Place:Jaro, Iloilo City, Iloilo, Western Visayas, Philippines

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Jaro is a district of Iloilo City in the Philippine province of Iloilo on Panay Island in the Western Visayas region. It is the largest in terms of area and population of Iloilo City's seven districts, with 130,700 people in the 2020 census. Once a separate city, Jaro merged with Iloilo City when it was re-incorporated in the 1940s during the American administration in the Philippines. Jaro is the largest of all the seven districts comprising the City of Iloilo. The Iloilo City district of La Paz and the present municipalities of Leganes and Pavia, adjoined as historical parts of Jaro before they became independent.

Jaro lends its name to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Jaro, the metropolitan see which encompasses the provinces of Antique, Guimaras, Iloilo, and Negros Occidental.

The Jaro annual Catholic feast of Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria (Our Lady of the Candles), the Roman Catholic patron of the whole Western Visayas and Romblon, held every February 2, is one of the well known Marian festivals in the Philippines. The statue or image of Candelaria (Our Lady of the Candles) perched atop the façade of the Jaro Cathedral, is the first Marian image crowned personally without a papal legate by a pope and saint in the Philippines and in Asia, by Pope John Paul II in 1981.

The town of Jaro is known for being called the Mestizo Town of Iloilo due to the number of prominent Spanish Filipino and old-rich affluent Ilonggo families that came from the area.

Jaro is an important center of faith in the Western Visayas region. It holds numerous institutions founded by different religious sects – the Seminario de San Vicente Ferrer, Jaro Cathedral (National Shrine of Our Lady of the Candles) and the Archdiocese of Jaro by the Spanish Catholics; and the CPU–Iloilo Mission Hospital (the first American and Protestant hospital in the Philippines), the Jaro Evangelical Church (the first Baptist Church in the Philippines and the first Protestant church outside Manila); Jaro Adventist Center (the first Adventist church in the country); and the Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches (the first and oldest Baptist churches organization in the Philippines) by the Protestant Americans.

The Central Philippine University which was founded also by the Protestant Baptist Americans in the district, has been ranked as the first Western Visayan university in the list of Asia and world's best universities by Quacquarelli Symonds, one of the big three renowned international university ranking agencies along with the Times Higher Education and Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) in the world.

The recent 21st century economic boom in Iloilo City which poured in investments especially in the real estate and retail sector benefitted Jaro resulting in the rise of various establishments and townships sprouting in the district's area.

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