Saints and Sculptures

Conrado Balubayan

At last, my uncle is getting the recognition that he long deserves. His name was mentioned in the Philippine Inquirer article entitled "Where Pope John Paul II goes, best things will be", which was published on April 17, 2011. He was credited for the creation of  Pope John Paul's statue, which would be the centerpiece of the papal's shrine in Bataan Technology Park, a former Indochinese refugee camp, where he held a mass during his Philippine visit in 1981.

My uncle, Conrado Balubayan has been into sculpture-making for most of his life. I remember him making statues ever since I was little. According to him his passion for this art stated when he was a teen. His father, who was also an artist inspired him to create molds of his own. He has honed his craft from then on.

He works on different media, such as concrete, wood, bronze, marble, polymers and glass. He can create statues of various sizes, from small to giant-sized, be it replicas of saints, monuments to national heroes or politicians, sculptures depicting animals or other objects..  But his creativity doesn't end with statues. He is also an expert in making altars, stained glass and decors for churches.

His years of experience on this field have brought him unaccounted number of projects. One of his famous work to date is the Kawa-kawa Hills' Station of the Cross  in Ligao, Albay, Phililppines.

working overtime to finish the statue of Pope John Paul II