⌛ Maryknoll Ecological Sanctuary Baguio

“All who enter enjoy.” So admonishes the simple wooden sign hanging upon a pine arch at the entrance to the Maryknoll Sisters’ Ecological Sanctuary. As the name suggests, it offers yet another corner of the earth where one can find peace and comfort from the stress and toil of life, a refuge within a refuge that is the City of Pines.

Occupying three hectares on the order’s grounds at Campo Sioco, just a five-minute ride away from the central business district, the Sanctuary, as it is also known, straddles the North Santo Tomas Road and the Marcos Highway. It sprawls on the preserve in a sort of V-shape, over terrain ranging from rough hillside to gently sloping grassland.

The Maryknoll Ecological Sanctuary charges a token fee of 10 pesos per individual upon entrance of the premises. Proceeds are for its upkeep and maintenance. It is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.

First I must admit that all I knew of the place at first was from posters of art exhibits at a Sanctuary Gallery posted along Session Road’s walls, and from a Catholic TV documentary I once chanced upon. All this was to change, however, when just before Christmas a couple of college friends were in town and they dragged me to their next itinerary—the Sanctuary.

It was a short visit but I was so amazed by the breathtaking beauty of the place that I vowed to return and take my time. I’ve been back thrice. That is another, albeit unwritten, admonition: the experience of being there is meant to be taken in slowly, something that can hardly be attained in a mere half-hour of rushing through.

The Sanctuary now stands on the site of the school that the Sisters used to run. After most of the area was devastated during the 1990 earthquake, efforts were undertaken to rebuild from the ruins, this time with even more awareness of the essential interaction between the ecological and the spiritual. Baguio artists were brought in to help in creating the present structures, such as the Neolithic-like edifice within the touring grounds, with its upright stone slabs in a circle, which immediately brings to mind Stonehenge.

Considered as the Sanctuary’s centerpiece is the Cosmic Journey. Likened to the Stations of the Cross, it is in this regard not a recounting of the suffering and death of Christ but instead a celebration of the beginning of life, of the existence of all creation as seen in 14 significant stages in the evolution of the universe, and consequently of Earth. This trek through the cosmos begins with station 1, named the Universe Comes Into Being. Fittingly enough, the absence of any conspicuous marker symbolizes our emergence from nothingness, as only a Higher Being with infinite power and wisdom can achieve.