The Jaro Belfry

The Jaro Cathedral is one of the few churches in the Philippines with a Bell tower not attached to the church itself. The belfry which was built a few meters in front of the cathedral also functioned as a clock tower. It was primarily built of Brick overlain with fossil stones in Neoclassic Architecture.
The Jaro Belfry remained an astonishing sight in the City of Iloilo years thereafter. It captured the eyes of onlooker, travelers, and photographers of the 19th century. In 1948, a great earthquake destroyed the belfry leaving only the base intact. It was then rebuilt but in a remodeled sense that the new structure was given less Neoclassic details. Unused for years, the belltower remained an icon and a marker of a great Religious Era.