Tatler investigates why the San Sebastian Basilica in Manila needs a collective effort to be saved and protected
Manila was once called the “Paris of the East” for its splendid architecture and art. The French connection, however, has been erroneously attributed to the all-metal church on Pasaje del Carmen Street in the Quiapo district for years—that Gustave Eiffel himself had something to do with its construction. The locals of the parish, particularly the Augustinian Recollects who supervise the church, and the individuals fighting for the structure’s preservation take this as a mere urban legend. Still, they firmly believe that the towering San Sebastian Basilica is a treasure of Philippine architecture.
People flock to the Minor Basilica of San Sebastian to worship God and venerate the beautiful image of Nuestra Señora del Carmen, or Our Lady of Mt Carmel, that has been enshrined in the parish for 400 years now. The church was founded in 1621 on what was once a marshland called Calumpang. The land was donated by Don Bernardino del Castilla, a military commander of Fort Santiago, whose only request to the receiving Augustinian Recollects was to dedicate the church to San Sebastian, the patron saint of soldiers and athletes. Fires and earthquakes prompted the friars to rebuild the church in a magnificent neo-gothic style, with cast iron and steel, infused with baroque architecture characteristics.
With industrialism changing the face of the world in the 19th century, the Recollect friars commissioned the Spanish engineer, Genaro Palacios, then head of the Public Works office of the Spanish colonial government in the Philippines, to build the all-metal church we see today. With its uniqueness in the country and the entire Asia at the time (preceding the Bulgarian St Stephen’s Church in Istanbul, Turkey by seven years), it became the first church in the Philippines to be declared a Minor Basilica by the Vatican even before it opened in 1891. With German stained glass, Belgian steel, French foundations, Chinese flooring and Filipino craftsmanship, San Sebastian Basilica is a true architectural marvel that has withstood the test of time.
Until today, when its life is hanging in a balance.