Why Santa Barbara Plaza is victorious

Last week we featured the park and plaza of La Paz, one of the seven districts of Iloilo City and home of the late Senator Miriam Santiago. For this week’s piece, we travel north of the capital of Iloilo province, to picturesque Santa Barbara and take a look at the town’s Victory Plaza, as part of our continuing series on Philippine plazas and parks.

Santa Barbara is just four kilometers from the Iloilo International Airport, but most visitors miss it as the highway bypasses the poblacion or town center. I don’t think that this is bad for the municipality as it keeps the town’s historic core intact. The town, in fact, has one of the loveliest plazas in the country.

The plaza and the town have a colorful history. The original settlement was called Catmon (dillenia philippinensis or katmon is an endemic tree, which really should be used more often for urban parks and streetscapes). There remains a large katmon by the municipal hall, one of the few left in town.

The population in the 17th century was small and it was only a “visita” of the Jaro vicariate, which means it did not have a permanent church, possibly only a capilla. The population grew in the 18th century to over 15,000 and it became a pueblo named Santa Barbara, after the settlement’s patron saint.

As a town, it was organized according to the classic “Laws of the Indies” pattern with a plaza mayor and a grid of streets. The plaza was and is still defined by the town’s church and its municipio or municipal hall. Although the current plaza is large, about a hectare in area, the central civic space appears to have been as large as three hectares. This is close to the size of last week’s La Paz Plaza and Park. Like La Paz, Santa Barbara also has a football pitch as part of its central area.

There is also a large forecourt to the municipal hall. Today this hosts a 120-foot flagpole with a huge 20x40 Philippine flag. It is only one of a select number of sites allowed in the country to fly the flag 24/7, day and night. It is lit at night. The reasons for this are the significant events that happened in the plaza during the revolution.

The Revolutionary Government of the Visayas was organized in Santa Barbara in November 1898 and was formally inaugurated at the town plaza of Santa Barbara. It was here too that the Philippine flag was raised for the first time outside of Luzon. The town also became the headquarters of the revolutionary army and it was from here that Iloilo was taken in December 1898. It was named the Victory Plaza because of these events.

The American colonial period saw the town expand and its economy grow to match the capital, Iloilo. The plaza evolved from a plain open space in the Spanish period to a more formal layout that included two key elements. These are the Rizal statue and the bandstand. The Rizal statue of Santa Barbara is distinctive because the good doctor is surrounded by four other personalities of the revolution, the propagandists MH Del Pilar, the Luna brothers and Ilonggo Graciano Lopez Jaena.

The bandstand, built in 1925, is an elegant version of many similar octagonal gazebo in the islands. Bandstands were popular countrywide in the first half of the 20th century because of the popularity of military and school marching bands. Remember that radio and TV would only entertain the public much later in the century.

The Santa Barbara Church was built in 1845. It is a neoclassic style of architecture with a façade embellished with four pairs of twin pilasters. It has a single belfry. The attached convent with touches of Spanish mudejar (Moorish) style has distinctive filigree work in the loggia around its inner courtyard. The interior of the church holds an elaborate layered altar with a pulpit of note on the side.

The National Historical Commission of Philippines declared the church and convent a National Landmark in 1991. A dozen years later the complex was restored with the help of the NHCP. The project was completed in time for the 2015 Independence Day celebrations, which was held in the town and attended by President Aquino. The National Museum also declared the complex a National Cultural Treasure in 2013.

Just like La Paz Plaza, Victory Plaza was renovated in 1998.  Two monuments were added to the park. The first is a classical monument to the revolutionary hero Gen. Martin T. Delgado. The second is a more modern monument to war veterans. The plaza was spruced up for the Independence Day festivities of 2015. It was also declared as a historical landmark in the same year.

The church, plaza and municipal complex are well maintained, thanks to initiatives by Mayor Dennis Superficial, the parish, and the whole community. I’ve visited the plaza twice in recent years and have always found the plaza clean and green. Obviously the site generates a great deal of pride of place. I give this plaza a rating of 9 out of 10.

Aside from the plaza, Santa Barbara offers other attractions. Their cemetery, from 1845, is distinctive for its mausoleums, old portal and fencing. The town also hosts the oldest golf course in the country, the Iloilo Golf and Country Club. The course was built in 1907 by expats working on the Panay railway. Then there is a bit of engineering heritage as seen in the country’s oldest concrete irrigation dam, constructed in 1926.

All these sites and structures of heritage provide a winning combination for any visit the next time you’re in Iloilo.

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