Jaro Belfry, also known as Campanario de Jaro, is a historical free-standing

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

located in front of the Jaro Metropolitan Cathedral in Jaro,

Iloilo City Iloilo City, officially the City of Iloilo ( hil, Siyudad/Dakbanwa sang Iloilo; fil, Lungsod ng Iloilo), is a 1st class highly urbanized city in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines on the island of Panay. It is the capital city of t ...

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

. It is one of the few belfries in the country that stood apart from the church where it belonged.

History

Jaro Belfry was built in 1744 and made of bricks and limestone blocks. It served both as a religious structure and as a military watchtower against invaders, including the Moros, during the Spanish colonial period. On July 17, 1787, the belfry was heavily damaged by a strong earthquake. Reconstruction only began in 1833 under the supervision of an

Augustinian Augustinian may refer to: *Augustinians, members of religious orders following the Rule of St Augustine *Augustinianism, the teachings of Augustine of Hippo and his intellectual heirs *Someone who follows Augustine of Hippo * Canons Regular of Sain ...

friar, Fr. Jesse Alvarez. On June 29, 1868, another earthquake damaged this belfry. Msgr. Mariano Cuartero, the first bishop of Jaro, had this completely restored in 1881. On January 25, 1948, the belfry suffered again, in its third major destruction, when the earthquake named Lady Caycay swept through the entire

Panay Panay is the sixth-largest and fourth-most populous island in the Philippines, with a total land area of and has a total population of 4,542,926 as of 2020 census. Panay comprises 4.4 percent of the entire population of the country. The City o ...

region. The second and third floors of the belfry were collapsed, which left only the first floor as the original structure until these days. On May 29, 1984, Jaro Belfry was declared a National Historical Landmark by the National Historical Institute (NHI), now known as the

National Historical Commission of the Philippines The National Historical Commission of the Philippines ( fil, Pambansang Komisyong Pangkasaysayan ng Pilipinas, abbreviated NHCP) is a government agency of the Philippines. Its mission is "the promotion of Philippine history and cultural herita ...

(NHCP). Under the supervision of the agency, the reconstruction of the Jaro Belfry began in the 1990s. It was intended as a viewing deck and tourist center but was never made to work as planned due to a conflict with the

Archdiocese of Jaro The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Jaro is an archdiocese of the Catholic Church headquartered in Jaro, Iloilo City, the Philippines. It is based with the Jaro Cathedral (officially the Metropolitan Cathedral of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, also the N ...

In February 2022, it was again under restoration under the same agency, NHCP. It includes the restoration of its original design with four cardinal virtue statues on the four corners of the structure, which had been missing for years. The turnover ceremony, including the unveiling of its historical marker, took place on November 27, 2022, when it also rang its bells again for the first time in 74 years.

References

External links

Official website
* ttp://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08323d.htm Archdiocese of Jaro on the Catholic Encyclopediabr>Archdiocese of Jaro on Catholic-Hierarchy.org
{{Iloilo City Spanish Colonial architecture in the Philippines Buildings and structures in Iloilo City Tourist attractions in Iloilo City Baroque architecture in the Philippines

History

See also

References

External links