page_title: Malacañang Palace
section_title: Gardens
hierarchical_section_title: Malacañang Palace / Gardens
caption_attribution_description: Osmena Family A tMalacanang
context_page_description: Malacañang Palace is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the Philippines. It is located in San Miguel, Manila and is commonly associated with Mendiola Street. The term "Malacañang" is often used as a metonym for the president and his advisers. The sprawling Malacañang Palace complex includes numerous mansions and office buildings designed and built largely in bahay na bato and neoclassical style.
  The original structure was built in 1750 by Don Luís Rocha as a summer house along the Pasig River. It was purchased by the state in 1825 as the summer residence for the Spanish Governor-General. After the June 3, 1863 earthquake which destroyed the Palacio del Gobernador in the walled city of Manila, it became the Governor-General's official residence. After sovereignty over the Islands was ceded to the United States in 1898, it became the residence of the American Governors, with General Wesley Merritt being the first.
  Since 1863, the Palace has been occupied by eighteen Spanish Governors-General, fourteen American Military and Civil Governors, and later the Presidents of the Philippines.
context_section_description: The extensive grounds of Malacañang comprise one of the few parks in Manila, with tropical shrubbery, century-old acacia trees, and even a balete tree or two. The acacias are festooned with the cactus like 'Queen of the Night.' The broad lawns, lush trees and greenery indicate how Manila may have been when it was less populous and times were more leisurely.
  The public garden now known as 'Freedom Park' fronts the Administration and Executive Buildings. It has statues symbolizing the four freedoms (religion, expression, want and fear), that were brought to Malacañang from the Manila International Fair of the 1950s. The statues were long forgotten at the cogon field that was then Rizal Park, when First Lady Eva Macapagal retrieved them. An Art Deco fountain from the 1930s still flows near the main Palace entrance. Cannons and lamp posts dating from the Spanish Regime accent odd corners.
  A bamboo teahouse, built in 1948 as a rest house, no longer exists, but it used to be by the river near where the swimming pool is now located.
  At the main entrance is the large balete tree with a reputed resident kapre. Usually lit with capiz shell globe lights, it is hung with multicolored star lanterns during Christmas.  One time only, it was lit with thousands of flickering fireflies, captured from some distant towns where fireflies still abounded and released as a grand ephemeral gesture of a present for the then First Lady.
caption: President Sergio Osmeña and his family at the Malacañang gardens (1945).
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