Built in 1744 from bricks and limestone blocks, the Jaro Belfry served a dual purpose from the start. It was a campanile for the adjacent Jaro Metropolitan Cathedral, but it also functioned as a military watchtower during the Spanish colonial period, scanning the horizon for Moro raiders who periodically attacked settlements across the Visayas. The tower stands separately from the cathedral, one of only a handful of free-standing belfries in the Philippines, and the oldest bell tower in the entire Visayan island group. Its four-tier octagonal form rises from a limestone base through brick upper tiers, capped with a conical roof and cupola designed to house the bells. Four clocks, one on each side, were part of the original design, giving the tower a civic as well as religious identity.

The seismic history reads like a stress test. On July 17, 1787, a powerful earthquake heavily damaged the belfry. Reconstruction did not begin until 1833, nearly half a century later, when Augustinian friar Fr. Jesse Alvarez supervised the rebuilding. On June 29, 1868, another earthquake struck. Msgr. Mariano Cuartero, the first bishop of Jaro, ordered a complete restoration that was finished in 1881. Then came January 25, 1948, and the Lady Caycay earthquake that swept across Panay. This time, the second and third floors collapsed entirely, leaving only the ground floor standing as the sole surviving original structure. The belfry would remain truncated for decades, its bells silent, its clocks stopped.

Recognition came in 1984 when the National Historical Institute declared the Jaro Belfry a National Historical Landmark. The agency began reconstruction in the 1990s with plans to create a viewing deck and tourist center. But the project stalled. A conflict between the restoration authorities and the Archdiocese of Jaro left the tower in administrative limbo, restored in structure but never opened as intended. The belfry sat in this half-finished state for years, a monument that had survived earthquakes only to be stymied by bureaucracy. It was not until February 2022 that the National Historical Commission of the Philippines launched a fresh restoration, this time committing to return the tower to its original design.

The 2022 restoration brought back elements that had been missing for years. Four statues representing the cardinal virtues -- temperance, prudence, fortitude, and justice -- were placed at each corner of the tower's podium, recreating the original decorative program. The clocks, silent since 1948, were repaired and reset. Workers preserved the tower's original brick and limestone materials while reinforcing its structural stability against future seismic events. The turnover ceremony on November 27, 2022, included the unveiling of a new historical marker, but the moment that mattered most was the sound: the bells of the Jaro Belfry ringing across the plaza for the first time since the Lady Caycay earthquake had silenced them 74 years earlier. The tower had been given back its voice.