Pasonanca Park

Pasonanca Park is renowned in the Philippines as a tourist attraction and popular site for youth citizenship training and for the holding of regional seminars, conferences, conventions, outdoor campings, or Boy Scout and Girl Scout jamborees. It is located in Zamboanga City about 7 km. away from the city center. To those who come from the North, Pasonanca Park is known as the "Little Baguio of the South." This Park won First Prize and was cited as the Number One Garden of the Philippines, 1959 parks, plazas and gardens contest covering the entire country, and has always been the favorite week-end resort of the city people.

History

Construction of the park began in 1912 by General John J. "Blackjack" Pershing, Governor of the so-called Moro Province at the time, and completed during the administration of the Honorable Frank W. Carpenter, Governor, Department of Mindanao and Sulu (1914-1920), a strictly civilian regime under the Americans which replaced the Moro Province. Mr. Thomas Hanley, a parksman, came here in 1912 from the States at the instance of Gov. Pershing to serve the same post at Pasonanca, this city, and was responsible for the original lay-out of the park.

The Park has three swimming pools, one for children with concrete slides (Wee-Wee Pool), a second natatorium for professional swimmers, and a third looks like a natural swimming hole, bordered around by ferns and other greeneries, the oldest of the three pools, having been constructed during the time of Gov. Carpenter and Parksman Hanley in 1916-1917, The Park also has a boy-girl-scout campsite, an amphitheatre, a convention center, and many other attractions.

References

*1987 Golden Jubilee Souvenir Program