A Trip Across the Philippines

Part two of a short sojourn to the Tropics, 1970s style

I’ve never been to the area, but I certainly can see its allure…

Here’s part one, in case you missed it:

Manila and Corregidor in the Philippines

Above, the “Church of Molo”, also known as Santa Ana in Iloilo City—and according to Wikipedia, it “is recognized as ‘the women’s church’ or ‘the feminist church’ [sic] because it only features images of female saints inside, including Saint Anne, the patron saint of Molo. The National Historical Institute declared it a national landmark in 1992.”

Below, the Provincial Hall in Iloilo City, also on the same island.

Finally in this section, an image of Bala-an Bukid, “a 558 feet (170 meters) mountain, located in Barangay Balcon Melliza, Jordan, Guimaras in the Philippines. This site has a church and a huge cross which can be seen from Iloilo City coast and known for being a pilgrimage site of Catholic devotees especially during the Holy Week.” (via Wikipedia)

In this postcard, you can see part of the surroundings from atop the hill. More from Wikipedia about the site:

The Ave Maria Shrine in Jordan, Guimaras is popularly known as the Bala-an Bukid, the highest elevation of the headland called by navigators as the Bondolan Point. The shrine includes a chapel and a concrete cross both erected in 1954 during the Marian year celebration on a property donated by the heirs of Don Raymundo Melliza y Angulo, Iloilo’s second governor.

The construction of the chapel and the cross was financed by Ana Ledesma vda de Lopez and her children Victoria, Eduardo and Cesar “in gratitude for Our Lady’s protection during the last war.”

The chapel overlooks the whole of Guimaras and the south eastern coast of Panay. Opposite it is a 60-foot cross erected on a narrow circular gallery that can accommodate about five persons at a time.

The shrine, completed in 1956, provides a panoramic view of Jordan and Buenavista, and of Iloilo City across the strait.

Mount Mayon near Legaspi

Finally, two mailed postcards showing the volcano known as Mount Mayon:

The above postcard was mailed in 1960—to Austria, if you can believe it. Below, another perspective, albeit from a tad later—and mailed to my uncle, Erich Sonntag’s oldest child:

It shows, as the reverse of the first of these two postcards holds, “the most nearly perfect cone in the world ‘outrivalling Fujiyama in symmetry’, rises from Southern Luzon’s seacoast to 7,943 ft. above a base circumference [of] 80 miles”.