Pandacan Church nears completion, set to finish before 2025 

SANTO Niño de Pandacan Parish is set to finish its reconstruction at the end of the year, four years after its devastating blaze in July 2020.  

In a press conference on Wednesday, Parochial Vicar Fr. Joseph Mary Sigfred Arellano said the rebuilding is already 80 percent done. He credited Parish Priest Fr. Andy Ortega Lim with spearheading the efforts to finish the church. 

“From 28.17% in November 2022, we have already completed 80.31% of the structure as of March 2024,” Arellano said. 

“[Fr. Andy] has efficiently fast-tracked the construction of the new church building in less than two years,” he added. 

With Pandacan being tight-knit community, many of the helpers around the construction consisted of servers from different churches and parishes, speeding up the Church rehabilitation. 

 “[T]hey are all volunteers, we are just very lucky that these volunteers ay nag-se-serve sa Simbahan,” said Lem Santiago, secretary and youth ministry of the parish. 

As the ongoing reconstruction of the 400-year-old parish progresses, temporary Masses are being celebrated in the church’s columbarium located at the ground floor of the new church.“After nasunog ‘yong Simbahan, nagkaroon ng temporary tent. Doon kami nag-misa almost one year,” Knights of Columbus Grand Knight Ramon Delos Reyes said.  

The grand knight holds the highest elected position within this council and carries the responsibility of upholding the laws of the order to serve fellow knights and leading the council in dedicated service to the family, Church, and community.  

During the reconstruction, the Manila local government also donated P1 million to expedite the rebuilding efforts of the parish, said Santiago. 

According to Santiago, the Church received P100 million so far from donations, reconstruction budget, expenses, and fundraising events.  

Donations received from the website, which started in 2021, have also contributed to the reconstruction, with a donation goal of 1 million pesos.,  

The donation from the website has reached P700,000 as of writing. 

To this day, many parishioners and faithful still support the church, whether through donations or attending the Mass, according to Ramon Delos Reyes, part of the Knights of Columbous Council.  

--Jan Paolo Espolong