This is an old and historic Church built by the Recollects in the 1800's. It has generally withstood the ravages of Typhoons and Earthquakes, although not completely. It is also famous for being the Church facing the location where Aquinaldo first declared Philippines Independence and as the 'Home Parish' of one of Imus' current favourite sons. This is an important Church in the History of the Philippines, both the Philippines State and the Philippines Church - make sure to visit.

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proudly presents:proudly presents:
The old, historic Church ofThe old, historic Church of
Our Lady of the PillarOur Lady of the Pillar,,
TheThe ImusImus Cathedral,Cathedral,
ImusImus, Cavite, Manila., Cavite, Manila.
photographed and written byphotographed and written by:: Fergus DucharmeFergus Ducharme,, assisted by:assisted by: JoemarieJoemarie AcallarAcallar andand NiloNilo JimenoJimeno..

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The driving distance from our jumping off point at the
SM City parking lot in Iloilo to Imus’ Church of Our
Lady of the Pillar, is approximately 600 kilometres.
This translates into a driving time of about 14 hours or
about 3½ hours by air (including ground transfers).

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HERITAGE RATING:
This HP Heritage Rating indicates that the site visited has:
“EXCEPTIONAL HERITAGE INTEREST”
Our Heritage Ratings are NOT a reflection of the quality of the attraction, nor a review of the visit! They are a
very subjective assessment of the historic interest of the specific location or attraction. We only assign a
rating to Churches, historic buildings & other locations that we have actually visited & reported on for either
historicphilippines.com or oldphilippines.com.

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The first missionaries in the region founded many of the towns of Cavite Province.
Among the Religious orders that Christianized the Caviteños were the Franciscans, the
Recollects, the Dominicans and the Jesuits.
The Missionaries first came to Imus in 1571, to Silang 1581, to Cavite Viejo (now Kawit)
in 1587, to Maragondon in 1611, Indang in 1655, Ternate in 1700 and in San Francisco
de Malabon (now General Trias) in 1758.
The province of Cavite is rich in historical significance. It has been the site of many
battles and uprisings against Spain, one of which was is 1872, which resulted in the
execution of three priests: Gomez, Burgos and Zamora. Cavite is also where
General Emilio Aquinaldo proclaimed Philippines Independence from Spain on June 12th,
1898, in the town of Kawit.
Early in the American ‘occupation’, a U.S. naval garrison was stationed at Sangley
Point in Cavite in 1901. Because of mutual defense agreements, this base remained in
Cavite long after the country was granted its independence from the USA in 1946.

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Imus used to be a part of Cavite (now Kawit), whose Church was built by the Jesuits, between
1618-1629. For more than a century and a half the people of Imus had to endure walking or
traveling 4.5 kilometres (2.8 mi) on the dirt road to attend services at the Church or to transact
official business in the city proper.
The difficulty of communication between Imus and Cavite was a very long-standing complaint
of the Imuseños until the Recollects, during the British occupation of Manila in 1762,
established a parish church in Imus, in what is now known as Bayang Luma
The Church was far from the estate house of the 11,100 hectares (27,000
acres) Hacienda acquired in 1686 by the Recollect Corporation, and when the church was
destroyed by the strong typhoon of September 1779, the Recollect Friars transferred it to
barrio Toclong, and finally to sitio de Balangon, now the city plaza of Imus.
In 1774, Recollect Fr. Pedro San Buenaventura petitioned the government to "separate
the inquilinos (tenants) of Imus from the political jurisdiction of the government of "Cavite el
Viejo". After a considerable time his petition was granted and Imus became an independent
municipality on October 3, 1795.
During the leadership of Fr. Nicolas Becerra, who served from 1821 to 1840, moved the town
center to Brgy. Balangon, its present location. The construction of the Church in Imus’ new
location was started in 1823 using forced labor. It was built of stone and bricks. Its façade was
modelled after the fifth Manila Cathedral which had been designed by Fr. Juan de Uguccioni
and which stood between 1760 to 1852, before being destroyed in one of the many
earthquakes to hit the region.

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The Diocese of Imus was created on
November 12th, 1961. It comprises the
Province of Cavite and covers a land area
of 1,287 km2 (497 sq mi), with a population
of 1,643,549 of which 76 per cent are
Roman Catholics. Its patron is Nuestra
Señora del Pilar.
The cathedral was declared a structure of
historical significance with the placing of a
historical marker by then National Historical
Institute of the Philippines on November
13th, 2006.

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The Cathedral is also noteworthy because of the 4th Bishop of the Diocese of Imus. He
served the Diocese as its Bishop between October 22nd, 2001 and October 13th, 2011.
Here is a photo of him:
You’re right, it’s Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle.

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Here’s a very brief ‘biography’ of His Eminence the Cardinal.
He was born in Imus, Cavite on June 21st, 1957
Tagle was ordained in the Diocese of Imus on 27 February 1982.
After ordination, he held the following positions: parochial vicar of San Agustín Parish,
Méndez-Núñez, Cavite (1982–1983), spiritual director (1982–1983) and later rector
(1983–1985) of the diocesan seminary of Imus.
After having gone to Rome to study (1985–1992), he was appointed Episcopal Vicar for
Religious (1993–1995), then Parish Priest and Rector (1998–2001) of Nuestra Señora
del Pilar Cathedral-Parish in Imus.
He also taught theology at San Carols Seminary (1982-1985) and The Divine Word
Seminary in Tagaytay.
Pope John Paul II appointed Tagle to the International Theological Commission (1997–
2002) on which he served under its President, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. He
was a member of the Bologna-based editorial board (1995–2001) of the "History of
Vatican II" project led by Alberto Melloni. Tagle is also currently the Chair for the
Episcopal Commission on the Doctrine of Faith of the Philippines.
John Paul II also appointed his the Bishop of Imus in October 2001 where he served until
October 2011.

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The Holy See appointed Tagle as the 32nd Archbishop of Manila on October 13th, 2011,
succeeding Cardinal Gaudencia Rosales making him the de facto Primate of the
Philippines.
He was made a cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI in a papal consistory on November 24th,
2012 at St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. He was installed on the Feast of Our Lady of
Guadalupe and as of 2013 was the head of the Metropolitan See of Manila and its nother
church, the Cathedral-Basilica of the Immaculate Conception as it: Metropolitan
Archbishop and Archpriest.
For the record, The Cardinal is fluent in the following languages:
Italian, English, Tagalog, Spanish, French and Latin.

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The Cardinal with his parents Manuel Tagle & Milagros Tagle née Gokim

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Now, let’s get back to this beautiful and historic old Church.

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His Eminence Luis Antonio G. Cardinal Tagle while crowning the venerated image of Our Lady of the Pillar
in a Canonical Coronation at the Imus in 2013.

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We want to thank the following for their contributions to this article:
Photos provided by:Architect Rommel Legaspi,
Other materials and some photos provided by: www.wikipedia.org
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

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