During the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during the Second World War, the invading Japanese troops overran the church, and the congregation was dispersed. Australian and New Zealander priests were interred in the concentration camp at University of the Philippines – Los Baños. The icon was removed from the church and given to a family for safekeeping; their home was later burnt and ransacked towards the end of the Occupation. The icon was initially thought lost until a De La Salle brother found it amongst other valuable artifacts that the Japanese had seized and left at the Old Bilibid prison.