St Jerome Church, Dueñas, Iloilo, Part 2. A historic and significantly important church.

The driving distance from our jumping off point at the SM City parking lot in Iloilo to the church in Dueñas is approximately 44 kilometres. Which translates into a driving time of about ¾ hour to 1 hour.

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In our earlier report on the beautiful church we mentionned that the gardens on either side of the church were well worth visiting, but had been unable to get photos of them because of the weather.

Well, we recently had the chance to re-visit Dueñas and were both surprised by what we found and quite disappointed at the same time. Why would I say such a thing, you might ask? It is surprising to walk through the garden area and to view the beautiful statuary, the layout of the gardens and some of the ‘construction’ that was done to accomodate both.

At the same time it was very disappointing to note how awful the place looked. It looks like the grass hasn’t been cut in years, the place could pass for a refuse collection area because there is so much garbage and junk strewn around.

It could be such a quiet, beautiful and serene place to meditate and pray if it were given a good clean up. All it needs is a regular schedule of grass cutting and trash picking up to make it as good as it can be.

Surely to goodness there is someone in the Parish who can arrange this so that people, both locals and out of town visitors, could take advantage of this amazing small enclave of peace and serenity. Even adding a few ‘park benches’ would make it an ideal place to just sit and contemplate the world – it’s truly a fantastic location.

A special message to the Parish Hierarchy: Please put a stop to the burning of refuse in the middle of this potentially beautiful area – if you must continue this burning then hide it in a very back corner somewhere else on the property (remember: out of sight = out of mind) …

Here are some of the nice things we saw in this amazing place.

(left click on any photo to view it in larger format.)