By Jobers Bersales
Cebu Daily News

CEBU CITY (Dec. 31, 2009) — ’Tis the season for reunions and family gatherings and so it came to pass that the writers and photographers of the hugely successful (my bias is showing!) 308-page coffee table book “Balaanong Bahandi” reunited at our residence in Sto. Nino Village the other day to plan the next step now that the book is out.

To recall, “Balaanong Bahandi: Sacred Treasures of the Archdiocese of Cebu” was launched last Nov. 26 at the Cathedral Museum of Cebu by both the museum and its co-publisher the University of San Carlos Press. As its editor and project manager, I repeated what was promised during the pre-selling blitz for the book that was held in July this year: a smaller volume would soon follow. Well, the meeting-cum-swim party was finally held the other day in order to fulfill this promise. And the end result will hopefully come out when the Archdiocese of Cebu closes its Diamond Jubilee Celebrations on April 28, 2010.

The authors and photographers of Balaanong Bahandi agreed that the title of this forthcoming book will be “Duaw: A Guide to the Stone Churches of Cebu” and, unlike its parent Balaanong Bahandi, this book will be paper bound to make it as accessible to the public as possible. Albeit in full color, it will only feature the 28 or so coral stone churches of Cebu, starting with the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral and the Basilica del Sto. Niño. This will reduce the number of pages to manageable proportions.

For starters, Duaw will not only serve as a source of historical information on the original stone churches built by Augustinians, Augustinian Recollects, Jesuits and Seculars. It will also serve as the ultimate tour guide a la “Lonely Planet” on these colonial structures, including their rectories, campo santos (cemeteries), museums, shrines and anything else found within them. Its target buyers and readers are cultural tourists, yet it also leaves room for the religious pilgrims or those intent on doing “Visita Iglesia” during Holy Week, or the balikbayan who wants to make some sacred journey out of an otherwise mundane tour of colonial churches.

Duaw will be written differently from Balaanong Bahandi, with photographs that will also make for an interesting step by step appreciation of the beauty of sacred art and architecture. While every church featured will also carry a prayer for the patron saint it advocates, Duaw will not pretend to be a “churchy” book full of lamentations and prayers. For it endeavors to merge the tourist, the curious and the pilgrim, all wanting to know more about their faith (or the absence of it) amid the work of God through the hands of men and women now long gone.

Because it is designed as a tourist guidebook, all authors have been instructed to make a timed and detailed walk around these churches and their surroundings and pick out the most interesting features, providing exact instructions like where to start the tour, when to turn the corner, how to climb the belfry, what to look for in the choir loft and, most importantly, how long a tour of a particular church will take and whether there are pension houses around if one needs to stay in town overnight.

It is my hope the His Eminence Ricardo J .Cardinal Vidal will approve this book project as soon as it is presented to him. For it is time that people visit these churches not just as detached tourists unable to see meaning in what is before them. At the same time, there is a need to bring tourism into the realm of the sacred journey. Perhaps with Duaw, the Archdiocese of Cebu, shall have once again set the pace for all other church districts to follow. I wish the Duaw team all the best in this upcoming project. Once again, the meager proceeds will go to supporting the work of the Cathedral Museum of Cebu. And here’s wishing all the readers of CDN a more fulfilling and more prosperous year ahead.