Ozamiz City, Misamis Occidental, Mindanao, Philippines (02 August 2011)– I’m back home for now. It’s always nice to be back home. I’m taking this time to sort through the photos I have taken during my recently completed road trip to Ozamiz and Pagadian Cities and at least post this blog. The second leg of my travel (to the Southern and SouthCentral part of Mindanao) was postponed to next week. Here are some shots from a quick trip to a historic (250-year-old that is) site in Ozamiz City.
A colleague and I finished our data gathering work in one of the local community weekly paper in Ozamiz City so we had time to spare to go around the city. With the assistance of a guide (a Ozamiz based journalist) we had a quick tour of the historic Nuestra Seniora El Triunfo Del La Cruz or Our Lady of the Triumph of the Cross. The Nuestra is an old fortress or barracks built by the Spaniards in 1756 to house soldiers that guard the coast of Misamis Occidental from marauding raiders from the Province of Lanao.
For many years, I thought this landmark in Ozamiz was just a lighthouse. I discovered during the quick tour that the lighthouse is not the main attraction. The lighthouse is just but a fixture on one side of the fortress and serves as a guide for incoming vessels to the port of Ozamiz. Nuestra Seniora is basically composed of a fort with its Southern wall (the wall directly facing the port) having a shrine of Our Lady. In recent years, the Catholic Church built an outdoor chapel fronting the image of Our Lady. This place is now called the Shrine by the locals and is visited by devotees daily.
The fortress has almost the same design as the famous walled city of Manila (Intramuros). The first obvious difference is the size. The Ozamiz fort is significantly smaller than Intramuros. Unlike Intramuros wherein the Spaniards designed the wall to protect a settlement, the walls of the Ozamiz fort were designed and built basically as a military base. Its location is strategically placed facing the Panguil Bay opposite the Province of Lanao del Norte.
