped those churches that are not found along the way back to Manila. We ended up in the church adjacent to Rizal Shrine and is known as the christening site of our National Hero José Rizal designating it as a National Historical Landmark by the Philippine Historical Commission in 1976. The original church was built in 1779 making it the oldest church in the municipality of Calamba.

Those are just 10 of the beautiful churches in Laguna. I still have a lot of churches to visit there for the next holy week.