Manong Philip

On our way out of the Nagcarlan underground cemetery we met Mr. Philip, or simply Philip as he insisted, or “Manong Philip” as most Filipinos would probably call him. He was a just a random but friendly stranger, who happened to have lots of stories to tell.

A son of a sepulturero for the cemetery, he had quite some knowledge about Nagcarlan’s history. He sure told us about it, and he had a little extras. He said there was once an extremely rich woman named Ana Kalang. He related to us the story from his grandfathers, saying that mass wouldn’t start unless she wasn’t there, and she was a rich and generous benefactress that people often called him “Nanang Clara”. Later translations corrupted her name into “Nang Carla” and then later to the name of this town, Nagcarlan.

He said this was the burial place of some Philippine heroes, and the meeting place of the revolutionaries of Laguna (of course, when they were alive). He let us in on a little conspiracy theory of his, which he insisted was pretty much common knowledge among the people there – that there was a secret passage way or tunnel network, that opened in one of the underground niches and led to the Nagcarlan church. He said this was used by the katipuneros many decades ago. He told us of many ghost stories about the place, and admitting that he had felt them too. He relates to us stories of pictures taken with him, and beside him were figures or silhouettes of the dead.

Once the cemetery was made public, and many people’s remains, especially during the second world war, were brought there. So many dead bodies couldn’t be identified anymore, and since nobody claimed them, they remained there in that cemetery to this day – casualties from the second world war.