Philippine Travelblog: Hacienda Sta. Rosalia's Chapel of the Cartwheels

(To rephrase a proverb, the road to heaven 

is paved with good plantations)

Having lived away from Negros Island for years, I was only able to finally visit this chapel about four years ago during my Christmas vacation at home. This chapel is perhaps the most famous of all the chapels located in any hacienda on the island and is, incredibly, just six kilometers away! It has provided a solemn place for Sunday masses and weddings as well as a unique location shoot for a couple of movies for more than 50 years now, and lately, it has become an Instagram spot as well.

This is the Chapel of the Cartwheels in Hacienda Santa Rosalia in Manapla (northern part of Negros Occidental, the Philippines) named after the discarded cartwheels that were used in the hacienda to carry harvested sugarcane but fell into disuse with the introduction of rubber tires in the mid-20^th century.

This chapel is a brainchild (no pun intended) of a Catholic priest, Father Guillermo Ma. Gaston, popularly known as Monsignor GG, one of the eight children of Don Jose Gaston and his wife, Doña Consuelo Azcona-Gaston (Don Jose, being a close friend of the Montinola family in Victorias City, has appeared in two of my previous blogs, one about a photograph taken on Don Felix Montinola's birthday in 1940 and another with President Diosdado Macapagal).

According to Monsignor GG, upon his return from Rome in 1966 where he finished his theological studies, he thought of building a chapel right on the site where his grandparents’ house used to be and using the old, discarded cartwheels kept by his father Don Jose, Monsignor GG turned these as a symbol of Christian faith: the center represents God; the spokes represent Jesus as they point and connect to God at the center with Jesus being ‘the Way to the Father’; and the Holy Spirit, represented by the ring of the wheel, keeps everyone from being lost. 

(From a farm device to a divine symbol)

Monsignor GG used a familiar piece of farm device to symbolize the Holy Trinity, one easily recognizable by the workers in the hacienda as mandated to the clergy by Saint Pope John XXIII.  Although those cartwheels became useless in the hacienda, they were elevated into a holy symbol of the hacienda’s chapel.

(Monsignor Gigi never imagined that his chapel 

would become a popular tourist spot)

With the help of Monsignor GG’s brother-in-law, Mr. Gerry Ascalon, an architect, the Chapel of the Cartwheels was completed and became the venue where the first Holy Mass in Hiligaynon was celebrated by then Bacolod Diocese’s Bishop Antonio Fortich on May 5, 1967. Monsignor GG made the first-ever translation of the Liturgy from Latin to Hiligaynon and had choir hymns in the local language prepared for that Mass. They had to ask permission from the Catholic Church in order to have the Mass celebrated in Hiligaynon. The Chapel of the Cartwheels was built more than a hundred meters behind the Gaston family’s mansion in the hacienda, surrounded by fruit-bearing trees, sugarcane plantations, and visited by singing birds and Amihan breezes. The mansion was built in the 1930s.

But knowing what happened during the retreat of the Japanese soldiers from this northern side of the Negros island in 1945, I believe the Chapel of the Cartwheels is not just a symbol of thanksgiving by one family for the blessings bestowed on them but also a thanksgiving for the many hacienda lives saved during the war.

Realizing they were losing the war, the Japanese soldiers burned down villages and towns on this part of Negros as they retreated. And one early morning at around 4, while it was still dark, the Gaston family was awakened by a big fire at Manapla town that was just three kilometers east of the hacienda; the big fire was visible from the rooftop of the mansion. Word reached the family that the Gamboa Mansion, located near the main road just outside Manapla, was already being torched and one worker sent by the family to find out came back and told Don Jose and his family the scariest words they heard that day, “Daw kamo na guid ang dason”, or “It looks like you're next”.

