The image depicts the Immaculate Conception is believed to be one of the oldest in the country, originally discovered in 1603 by a native man fishing in the Pansipit River.

The subsequent Marian apparitions documented by Spanish colonial church leaders were the first in the country; devotees today continue to attribute miracles to the Virgin.

The wooden image measures 272 mm (10.7 in), shows the Virgin as tilting slightly forward, her hands clasped across her breasts below her right shoulder.

It was found wearing a simple, red tunic gathered above its waist that billowed into huge folds around the ankles, and clad in a green shawl.

Though waterlogged, the image had a heavenly lustre, causing the pious Maningcad to prostrate himself and pray before the statue, which he brought home.

News of the image began to spread until it reached the parish priest, Fray Juan Bautista Montoya, and the vicar that represented the reigning King of Spain.

A makeshift chapel was built on the very spot where the image was found, and native devotion to the Our Lady of Caysasay had started even without official church sanction.

Pedro Murillo Velarde SJ in his Historia de Filipinas and other 18th century Spanish chroniclers put the year 1611 as when natives began reporting strange visions on the hillside.

According to a church inquiry, a vision appeared to a native servant girl, Catalina Talain, who had gone up the hillside with a companion to gather firewood and fetch some water.

The unexpected vision of something small in stature but radiating extraordinary brilliance from a hollow in the rocky landscape so bewildered the girl that she ran to tell her companion, and both fled terrified back to the town of Taal, by the shore of the lake.

Casimiro Díaz, a representative of the Mexican vicar, in his 18th century Conquista de las Islas Filipinas (Part II), gave a detailed account: In a sitio called Bingsacan, near the village of Caysasay, around 1611, the natives saw several times, mainly at night, near a river where they go to fetch water, a very great light coming from a small opening in a large rock.

She was a simple woman who led a devout life who had been suffering for a long time from a burning sensation in the eyes leaving her almost blind.

During the entire time of her bath, she noticed an unusual shadow by her side, though there was neither sun nor moon that could cause it, since it was already evening, and it was very dark.

Juana walked further and saw a very bright light and the image of our Lady, almost two palm measurements in height, dressed in white, with a crown on her head and a cross on her forehead.

In addition to herself, she brought with her eight or nine people, among them the wife of her master, Doña Juliana Dimoyaguín and other prominent residents, whose declarations appear in the accounts published about the event.

These galleons also found protection from typhoons at Taal Lake, which was then saline and open to the sea through the navigable Pansipit River.

[7] They honoured the Lady of Caysasay with cannon fire as they passed in front of her shrine located close to the river.

The townspeople of Taal, together with their parish priest, fled from their capital and sought refuge at the Church of Our Lady of Caysasay.

Layers of ejecta and deposits blocked the entrance of Pansipit River, which eventually raised the water of the lake, permanently flooding parts of Tanauan, Lipa, Sala, Bauan and Taal.

[8] The present town center of Taal was established on a hillside near the Caysasay Shrine, overlooking Balayan Bay.

Eventually, a considerably narrower and shallower Pansipit River was formed from the volcanic deposits rendering it impassable for large ships.

Pope Pius XII issued a pontifical decree of coronation on 21 November 1954 to the Archbishop of Lipa, Alejandro Olalia y Ayson.

On 8 December 1954, the coronation rites were presided by the Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela, Cardinal Fernando Quiroga Palacios.

A beautifully carved coral stone arch with a bas relief of the Virgin on the facade was constructed over the spring on the slope of a hill near the church, forming twin wells.

Díaz: "The Holy Image has performed numerous miracles, not only for those who have gone to the rock to ask for help from the Queen of Angels, but also for those who drank from the water and bathed in the nearby stream.

Pedro de Arce, Bishop of Cebu, and Governor of the Archbishopric of Manila ordered to be drawn up and prepared by Fr.

The religious play was written and directed by Nestor U. Torre with music by noted Filipino composer Ryan Cayabyab.