I am one person who enters a place or a situation without hesitation and fear. Fortunately, I always get out unscathed from dangerous places or sticky situations. If curiosity can kill a cat, curiosity can whet my appetite for adventure. Call it having chutzpah, the quality of being curious and bold which I have in abundance. With my chutzpah, I entered the Nagcarlan Underground Cemetery with only a skinny driver in tow as the sun was setting down. Nevermind that I might encounter the ghost of a headless Spanish friar, I was determined to explore every nook and cranny of this cemetery underneath the ground.
The Nagcarlan Underground Cemetery in Laguna is the only one of its kind in the Philippines. It is a burial site 15 feet beneath a church that was designed and built for funeral masses in 1845 by a Franciscan priest named Father Vicente Velloc. The privileged ones who came from the elite Catholic families were buried here.
This cemetery was declared a national landmark as the underground crypt was used as a secret meeting place by the revolutionary group, KKK in 1896. During the Philippine-American War, the Filipino patriots also used the place to formulate their battle plans and seek shelter. It further served as a safe house for the Filipino guerrillas during World War ll.
As I lingered in the cemetery, I felt that the atmosphere was becoming eerie. I saw the silhouette of a man in a brown robe passed by then quickly disappeared. With goose bumps all over me, I ran up the flight of stairs leading back to the church leaving behind my chutzpah in the cemetery. :P It was indeed a one-of-a-kind adventure.
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| Adecsky Explorer is ready to discover anything in the underground cemetery. |
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| The San Bartolome Apostol Parish Church also known as the Church of Nagcarlang |
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| Going down for an adventure ^_^ |
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| The ceiling has a mural |
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| This is where light passes through to illuminate the cemetery. There are no light fixtures inside. |
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| This is another entrance for the light. |
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Only the privileged ones from the elite Catholic families were buried here |
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| The facade of the church |
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