I passed by this town just 6 days ago! I usually do a number of times in a month, like this afternoon again, but I never really had a good chance to see their town center. But today was an opportune time! I just came out of a meeting at VSU in Baybay City, going for another meeting at Baybayon ni Agalon.
So, a real "hello Albuera let me see you now"!
Like anywhere in this region (nowadays, that is), the roads here are fine...
This one is not near though. While Baybay City and Albuera are next to each other, it still is a distant 20+km from VSU (which is even already outside, and north of Baybay City proper) to Albuera proper.
It rained quite a bit last night until this morning, so I was not surprised to see this...
What is this thing? A factory? A Bodega? Kawawa naman... baha!
I did not have to tell my driver. He now knows what I like to see if we are in the center of any town.
So in no time, we stopped here, the St. James Parish Church of Albuera, Leyte. Nice well-maintained, simple yet beautiful grassy garden It's not Bermuda grass, right? People would love it here, if not wet.
I went for a closer look of this edifice... it looks rather new and modern...
Modernistic bell tower. And, miniscule as they are, at least meron, there are three real tiny little bells!
The writings up the gable say "Parokya ni Sr. Santiago". Whoops! I didn't even know that's the Tagalog (or Bisaya?) of St. James! Parang ang layo eh. And I think this is the only saint where the "San" is not separate from the rest of the name. Like St. John is San Juan, St. Peter is San Pedro. Hmm, curious!
I got a bit lost in translation there, but let us see the insides of this church...
Nice natural and unobtrusive floor color. But what's with those many big flags up at the ceiling? Hmm, I wonder, is there a "watawat day" in church? Ah okay, I remember yellow and white are colors of the Vatican. How about the red and green? UP? Luntian at pula, sagisag magpakailanman... Ready sing!
Alright, this one is clearer... I was halfway to the altar... ang daming flag bandera watawat di ba?!
Anyway, at this point I would normally turn back and take a photo of the church entrance and the choir loft, if any. But I could not do it this time.., because of those ladies at the last pews (see other picture above). I was concerned they might have thought I was taking their photo and be mad at me! Ngek!
And the altar...
Mabulaklak ang wooden retablo, ano?! Oh, I noticed, the foot of the altar table does not have 'the last supper' as we have seen in many churches at Southern Leyte! I think those 'fruits' mean something.
Here's a view of the outside world from the church entrance... I could see old wooden houses...
A very short distance from entrance to that garden (and the statues), so you can't take a full frontal shot of the church from there - that's the reason why my two pictures above were taken at an angle.
From the side of this church, we went straight towards the back and beyond, where a block away the town's Municipal Hall is located. By the way, I noted that most of the houses around this church and plaza are already modernized. But I saw some that are still made of wood and impressively vintage.
Oh, just like their Public Library which is unfortunately covered by their stage!
So this is the Town Hall of Albuera Leyte...
It looks refurbished and already concrete, but still does have remnants of the style of our olden days, right? It looks like a "bahay-na-bato" to me - especially the front area. Those trees are beautiful too!
A unique thing that caught my attention was that humungous flagpole. Did you notice?
It looks like a real tree trunk! Also like a boyscouts' totem pole. I wonder what it means. There must be some historical meaning or significance why their flagpole was made like that. If none, it's still unique!
Here's another "kakaiba" in this municipal hall setup of Albuera...
There's a "skyway" between two buildings! And it's not just a so-so bridge. It's a real sturdy concrete overpass. But of course, I wondered what for hehe. Ground level of this building at left is their rural health unit. I didn't see signage as to what might be on 2nd floor that they needed to build a bridge.
Okay now, if above there were some things unique or kakaiba, this one is also "lahi ra"!
That is going to their public market. Why does there seem to be a "gate" and why is it fenced? Ambot!
We entered the 'fenced-off area' from one side of town to the other, no one checked on us...
So all the more that we were perplexed as to what might be that gate and fence for! Mind-boggling!
And we reached their 'palengke' without any issue hehe. That one is the wet-market area...
Another unique thing... their market is not one big contiguous roofed building. It's a "neighborhood" of individual "houses" per block that contain something like 4 or more stalls. An interesting concept!
Look at the left side, there are three of those little houses containing market stalls...
The tall building back there is their police station and the other tall building at right is a barangay hall. On ground (behind the delivery truck) is a little light-green house. That's an offsite ATM of Landbank!
The above three pictures covers almost the entire length of the public market vicinity. But the most interesting portion is/was an area behind those market stall-houses, to the left, towards the sea...
THIS!
Is it a pier, a wharf, a pantalan? Well yes, maybe all of the above! But Albuera is not known to be a sea port for transporting of goods and/or passengers, right? Everything is at Ormoc, right? So why this?!
Why not? Who said anyway that this is a port pier wharf or pantalan? This is none of the above!!
It's their version of a seaside park! Look at the water's edge (right side). Those are tables & benches for you to enjoy the views of, and the breeze from the sea! There even are individual table lights. Wow!
Whoever is doing this for Albuera must be a real urban planner in the know. Salute!
On our way out of this town center, I still saw a scattering of old-looking homes. This one stood out.
Note: everything is concrete (except the soffit). So, if this was really an old wooden house converted to concrete, OMG they have done the best way of restoring an era house. On the other hand, if this is a new house designed and made to look like so, OMG still! Ang galing! I wish I had a better pic than this.
Well anyway, good that I finally decided to have a look at Albuera's town proper.
Let's go to Baybayon ni Agalon in my next story.
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