After hearing this, Don Jose, a devotee of the Sacred Heart, led his family to pray and surrendered everything to God. The family then abandoned their home and fled towards the coast. The Japanese military, during their occupation, had mapped the island and knew exactly where these mansions were located, and after torching the Gamboa Mansion, Japanese soldiers made their way to Hacienda Sta. Rosalia in two trucks to burn down the Gaston Mansion and kill anyone who resisted. But suddenly, from the dark skies above that was just about to welcome a new morning the Gastons had expected to be full of terror and loss, an American night-fighter plane, the Northrop P61, miraculously appeared and strafed the Japanese trucks, causing the Japanese to turn around and leave the hacienda alone.

(The mansion is surrounded by fruit-bearing 

trees and cooled by Amihan breezes)

Monsignor GG was just 14 then, and yet these memories and his family’s faith were more than a reason to build the Chapel. For me, hearing the story from Monsignor GG himself and realizing what faith and devotion can do for a family and for a people, the Chapel of the Cartwheels is more than just one family’s thanksgiving. 

In case you have the chance, do visit the place and find out what it is to you. 🙏

A Pinoy @ The Movies: Angel Has Fallen

              (The movie poster from the Net) 

Who loves conspiracy-action movies? I do!😱

And although you have an idea on how everything will end up, you still wanted to see it because you want to know what's between the opening credits and the expected ending.

So, I dragged my mom to watch this movie because she loves action. I once brought her along to watch Mission Impossible Fallout and she enjoyed the action sequences.

Angel Has Fallen is the third in the 'Fallen' series that started with Olympus Has Fallen, where Koreans have successfully taken over the White House, and London Has Fallen, where terrorists were able to bring chaos to that city, which made me think, their theme song should have been 'London Bridge Has Fallen Down'.

But this time, it's back to Washington D.C., where Gerard Butler is part of the US President Morgan Freeman's Secret Service. Butler's stellar employment record was about to bring him directorship to lead the entire SS team, much like his role in the movie 300 where he led Spartan warriors who looked like GQ models, when an old friend decided to turn him into a scapegoat. As to why and how, you may have to watch the movie.

What I love about these conspiracy-action movies are the creative action scenes and political plots that make you feel you're watching Keifer Sutherland's 24 but with a two-hour time limit.

But other than Gerard Butler (who I sometimes confuse with Clive Owen) and Morgan Freeman, both Hollywood favorites, I was happy to see Jada Pinkett Smith add a strong feminine character to the equation, replacing the void left by Angela Bassett, who sometimes distract me with the way she purposely rounds her mouth when she speaks. They had Bassett killed in London Has Fallen.

Here, Jada was the smart FBI agent who I thought would have ended up catching Butler as she was on his trail. But I was shocked that they, too, didn't want her around. 😩 Oops!

Angel Has Fallen is like Harrison Ford's The Fugitive because he had to run and hide, Angelina Jolie's SALT because he could free himself while being guarded in a car and in chains, and probably any other movie where they wanted to do away with the US president. 

I would have wanted Angel Has Fallen to try harder when it came to hiding from the audience who was the brains behind the conspiracy. The minute he came into the picture, I immediately knew who it was; I didn't tell my mom, of course. She was so focused on the gunfire and flying dead bodies. 😛

The final action scenes also disappointed me. A hospital could blow up in flames? Really?! 😷And with all the police and Secret Service crawling around the perimeter, they were still able to bring in explosives? Oh well, that's why it's called a movie.

The first hour of the film impressed me, especially the drone attack, while Nick Nolte was also a surprise in the second half, although I'm not sure if he could really type.😝

I'd like you to watch Angel Has Fallen only if you like Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman, and conspiracy-action movies.😆

The Sistine Chapel: The Paintings Are Just A Decoration, The Papal Conclave Is Just A Tradition

    (I avoided the long queue by reserving online)

I have been walking around the labyrinth of time and history for hours now and yet, these huge statues of Roman and Greek gods, and other fascinating works of art only capture my attention for only a few moments. The statue of Apollo of the Belvedere, believed to be about 1,800 years old and sculpted from one huge, solid marble, hardly made me stop to admire its colossal significance to the art world that even led Napoleon Bonaparte to loot it, and while the Gallery of Maps, with its 120-meter long curved ceiling full of frescoes, was very fascinating, considering Ignazio Danti, the cartographer, did not have Google maps to refer to in 1580.

