Bacood Community

    Situated along the banks of the rivers Pasig and San Juan, quite removed from the busy and traffic-laden streets of Manila’s Santa Mesa district is a community (more like a subdistrict or a sitio of sorts) known as Bacood. Bacood’s name comes from the Tagalog word “bakood” which would mean either an elevated area or a cane plantation. It has been said that the area back then served as a plantation for various crops. But in the early days, Bacood was known as Cordeleria, a Spanish term for a shop that sells ropes. This was because the place back then was the center of rope-making and selling activity in Manila and in surrounding suburbs. One of those people who owned such a business was a Katipunero named Sancho Valenzuela, who would soon lead a failed assault against the Spaniards at the outbreak of the Philippine Revolution in 1896 and became one of the first martyrs of the Revolution. His memory now since invoked in the naming of the street that leads to Bacood.

Today, there are no traces left of the once-flourishing rope-making industry there, save for a street which is a Tagalog term which meant “a place for ropes:” Lubiran.

Lubiran St.

Bacood Park located along Valenzuela St. The park is located in an awkwarrd place as it looks an island surrounded by roads and seas of vehicles especially during rush hour.

Bacood boasts and rich and varied religious heritage. Apart from the Our Lady of Fatima parish which serves the predominantly Catholic population, a Philippine Independent Church parish (Good Shepherd Parish) and a Buddhist temple are also serving the area.

Bacood also serves as the home (the”Great Love Campus” as it’s called) of the Tzu Chi Foundation, a non-profit organization founded by a former Buddhist Monk in Taiwan. Interestingly, this structure used to be the old Manila Boystown and Girlstown complex, which has now moved to a larger facility in Marikina City.