Dingras Church

Dingras is one of the most picturesque facades in the country not due to its Baroque grandeur, but because of its perfectly beautiful proportions, the patina of the ancient bricks and more importantly its enduring and eternal visage of a ruin.

An exploration of the built heritage of Dingras starts in the town center, with its splendid church ruins and the adjacent convento and atrio.

It is but just a shadow of a grand church destroyed by earthquake and fire in 1913, it once boasted of a tin roof and formidable walls. The church, which is 90 paces long and 20 paces wide is one of the largest in the Philippines. Started as a vicariate of Batac, was elevated to a parish by the Augustinians and dedicated to St. Joseph as patron. Father Bartolome Conrado became its first parish priest in 1598. It was changed back to a vicariate in 1603, then back to being a parish as it became the center of the the Augustinian Mission in 1605. It was destroyed by an earthquake in 1619; rebuilt before it was burnt down in 1838, and was destroyed by lightning in 1853. Last rebuilt by Father Ricardo Deza, OSA with the help of then Mayor Camilo Millan, from the contribution of 58 municipalities in 1879-1893, amounting to 128,649.31 Mexican pesos.

The present monumental church and convento were commenced by Fray Damaso Vieytez, OSA during his term which begun in 1849 until his death in 1854. This was the most ambitious project of Fr. Vieytez, OSA (he also instigated the building of roads and bridges to Dingras and stone watch towers in Santiago and San Esteban, both in Ilocos Sur). The church and convento of Dingras were shattered by fire and earthquake in 1914 and again in 1931 (on the feast day of the patron San Jose de Dingras) and had to be abandoned.

The Dingras façade, together with those at Sarrat and San Nicolas in Ilocos Norte and Santa Maria (Ilocos Sur) and to a lesser extent Bacarra (Ilocos Norte), recalls the lines of 1760 Manila Cathedral (which design in turn can be traced to the church of Il Gesu, Rome, a masterpiece of Vignola). The impressive church, though badly battered, gives the interested tourist the best opportunity to study brick architecture in the province. Much of the brickwork has been exposed, because most of the protective palitada (lime plaster) has crumbled; on some walls, it is possible to see holes meant to anchor the bamboo framework from where masons laid the bricks or toweled the plaster. Walking slowly along the sides, it is possible to observe the multi layeredness of brick composing the walls and also the variety of bricks; rectangles of different sizes, pie slices for the columns and leaf-and-volute shapes for the Composite Capitals. At the back of the façade, one can notice wooden girders through the brickwork, perhaps meant to serve as braces. By 1891, both church and convento had roofs with galvanized iron sheets, the government had banned brick tiles because of their weight and the danger of falling on pedestrians during storms or earthquake.

The old convento, now a school, precedes the church in a configuration unusual for Ilocos Norte.



The facade of the church as taken on April 5, 2009. There are already bamboo scaffoldings attached to the church












References:
Ilocos Norte; A travel Guidebook;Gameng Foundation, Inc. Museo Ilocos Norte,Laoag City, 2004
Pride of Place; Dingras church façade set for demolition, Augusto Villalon, Philippine Daily Inquirer, posted on February 9, 2009