The Nagcarlan Underground Cemetery ( fil, Libingan sa Ilalim ng Lupa ng Nagcarlan) is a national historical landmark and

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

in Barangay Bambang,

Nagcarlan Nagcarlan, officially the Municipality of Nagcarlan ( tgl, Bayan ng Nagcarlan), is a 2nd class municipality in the province of Laguna, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 64,866 people. It is northeast of San P ...

Laguna Laguna (Italian and Spanish for lagoon) may refer to: People * Abe Laguna (born 1992), American DJ known as Ookay * Andrés Laguna (1499–1559), Spanish physician, pharmacologist, and botanist * Ana Laguna (born 1955), Spanish-Swedish ballet d ...

supervised by the

National Historical Commission of the Philippines The National Historical Commission of the Philippines ( fil, Pambansang Komisyong Pangkasaysayan ng Pilipinas, abbreviated NHCP) is a government agency of the Philippines. Its mission is "the promotion of Philippine history and cultural herita ...

. It was built in 1845 under the supervision of Franciscan priest, Fr. Vicente Velloc as a public burial site and its underground crypt exclusively for Spanish friars, prominent town citizens and members of elite Catholic families. It is dubbed as the only underground cemetery in the country.

History

Establishment of the Underground Cemetery

Fr. Vicente Velloc supervised the establishment of a cemetery in Nagcarlan in 1845 below Mt. San Cristobal. Unlike the traditional Spanish cemeteries at that time, Fr. Velloc decided to build it away from the town's center. The cemetery is planned to serve as a public resting place for the people of the town while the underground chamber below the chapel of the cemetery will only house remains of Spanish friars and prominent people. It was built together with the construction of the expanded St. Bartholomew Parish Church and rectory. The cemetery is built with a chapel where funeral masses were held and directly below it is an underground crypt.

As Meeting Place during the Revolution

During the Philippine Revolution, the cemetery served as a meeting place of revolutionary leaders of the

Katipunan The Katipunan, officially known as the Kataastaasan, Kagalanggalangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan or Kataastaasan Kagalang-galang na Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan (KKK; en, Supreme and Honorable Association of the Children of the Nation ...

in 1896.

Pedro Paterno Pedro Alejandro Paterno y de Vera IgnacioGarcía Castellón, Manuel. (February 27, 1857 – April 26, 1911, 993 pages) was a Filipino politician infamous for being a turncoat. He was also a poet and a novelist. His intervention on behalf of the ...

and Gen. Severino Taiño of the "Maluningning" command held a meeting at the cemetery where they planned the historic

Pact of Biak-na-Bato The Pact of Biak-na-Bato, signed on December 15, 1897, created a truce between Spanish colonial Governor-General Fernando Primo de Rivera and the revolutionary leader Emilio Aguinaldo to end the Philippine Revolution. Aguinaldo and his fellow re ...

in 1897. It also served as hideout for Filipino leaders during the

Philippine–American War The Philippine–American War or Filipino–American War ( es, Guerra filipina-estadounidense, tl, Digmaang Pilipino–Amerikano), previously referred to as the Philippine Insurrection or the Tagalog Insurgency by the United States, was an arm ...

and of guerillas in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Declaration as a Historical Landmark

The Nagcarlan Underground Cemetery was declared as a National Historical Landmark by virtue of Presidential Decree no. 260, dated August 1, 1973 with amendments by Administrative Order 1505, dated June 11, 1978. Since the declaration, no more burials were allowed in the cemetery. It underwent renovations before it was again opened to the public during the unveiling of the marker on October 24, 1981. The oldest tomb is dated 1886 while the last interment was in 1982 when it was formally declared as a National Historical Landmark.

Features

The

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

cemetery is located two kilometers south of downtown

that takes the shape of a circular cemetery across a 1 hectare property. It is surrounded by octagonal stone walls made of red tiles with iron-wrought grills. A façade or arch of about 18 feet high with two iron grill gates leads to a red tiled pathway across a green space leading to the cemetery chapel. The chapel containing a statue of Santo Sepulcro serves as a place for ''requiem ''or funeral mass. Located 15 feet below the chapel is an underground graveyard consisting of only 36 tombs arranged in four walls The crypt and chapel is connected by two flight of steps. The first nine steps lead to a Spanish inscription that reads: :''Go forth, Mortal man, full of life ''
''Today you visit happily this shelter,''
''But after you have gone out,''
''Remember, you have a resting place here,''
''Prepared for you.'' The last six steps lead to the underground crypt. The cemetery has 240 apartment-type niches on the walls where each side of the chapel contains 120 niches. Overall, there are 276 niches. Nagcarlan Underground Cemetery Panorama

Management

The cemetery complex remained as a property of the

Roman Catholic Diocese of San Pablo The Diocese of San Pablo (Latin: ''Dioecesis Sancti Pauli in Insulis Philippinis'', Filipino: Diyosesis ng San Pablo, Spanish: ''Diócesis de San Pablo'') is a Roman Catholic diocese which is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Manila. Its patron s ...

. It is supervised and managed by the

. Currently, no more burials are allowed inside the cemetery. The complex is used for special celebrations such as the

Feast of Christ the King The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, commonly referred to as the Feast of Christ the King, Christ the King Sunday or Reign of Christ Sunday, is a feast in the liturgical year which emphasises the true kingship of Christ ...

and

Lent Lent ( la, Quadragesima, 'Fortieth') is a solemn religious observance in the liturgical calendar commemorating the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke ...

of the local parish and the diocese.

References

External links

{{Calabarzon attractions Cemeteries in the Philippines Marked Historical Structures of the Philippines Buildings and structures in Laguna (province) Tourist attractions in Laguna (province) Spanish Colonial architecture in the Philippines National Historical Landmarks of the Philippines