Philippines — San Agustin Church, Manila, Philippines

Great architecture and some history

January 2016

In Manila, I visited San Agustin Church, and it was an enjoyable visit as the church also doubled as a museum that explained its history.

From what I could gather from the various displays, the story behind the church’s founding was fascinating.

From my understanding of what I read, the story started in 1519 when Ferdinand Magellan left Seville, Spain, on the 10th of August 1519, with five ships and 237 men. They crossed the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, arriving in the Philippines in March 1521.

On the voyage, Magellan was killed, and only one ship with 18 survivors returned to Spain on the 6th of September, 1522, via the Cape of Good Hope. This made it the first expedition to circumnavigate the world, and it took over two years.

After Magellan, there were a series of expeditions from Mexico across the Pacific Ocean to the Philippines — that must have been some crossing.

In 1543, 20 years after the return of the Magellan expedition, four Augustinian Friars reached Mindanao (Mindanao is the second-largest island in the Philippines) left Mexico in an expedition led by Villalobos.

On the Villalobos Expedition were the Augustinian missionaries: Fr. Jerónimo de San Estéban, Fr. Nicolas de Perea, Fr. Juan de Trasierra, and Fr. Alonso Alvarado. The expedition left Mexico on the…