MINALIN, Pampanga – The National Museum is set to declare the 397- year- old Sta. Monica parish church here as a national cultural treasure (NCT) for its preserved unique centuries-old features, such as the so- called “capillas posas” or four small chapels.
Local folk, headed by Mayor Arturo Naguit and his brother Florencio, are now preparing festivities for the declaration slated on Aug. 27.
The Sta. Monica church would be the second NCT in Pampanga, next to the St. James church in Betis, Guagua.The Sta. Monica church was believed to have been founded on May 14, 1614.
The concrete Sta. Monica church has baroque façade. It features a 1619 mural of the map of Minalin, painted on the walls of the Minalin church convent. Its ballasts depict Kapampangan mythological figures.
It has three side entrances symbolizing St. Augustine and his work, The City of God.
The 1614 map mural allegedly indicated that Minalin was once the seat of the Kapampangan region as drawn by Francisco Malang Balagtas or Pansomun.
Architect Owen Francis Canlas, chair of the Commission on Cultural Heritage, Restoration and Conservation (CCHRC) of the Sta. Monica Parish, said his commission has launched “Operation Scanning,” or the scanning of old photographs of the church for electronic documentation.
More than 100 photographs came in from parishioners after a recent Mass officiated by Fr. Greg Vega at the church.
Selected photos would be made part of the parish museum, Canlas said.
“We would like to reconstruct the history of Minalin through old photographs and present how the church and the town of Minalin looked in the past centuries, hoping this will evoke a deep -rootedness and footedness in the past,” Fr. Vega said.
The photographs included a visit by the late Bishop Emilio Cinense in 1966 , a wedding in 1948 showing the “retablo mayor” at the back of the altar, and a flood in 1993 that submerged the church by a meter after surviving the 1991 eruptions of Mt. Pinatubo.
The National Museum approved the Sta. Monica Parish as an NCT for three reasons, Canlas said.
First, its façade features a unique giant retablo influenced by Christian, Buddhist, Hinduist and animistic cultures.
Second, it is the only Roman Catholic church in the Philippines having four capilla posas that has remained intact.
These are smaller chapels attached to the main church. Canlas said the capilla posas “reflect Spanish colonial religious discrimination as these were used by the Indios while the Peninsulares were the only ones allowed into the main church.”
Third, the church hosts an old painting depicting the Our Lady of Consolation giving the cords to Sta. Monica and her son St. Augustine. This painting is at the uppermost level of the retablo mayor or altar.
The Sta . Monica Church could have been a center of religious groups, such as Augustinians, Franciscans, Jesuits and Dominican, as indicated by images of St. Francis the Assisi, St. Dominic de Guzman and San Francisco Javier in its altars, Fr. Vega said.
