Devotees light their candles and offer up prayers

The marathon to explore Cebu City four hours before the flight schedule landed us on our second destination for the day. Our lengthy walks from one spot to another digested every lechon bit I had earlier and probably shed off a couple of pounds without even taking in Fastin diet pills. If I happen to be a Roman Catholic, I would have exclaimed, “Pit Senor!”

Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño

Just right across Magellan’s Cross is The Church and Convent of the Sto. Niño (known as Basilica del Sto. Niño), the oldest church started by the Spanish friars in the Philippines. It was founded by the Spanish Augustinian priest Rev. Andres Urdaneta in 1565. It was on the same year that the Legaspi expedition arrived in the Philippines and gained foothold in this southern city. What followed next was a strong Spanish influence that scattered like a disease lasting for more than three hundred years.

Spanish influences remain inside the house of prayer

The intense devotion of the Visayans to the Sto. Niño and religious pilgrimages are centered on this church since the time of Legaspi. Aside from being a house of devotion, the Church and Convent of the Sto. Niño was also a center for educating the natives, rest house for missionaries and care home for the elderly and the sick.

Today, this church remains as the permanent home of the oldest known relic of the Sto. Niño for centuries.