On November 5, 1795, the Archbishop of Manila assigned Las Piñas, then a small town of farmers and fishermen, to the Augustinian Recollects to establish a new church.

Diego Cera de la Virgen del Carmen, a native of Spain, traveled from Mabalacat, Pampanga province and arrived on the town on the day after Christmas of 1795.

Soon after, he started building the church made from adobe (volcanic) stones in the Earthquake Baroque architectural style.

[1] Diego Cera served as the parish priest of Las Piñas till May 15, 1832, when he could no longer perform his duties due to severe illness.

The natives were mostly salt bed tenders, fishermen, farmers, laborers, embroiderers, and others engaged in small businesses.

Despite the condition of the parish, Cera set a goal to construct a temporary chapel and convent near the seashore made out of nipa and bamboo.

The church had three naves, a dome, side altars with Romanesque-styled tables, crypt stones each with a replica of the Nuestra Señora dela Consolacion on one side and Saint Augustine on the other, a baptistry with a stone altar, and two sacristies with two wall closets each and a table with six drawers in one, and a tower with three posts topped by a spire.

Don Jose Rueda, former Gobernadorcillo (1925) of the town of Las Piñas concisely described the damages wrought to the church.

According to him, the two arches were cracked, two naves and walls were destroyed, and the whole roof of the church including its cross beams and its dome were ruined.

According to the remarks of Jose Sequi, Archbishop of Manila, after visiting Las Piñas Church on October 29, 1831, he was amazed by the restoration works.

All silver items, or retablos, were eventually donated by the owner of Vatina – after she attended a thanksgiving mass of the church.

It features capiz chandeliers, aged bricks, old statues, bamboo ceiling, a choir loft with antique balustrades of carved wood and potted native palms.

[2] In 1914, Belgian missionaries Jose van Runenkelen and Victor Zaiel of Congregatio Immaculati Cordis Mariae (CICM) established St. Joseph's School next to the church to foster literacy in the parish community.