Story Page

Way back in June 1912, PACO CATHOLIC SCHOOL was just a handful of boys assembled by Fr. Raymond Esquenet, cicm inside a classroom that was the Chapel on Peñafrancia district. On September 7 of the same year, Fr. Godofredo Aldenhuijsen succeeded Fr. Esquenet as parish priest of Paco for the next seven years. The opening of the school year 1913 ushered in the first expansion of the small school when pupils were admitted to second grade. Bigger problems await the young parish priest and director. Beginning June 1914, two sisters of the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of St. Augustine managing Saint Theresa's College (STC) came everyday to help in the formation of the school, commuting by carromata back and forth from the STC campus in San Marcelino to PCS in Peñafrancia.. With the opening of the third grade in 1915, the school was duly incorporated. Henceforth, the school at Peñafrancia functioned adequately well enough until the American administration planted in the area a public school to which many erstwhile Paconians transferred.

Apropos of the education of the children of Paco, there was this important factor to consider; the increasing number of public schools and consequently, the need for a much larger Catholic school to counteract secularism and Aglipayanism which sadly appealed to many poor families.

In 1927, while Fr. Godofredo was assigned to Baguio as Provincial Superior of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Society (CICM), Fr. Jose Billiet, cicm became incumbent parish priest. He built a five-room schoolhouse on Trece de Agosto Street, the present site of the school.

For the next three years, the primary course went on in the new school site until Fr. Godofredo was reassigned to Paco on March, 1931. Barely a year had passed when, again, the parish builder had constructed a large three-storey cement edifice supplanting the old five-room shanty. This building is now known as the Sacred Heart Building. A little behind it, bloomed a residence for the sisters of the Missionary Sisters of St. Augustine who managed the school. On the Church's south side rose a five-room house for the girl students' Home Economics course.

Fr. Godofredo's tremendous building projects were so impressive that parents were encouraged to send their children to PACO CATHOLIC SCHOOL. Increase in enrollment accompanied the inception of the high school department. Four years later, in 1937, the secondary course won full government recognition. At the end of that school year in March 1938, happy parents witnessed a glad pastor distribute diplomas to the first batch of proud graduates of a Catholic high school in their own district.

Then suddenly on December 8, 1941 the clouds of war descended and to the 1,600 students, the school had to close its gates. Six months later - June 1942, the Archbishop of Manila, with the permission of the Japanese Provisional Government, ordered the reopening of the school. It as he only school south of the Pasig River to reopen so soon -- September 1942. At that time the battles for liberation forced the School to close again.

The students, their soul chastened by suffering, eagerly reached out of enduring Truth in the battered walls of God's little school in Paco.

A new rectory was built. The former Sisters' convent was converted into the girl's high school. A new home for the Sisters was built beside the old concrete edifice which was later known as the DRE (Department of Religious Education).

Between 1953 and 1955, the Sacred Heart Building was renovated, provided a fourth floor and has today become the boys' high school building. Near the Santiago Street

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