Botolan Church

An old catholic church built in 1700 out of coral blocks.

Saint Augustine Cathedral

Catholic church built in 1700 out of coral limestone.

Ina Poon-Bato Shrine

Augustinian friars, the first missionaries to arrive in Botolan in the latter part of the 17th century, said they were stunned to find the Aetas venerating a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary even before Christianity made inroads in the Philippines. The oral legend that has passed on to present-day Aetas is that their chieftain Djadig discovered the image while resting near a riverbank after a futile foodgathering expedition during a long drought. The chieftain was awakened by a female voice that said, “Stand up, Djadig. Come to me. Take me home with you.” At home, Djadig’s wife was angry that he had failed to find any food. She threw the statue into the fire. But it was not damaged, and Djadig enshrined it on the rock where he had found it. In 1712, Dominican missionaries installed the image, then called the Nuestra Senora de la Paz y Buen Viaje (Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage), in the town’s church, which the Aetas never failed to visit. Accounts said Aglipayans stormed the church in May 1897, and took the image with them after killing parish priest Juliano Jimenez del Rosario. Since then, the image has graced the Aglipayan chapel at the foothills of Mt. Pinatubo. In the 1980s, Zambales Bishop Henry Byrne and his successor Bishop Paciano Aniceto approved the mission to make the image the rallying symbol for the Holy Rosary Crusade for World Peace, a project of the Balikatan sa Kaunlaran Foundation. On the seventh anniversary of Pope John Paul’s papacy in 1985,the image stood beside the Pope’s altar.