Historic Philippines

Oh yes, we headed to Janiuay, again January 26, 2013 for a family funeral. The deceased  was Ignacio M. Jaula,  a first cousin of Nanay and we just had to be there.

While in the church I once again saw the stations of the cross in stained glass in the windows over the side openings right around the church. I was sitting there and I finally really appreciated how beautiful they actually were. So, I decided to photograph them and they will be the back-up for our Visitas Iglesias  2013 Program which should be published before February 15, 2013.  Here is what they look like from a distance and then a couple close ups.

I say back-up because I’ve been told that the trek up the mountain on Guimaras to view the Bulaan Bukid Shrine is quite a workout. Apparently, it’s uphill all the way and quite steep and it’s on the highest point of land in Guimaras.

Since we’re heading there, to Guimaras, on Tuesday, January 29, 2013 to visit three churches which we will be including in Volume 4 of our series of The Historic Churches of Panay Island, Philippines.

While we are on Guimaras, I had been looking forward to seeing the Bulaan Bukid, but having now been cautioned by family and friends (Dave DeWall and His Sainted Patient Wife, Melinda of philippinesplus.com) that the climb up the mountain might be too much for me “in my condition”.

I’m having second thoughts. I’ve been thinking that maybe I can send Joe Marie, my trusted travelling companion, navigator and bodyguard up the mountain to handle the photographic work while I leisurely wait at the base of the ‘mountain’. We’ll see.

In any event, back to Janiuay. This week, was the week of the town “Patronal Saint Fiesta” – that’s right the fiesta runs from January 18th to 28th – my first clues on the drive up were all the banners across the ‘highway’ between Cabatuan and Janiuay welcoming various and sundry politicians and ‘honoured’ guests (mostly politicians) to the Fiesta. If you’ve never seen those banners they usually read something like this:

Now, they are welcoming everyone from the Senator, the Congressman/woman from the district and other adjacent districts, to the Mayors and Vice-Mayors of the municipalities in the area, to members of the Sandingbayan, to the local DOG CATCHER and many others. They probably only include those supposed guests who are from the same political party…

There are normally 10 to 15 of these over each of the roads leading into town from any direction on the compass at about  100 to 150 feet intervals. Must be good business for sign makers – every town or village in this regions and likely across the country uses them – free campaign publicity (I wonder if these count in the total amount of publicity allowed by COMELEC during elections campaigns, which we are now in for the 2013 mid-term elections?).

FERGUS, can we please get back to Janiuay. OK, OK , already!

Inside the beautiful church of St Julian his statue is prominently displayed, at the foot of the altar during his fiesta week.

 Leaving the church, we headed to the cemetery and then back to the Jaula home on the main street for lunch. The family runs a very large restaurant and it was packed. It is just across the street from what I call the Janiuay “Bus Terminal” – it’s actually the main Jeepney stop.

For some reason, the main street is abnormally busy today, as can be seen from the photos below.

This is the street that actually leads past the cemetery and onto Barangay Guadalupe, where She Who Must be Obeyed’s family is actually from. It’s actually a highway that eventually leads to Mina and then onto Pototan, the ‘back way’.

It’s really interesting, just sitting there, watching the people going about their weekend tasks.

The trisikads are super busy:

And so are the jeepneys:

This one is on its way to Mina and Pototan through Barangay Guadalupe. It’s really interesting to watch the jeepneys – they are constantly overloaded and don’t appear to have any serious accidents  as a result.

Going in the other direction is a sugar cane truck heading to the fields to pick another load of cane for delivery to the refinery.

Lunch ended, eventually and unfortunately so too did the family visits because we had to head up to Guadalupe. We were surprised there to find that the bananas on our lot  were ready for picking and we loaded up the back of the car with a week’s supply. In addition to that the “Indian Mangoes” at Dante Baillo’s (another cousin) house were also ready for picking as you can see, and there was an over abundance of them…

That’s Dante in the black shirt above with She Who Must be Obeyed checking out the possible harvest of those delicious “Indian Mangoes”.

It was getting late and we had to head home, afterall it’s Dinagyang in Iloilo this week and the traffic heading into and through the city to get home to Oton will be horrible. As I’m ‘mounting up’ here’s what greets me again.

We said our goodbyes and off we went, home.