(Triumphant Perseus holding Medusa's head 

carved by Antonio Canova in 1801)

(Gallery of Maps)

I’m inside the Musei Vaticani or the Vatican Museums in Rome, Italy, where I am tracing a path lined with the priceless acquisitions of the past papacies that have been put together on display since 1506, fifteen years before Ferdinand Magellan set foot in the Philippines. But of the 70,000 paintings, sculptures and archeological artifacts owned by the Vatican, only 20,000 are lining that path in several captivating rooms, and of all those rooms, there is one that no visitor would ever want to miss: the Sistine Chapel.

 (Refreshments for sale before going 

into the Sistine Chapel)

After walking for two hours through the prescribed route when visiting the Vatican Museums, I stopped by Bar Caffetteria Sistina to rest my legs and fill my tummy with a sandwich before I finally stepped into the most awaited part of the tour. Whoever thought of the idea to put up a small refreshments corner before one enters the Sistine Chapel should have been canonized. As the whole stretch of the Vatican Museums is 7.5 kilometers long, a weary tourist deserves a rest before entering the holiest, the most fascinating, and the most beautiful part of the tour. I, therefore, prepared myself by munching a ham sandwich and downing it with bottled iced tea at the Bar Caffetteria Sistina.

                  (Be quiet and no cameras)

After I nourished my body, it was time to nourish my soul. I then followed the path and climbed the steps that lead up to the chapel while a sign greeted and reminded me ‘to be quiet’ and ‘no cameras’ before the main door. But when I stepped into the hall, the chapel was crowded and dim as the daylight from the high side windows provided the only illumination, but one does not need bright lights to be entranced by one’s current whereabouts. And the only loud sound heard is from the Italian guard who is dressed spiffily and shouting “Silenzio!” every now and then, although his command is always drowned by the humming whispers from his international visitors.

I stopped to absorb the moment I walked in and then breathed in the atmosphere mixed with history and the most fascinating of artworks in the world. I realized, since the papal conclave has been held in this room since 1492, the molecules of the air the past popes and the cardinals who elected them had breathed in and out must have lingered around for the past 500 years and might have ended up in my asthmatic lungs. I felt cured already!

Renamed after Pope Sixtus IV, who had it restored in 1480, the Sistine Chapel, has been transformed from a private place of worship, and with the vision of Pope Julius II and the talent of Michelangelo Buonarotti, its ceiling became into the most looked up to in the world. On any given day, about 20,000 tourists enter the Sistine Chapel and crane their necks towards the heavens to admire and be fascinated by the frescoes more than 68 feet above them. Now, I became one of them.

Not wanting to stand for the entirety of my visit, I found a vacant space on a bench on the right side of the altar. This was after all a chapel, so I planned to pray. And as I went through the decades of the Holy Rosary, I trained my eyes around the overwhelming frescoes on the walls depicting stories from the Bible as painted by the greatest of Renaissance painters like Botticelli, Perugino and Ghirlandaio, and those especially above me that were created by Michelangelo himself. Most important, I wondered how old was the bench that was providing me temporary comfort and which pope had sat on the same spot before.

(The Creation of Adam - photo from Musei Vaticani)

Although it was easy to get lost in this dizzying amount of art, tradition, and history of the Sistine Chapel, I always reminded myself that this was a place of prayer where holy men have gathered, prayed for guidance, and professed their faith right under the painting of The Creation of Adam where God creates man, and right in front of The Last Judgment where He judges all of us. Those paintings are just decorations, created by men for others. The papal conclave is just a tradition where cardinals elect Saint Peter’s successor. What is most important is to always remind ourselves that in places of worship, the most priceless or the most expensive altars of great churches, or in this case, the most famous chapel of all, should not divert our attention to what matters the most: our faith, our Christian values, and the salvation of one’s soul.

According to Pope Francis, prayer is the key to bring us closer to God, and while all the doors of the Vatican Museum require 2,797 keys to open, then, I only need one.