Dilao Church (Paco Church)
In 1580, the first church built was made of nipa and bamboo and was originally dedicated to Our Lady of Purification. Fray Juan de Garrovillas of the Franciscan order has rebuilt the church using stone materials in 1599-1601.
The neighborhood's name Dilao refers to a local shrub once used to dye textiles yellow (current Filipino orthography: diláw, "yellow").
San Fernando de Dilao Parish
San Francisco Del Monte Church, Quezon City
When Pedro Bautista was elected custos, an official of the Franciscans, he saw the need for a secluded place where the missionaries could recharge physically, mentally, and spiritually. He found a hilly area which he deemed conducive for meditation, and on February 17, 1590, then Governor-General Santiago de Vera granted the land to the Franciscan Order.
The town of San Francisco del Monte back then was an elevated area of 250 hectares (620 acres) with thick woods, surrounded by a creek and eight water springs. Father Pedro Bautista built a little convent and a chapel made of bamboo and nipa palm. He dedicated the chapel to Our Lady of Monticelli and the place was opened as a house of retreat for missionaries, as a novitiate house, and as a place for reclusion of government officials
Basilica Minore de San Pedro Bautista
Loreto Parish (Sampaloc)
The Franciscans under Father Blas de la Madre de Dios, the Provincial Father of the Philippine Franciscan mission, built the first church on the Sampaloc site in 1613. It was made into a parish that same year, along with the enshrinement of the Marian image of Our Lady of Loreto.
A convent was built near the church which in 1621 which served as the first home of the congregation of Poor Clares in the country led by Mother Jeronima de la Asuncion before they moved to Intramuros later that year.
The first church was reconstructed twice, first in 1640 as a result of a 1639 Chinese revolt that burned down the church, and again in 1666 after damage from a 1645 earthquake and because of the needs of a growing community in Sampaloc. The church was also affected by the 1880 earthquake, after which its toppled steeple was reconstructed.
Archdiocesan Shrine of Our Lady of Loreto
Pandacan Church
Officially, Pandacan was established as a community in 1574 when Franciscan priests of the Roman Catholic Church established the first mission in the district. Pandacan was originally part of the parish of Sampaloc; it was later established as a separate parish in 1712.
The first stone church in Pandacan was built in 1732 by Father Francisco del Rosario. The church would take 30 years to complete.
Sto. Niño de Pandacan
San Felipe Neri Church (Mandaluyong)
San Felipe Neri Church is one of the oldest churches in the metropolis. Like other Catholic churches in the Philippines, it was run by Franciscan friars.
Its facade has a semicircular arch main entrance flanked by niches and twin bell towers with pyramid roofs. For some time it was the site of bloody encounters between Filipino revolutionaries and Spanish soldiers during the Revolution of 1896.
San Felipe Neri Parish
Sta. Ana Church
The town of Santa Ana was first established by the Spanish Franciscan missionaries in 1578, in a settlement beside a creek connecting to the Pasig River, which the local inhabitants referred to as Sâpa. Its first church, dedicated to their titular patroness Saint Anne, was made of nipa and bamboo until a decree from the Colonial Government in 1599 permitted the religious order to build the church in stone.
However, the construction came only around 1720 upon the direction of the parish priest of Santa Ana Fr. Vicente Inglés, OFM wherein a new site was chosen, which is the current location of the structure. Dedicated to Our Lady of the Abandoned (Nuestra Señora de Los Desamparados), the building of the stone church began on September 12, 1720, with the laying of the cornerstone by the Governor-General and Archbishop of Manila Francisco de la Cuesta, OSA.
The construction took five years to finish, with a total cost of ₱ 33,000 including the donation of the Governor-General amounting to four thousand pesos.
National Shrine of the Our Lady of the Abandoned
Forbes Park Church
In the upscale Forbes Park in Makati rests Santuario de San Antonio. It was built at the end of World War II by the Franciscans after their mother church in Intramuros was destroyed. The friars dedicated the church to Saint Anthony and brought an old statue of the saint from their old church.
The decades-old church features a cross-shaped layout with a dome-shaped ceiling. Moreover, displayed on its walls are paintings done by Italian artist Giotto and the Philippines’ first national artist, Fernando Amorsolo.
Santuario de San Antonio Parish
VOT (St. Anthony Shrine) Sampaloc
The Franciscans started to stay in Sampaloc in 1613 with the construction of a convent to be used as a novitiate. Due to the unsanitary conditions of the house in San Francisco del Monte for a time, Fr. Blas de la Madre de Dios, Provincial of the Franciscan Order, decided to transfer the novitiate to Sampaloc.
The novitiate was in this site in the period 1614-1619. The site was donated by the pious “Madre del Campo”, Don Pedro de Chavez, and his wife Dona Ana de Vera who at the same financed the construction of the Church and convent.
St. Anthony Shrine