St. John Nepomucene Parish Church

This century old church located at Brgy. Poblacion, Tangalan, Aklan was built through hard and forced labore. It was finished after 28 years of suffering and sacrifices from the people of Tangalan

I tried searching for the history of this church but I can only find short listings. It said to be that the men, women and children were forced to carry limestone and stones from the Barangay of Afga to the town proper, on foot, through the system called Polo Y Servicio.  

 

Polo y Servicio as I searched is a system of forced labor for 40 days for men ranging from 16 to 60 years of age. This however, is worst than that because they forced women and children too.

 

The system was present in almost all of the Spanish colonial government, and one of them is the Philippines. We passed by the church going to Afga and I can tell you it's really far.  

 

Even though I'm used to walk far, this one I will never. And to think that people walk that far with a big chunk of stones on their shoulders. I'm really thankful that this kind of system is no longer practiced at our present day. Though some of people still suffer from hard labor.

 

What really amazes me when I first saw the church is its location. It's located at the end of the road with a lot trees along the road. It's under maintenance and there's baptismal when we visited so I wasn't able to explore the inside. 

This church is one of the oldest churches in the province and in the country. Still standing with the same limestone and corals as it was originally built.

Right beside the church, standing proudly is the Tangalan Town Hall. Opposite the town hall is the  There's a park just opposite the town hall and on the other side of the park is the Tangalan Sports Cultural Center.

The town of Tangalan is more or less an hour away from Kalibo town proper, but offers a lot of tourist attractions.  It's a must visit when you go to Kalibo. 

How to get there:

Like most of the towns in most provinces, transportation here is limited. To get here and back to Kalibo with no hassle, hire a tricycle for a day tour. It's only Php800.00 per tricycle so if you're a group of four, it's rather cheap.