Santa Cruz Church is one of the churches that I most often see whenever I travel to work. The church is officially called Our Lady of the Pillar Parish Church, and recognized as the Archdiocesan Shrine of the Blessed Sacrament situated in the Santa Cruz district of Manila.

Lumban Church is known as the first and largest stone church in Laguna being built in 1600. It was also the first Franciscan building outside Manila made out of stone.

St. Michael the Archangel is the patron saint of Iligan City. The church is the main seat of Iligan’s archdiocese and has been separated from the parish of Cagayan de Misamis in 1834. It was said that the original location of the church is near the river but due to the great floods in that period, the church was transferred to it’s current place. Some renovations were made in the building including the tower, the Cross at the top of the steeple and the tall St. Michael’s statue.

A significant turning point for the church came on Wednesday, June 23, 1948, when the first perpetual novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help was held in Baclaran, attended by about seventy people. In the months that followed, participation steadily increased as the devotion became more widely known. What began as a local practice among nearby residents soon drew devotees from other parts of Manila and beyond.

Aside from their beautiful chapels, I have visited two old churches in Batanes. : the San Carlos Borromeo Church in Mahatao and the San Jose de Obrero Church in Ivana, both established in 1787.

On July 26, 2022, which coincided with the Feast of St. Anne, the Vatican officially designated the Archdiocesan Shrine of St. Anne in Taguig City as a minor basilica. This significant recognition puts the church in the esteemed company of only 20 churches in the country. The declaration was announced by His Excellency Most Rev. Charles John Brown, D.D., the Apostolic Nuncio to the Philippines.

It’s holy week again and fortunately, unlike the previous 2 years of pandemic, people can now move to different places here in the Philippines. So, we decided to go to Baguio City, the summer capital of the country.

The Sta. Clara de Montefalco Parish was officially founded in Brgy. Caniogan in February 1994. However, the original church’s seating capacity of 150 proved insufficient for the thousands of parishioners. Consequently, a new church was constructed, now standing at a towering height of 57 meters on a sprawling 11,230 square meters of land. It is now acclaimed as the tallest church in the Philippines.

Commonly referred to as Binondo Church, the Minor Basilica and National Shrine of San Lorenzo Ruiz was founded by the Dominicans in 1596. Initially dedicated to Saint Gabriel the Archangel, who served as Binondo’s patron until the mid-19th century, it later became known as Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary Parish, venerating the Blessed Virgin Mary as Binondo’s patroness from the early 1700s to the present day.

The Minor Basilica and Archdiocesan Shrine of Santo Niño, more commonly known as Tondo Church, was established by the Augustinians in 1572 and holds the distinction of being the first parish church in Luzon. It is also home to the second oldest image of the Santo Niño in the Philippines, next only to the Sto. Niño de Cebu. The image enshrined in the church originated from Acapulco, Mexico, and was handed to the Archbishop of Manila by a wealthy merchant before being entrusted to the parish priest of Tondo, where it has remained since the church’s founding.

The church was dedicated to St. Dominic Savio, the patron saint of choirboys, falsely accused people and juvenile delinquents. He was studying to be a priest under St. John Bosco when he died at the very young age of 14. He was canonized in 1954 which made him the youngest non-martyr to be a saint until 2017.