Last January 2010, I was invited by the North Philippines Visitors Bureau to join a media tour of travel writers and bloggers to experience North Luzon. Part of the tour included a visit to 9 churches.

In the June 2010 issue of Bluprint Magazine, San Sebastian Minor Basilica is the main feature entitled: Prefab Gothic Revival: Saving the All-Steel San Sebastian Basilica in Manila. The article is written by Tina Paterno, a New York based conservator, who is in the country spearheading, as project head, the restoration of this stunning and historic edifice. I’ve contributed images.

It would have been a sight as one enters the lost church of Oton with its trompe l’oiels massive copula and an impressive gothic style and four sided retablo at the center.

The lost church of Oton was the only one of its kind in the Philippines in form and structure. It’s architecture is a combination of different architectural styles: gothic, classical and romanesque, a trait that is very much common in most Spanish colonial period churches in the country.

It would have been one of the country’s spectacular churches, if not the most beautiful were it not for a natural cataclysm that razed it to the ground. Oton’s once majestic church, in the form of a Greek cross, was unique as it was the only one with such a plan and architecture blending Byzantine with Gothic and classical elements.

I’ve always been fascinated with the all-steel structure of the San Sebastian Minor Basilica in Quiapo, Manila and when the opportunity came to document it inside and out, I grabbed it.