Circular history

Paco Park, under the National Parks and Development Committee (NPDC), is a declared heritage site. It is a scenic place to chill or enjoy alfresco concerts under ancient trees, its many dark corners providing ample cover for couples making out. Effective rebranding made us forget its origins as the “Cementerio general de San Francisco de Dilao,” completed after some years of work on April 22, 1822. At the center of the complex, surrounded by two circular walls made from adobe, is the Chapel of St. Pancratius, which has grown into a highly “Instagrammable” location for weddings. Wedding planners and organizers should, beyond aesthetics, truthfully disclose to clients that the “Capilla de San Pancrasio” is a mortuary chapel. Would couples want to begin their married life in a funeral chapel, where important figures from the late 19th century lie in state or were interred?

If you visit Spanish-era churches in the Philippines, you may notice the church walls (and sometimes even the floors) lined with tombstones. These in-church burials, “ad sanctos,” were highly coveted. Proximity to the altar or a venerated “santo” had a premium, not so much for the souls people could not see, but as a physical marker of status, of social standing born from lineage, wealth, or power. If we were to classify Paco Cemetery like airplane seating: burial in the capilla was the “first class” cabin reserved for high church and colonial officials; “cattle class” was for those buried outside the chapel in two sections. “Business class” was for the inner circular walls, reserved for lesser notables, Spaniards (born in Spain and the Philippines), and mestizos. “Premium economy” was for those buried in the outer walls—the rest who could afford it. “Economy” was for locations on the outer walls farthest from the center. A special place in the cemetery was reserved for infants who died before baptism; this was outside but adjacent to the “consecrated ground.”

Niches were not owned, but rented for five years and were renewable. Occupants in arrears were exhumed, their bones strewn in a common, unmarked bone pit, the “Osario,” at the back of the cemetery. Sometimes an overflow in burials required transfer or being “bumped off” into the Osario. We all know from Rizal’s “Noli Me Tangere” and his own life, that some people were denied burial in “hallowed ground,” that is, inside the church or in the adjacent church graveyard. The corpse of Ibarra’s father was ordered exhumed by the vengeful parish priest and transferred from the church graveyard to that designated for Chinese. Grave diggers took a shortcut and dumped the corpse in the river, stoking Ibarra’s already brewing anger.

I have not verified online sources that list Paco Cemetery as the first of its kind to be built outside Intramuros, since there were many churches and chapels outside the walls or “Exrea-muros” that might have exceeded in-church burials. From numerous 19th-century decrees on burials and cemeteries, we see the clear government response to the overflow of in-church burials, the need to expand burial grounds, and the necessity of new cemeteries on the outskirts of cities and towns. Then there were non-Catholics, resulting in cemeteries for Protestants, Chinese, Jews, and unbelievers. In time, cemeteries were built and run by the government rather than the church.

The erection of Paco began around 1814, as a municipal cemetery but under the control and administration of the archbishop of Manila, serving districts beyond its territory: from adjacent Ermita all the way to Intramuros, and across the Pasig River to Quiapo. Paco was prematurely called into service in 1820 as an emergency cemetery for fatalities resulting from a typhoon in October, followed by a cholera epidemic. This part of the cemetery’s history has since been glossed over because of two important burials: in 1872, Fathers Jose Burgos, Mariano Gomes (with an “S” not a “Z”), and Jacinto Zamora were interred here after their execution, by garrote, in Bagumbayan. In 1896, Jose Rizal was temporarily buried here after his execution, by firing squad, also in Bagumbayan.

We all know the story. After Rizal was dispatched with a bullet in the back, the family was denied the martyr’s body. Perhaps the colonial government wanted to avoid a hero’s burial. Rizal’s sister, Narcisa, searched nearby cemeteries and found the freshly dug unmarked grave where the hero lay. After bribing cemetery personnel, the grave was marked with a small white tombstone with the letters “RPJ,” the hero’s initials in reverse. Rizal’s remains were exhumed in 1898, brought to Teodora Alonso’s home in Binondo, and brought to their final resting place under the Rizal Monument in 1912.

Lest we forget, Bagumbayan, the former Spanish killing fields, and the Cementerio de Paco were rebranded by the NPDC into heritage sites and leisure parks: Paco Park and Rizal Park. Next time you take a selfie or have a picnic here, remember you stand on ground made holy, not by the church, but fertilized by history and the blood of our heroes.

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