By Leilanie
G. Adriano
Staff
Reporter
Laoag
City—After closing its door for more than
four years, the 209-year-old St. Anne Parish in Piddig, Ilocos Norte province
is ready to open again for church services.
Fr. Carlito Ranjo Jr., head
of the Diocese of Laoag’s restoration committee shared his excitement as he
posted in Facebook a fully-restored façade and interiors of the Baroque church.
The newly-restored church is
expected to be turned over on July 25, 2019.
In September 2014, National
Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) engineering experts decommissioned the
old church and declared the church “unfit for occupancy, with its wooden
trusses heavily deteriorated and its foundation weakened”.
“The St. Anne Church
restoration is done. Just waiting for the turn over date,” said Fr. Ranjo which
delighted netizens which watched the new look of the old Piddig church located
on top of a hill of the town center.
Recognized as one of the
oldest churches in the province which forms part of the colorful history of the
Piddig Basi Revolt in 1807, the National Historical Commission of the
Philippines (NHCP) initially funded its restoration and rehabilitation worth PHP50
million.
The restoration works started
on March 22, 2018.
Fr. Ranjo said it took about
two years for restoration experts to study the structure and the materials used
to determine the best way to approximate the original design and makeup of the
church.
For Piddig residents, the
upcoming re-opening of the church is an ‘answered prayer’ for them.
Piddig residents built the church
for the Augustinian friars in 1810.
Piddig, 21 kilometers from
this capital city, was a former “visita” [a community with a chapel] of
neighboring Dingras town. In 1798, Piddig was established as a town.
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