PACO PARK
In the heart of the City of Manila is a small and old circular park which used to be a municipal cemetery for Spanish ariscators of the old walled city of Intramuros-the Paco Park and Cemetery.
Situated in the western boundary of the district of Paco and in the eastern end of Padre Faura Street,Paco Park and Cemetery was completed and opened to public in 1822 as a burial ground for victims of Asiatic cholera pandemic that swept across the continent in 1817 to 1824. It later became a resting place of the Spanish high society in late 1800's.
But aside from the Spanish aristocats buried in the cementery,It was also a resting ground of four Filipino National Heroes. The martyred priests Fathers Mariano Gomez,Jose Burgoz and Jacinto Zamora were buried on its ground after their executions,February 17,1872. Meanwhile, our foremost National Hero Jose Rizal was secretly buried here after his execution on the early morning of December 30,1896,where it was dug up and kept by the family in an urn in August 17,1898 and later on enshrined in Luneta, December 30,1912.
The cemetery is circular in shape, with an inner circular fort that was the original cemetery and with the niches that were placed or located within the hollow walls. As the population continued to grow, a second outer wall was built with the thick adobe walls were hollowed as niches and the top of the walls were made into pathways for promenades. A Roman Catholic chapel was built inside the walls of the Paco Park and it was dedicated to St. Pancratius.
