Saturday photo

The Miag-ao Church of St. Thomas of Villanueva in Iloilo, Philippines,
a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Blending work with play, my colleagues and I at the Philippine Association of Engineering Schools (PAES), Inc. (formerly, Philippine Association for Technological Education, Inc. or PATE, Inc.) held our monthly Board meeting in Iloilo City in the Visayas.  While in Iloilo, we also held information dissemination and forum with colleagues in various Universities

"Work + play" is a winning formula for a balanced life.

in the region on the implementation of K-12, and how this will affect the operations of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), particularly Engineering Schools, in 2016 when the first cohort of K-12 students attend Senior High School rather than the University.  

The weekend - well, this weekend - was spent educating ourselves on Iloilo.  Among many others, what caught my attention was the Miag-ao Church of St. Thomas of Villanueva.  The Church with Baroque-Romanesque architecture was declared as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1993.  The massive structure earned it the "alias" of "church fortress" in the old days when there was still war between Christians and Muslims in the region, and the church was used to protect the region from Muslims/Moros who attacked it.

Sometimes, we go out and search for impressive stuff... and yet, right at our "backyard", we have "treasures", like the Miag-ao church.  Overall, it was a weekend well-spent.

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