z to run for mayor

- - -·Bagatiirlg, candidate. Ba-

wa an election of assemblymen for the
opposition had Mel Lopez in the running. Five
massive frauds at the polls, ~ them the
le dreumstances }lad already made a veteran politico
Jiltll;W&t, despite his boyish looks.
recognized leader of the opposition, I was among
into the inner drcle of the Ramos-Bnrile breakaway
A uprising. In the propaganda struggle for .th
• I acted as emcee and did the honors of in
and Minister Emile to the crowds tm EDSA a
<Wer the counuy. I was one of those who d
nd at Camp Aguinaldo and that's why news ·
s in February show me lugging an UZI rifle in
os and Enrile,"
Batasan was dissolved on March 31, 1986,
z's two-year stint as solon, he was appointed
· , the first load executive installed by
Hizzoner refmined &om assuming office
could be held when Mr. Bagatting retumed

was the "workaholic'' Mel that only two years in

d to undergo no fewer than three heart bypass
aperiod of seven months. The scare would fail to
y\,reak in Tondo maJ.surprise you with glimpses of
~boring that early in the day, to have coffee and
favorite paisanos - and even lending a hand with
. .
•• •
 A Manila boy from
Colonel Honorio was a shinlftg
the 1880s, a warrior of the Revolution of the 1890s, a
golden age of the zarzuela in the l900s, and a continuing c:un:me
through his yearly best-selling IWendaricmg Tagalog) Mel
very young had Mayor Lacson for \dol and Qty Hall for
young Mel was an utter unknown when he ran for ·
and therefore had us bowled all over when he placed third
winners. -
He was a triumphant reelectionist when Marcos d
Jaw. But although ,Congress was abolished, the Manila municip
board was allowed to continue.
"So, until 1975, the city council held sessions and on the
my very vocal objections to the opportunistic administration
Marcos. Which brought me into conflict with ~yor Bagatsing.
Christmas party at his house he realized that not only myself
the councilors with me were vehemently against the Man:os detlrrlt~
tion of martial Jaw. But though the municipal board continued
until 1975 it could do nothing because nothing was done in
except what Imelda wanted."
In 1975 the board was abolished when Metro Manila was
and Mel Lopez found another grievance to air. Not only
but Metro Manila was illegal, because Metro Manila
without the approval of the two provinces, Rizal and B ,
their terrain ravished.
"So, Metro Manila was under two dictators - the dictator
seized power over the whole countty, and his wife who
power as governor of Metro Manila." ·
On February 5, 1981 M e l ~ petitioned the Su
declare the Marcos deaee null and void that created
Manila Commission and to order the latter to cease
functions.
"My petition was rejected because the Supreme
posed of people indebted to Maia» and
udio 'F Santos, ~ - - - -
. .and
 .._,~,bftitii.edlitlid!dne took t h e ~ examt,-- -...
r·
one 11-month period, tlu! mayor 21 new schoolhouses.
~es\ of them ha& six dallrooms while the largest has two
and twenty c;lassrooms. For the first time, and through my
, there is now a high school-in P.andacan. The some 4,000
NtQOJle..r$ there used to spend at least four pe~ a day in trans-
going to the high schools in Paco <?r Santa Ana. Now they
their fares arid study right there in-their own district. Also for
tune is the Manila public school system now opening kinder-
classes - because we have verified that the brightest students
)bose who went through nursery schools."
of the mayor's "inheritance" were over 60,000 sidewalk ven-
.cid over 50,000 squatters.
the time of Villegas the sidewalk vendors numbered around
. Now their number has jumped up to 62,000 - and still rising!
real threat is the big-time operator bel:iihd them. These oper-
ate the type you see selling slippers on Villalobos and you can't
-thiJy. ewn merchandise worth tt20,000, or more. But they .do,
rttenacing types. Some of them have threatened to kill me
I am displacing their vendors. But threats don't worry me.
t's part of the business of being in politics." '
for the squatters, they were the p~blem he tackled first upon
· the Hizzonership. No urban renewal was possible while
llllv\iilli!S infested riverbank and sidewalk and reclaimed foreshore.
will all have to go, said he, including the casbahs off the Golden
in Quiapo. And he turned on the heat on slum and barong-
g until his squatter-clearance program was averaging 12,700
led families a year. It didn't worry him that squatters, like
alk vendors, are large blocks of votes. ·
n in 1988 he ran for election as the administration.candidate for
)'OI' in Manila, the malicious ex~tion was that he would be tom
· by those he had antagonized: the squatterS, the street-vendor
, the vice lords and madams, the City Hall fixers, the big-
crooks.
haoaened instead was a first in .Manila's political ~ : .a.
U l'~ ~ g kull the dtf9-poll di • ·
~.,.~. . .tn!tatiw • witheadi
WHEN he became a,,ayor, Mel Lopez found Manila It
after 14 years in the MaR.'08 limbo.
"With all due respect 10 my pNdecessor, I must say that
inherited from him was an empty treasury and accumulalecl
close to 700 million pesos."
What Mel Lopez had to do was to arouse Qty Hall from
and get Manila on the go again.
"In eleven months we weie able to ledu~ the indd>teane,s
!56 million pesos while at the same time inaeasing the dty'&
and ievenue collections from 600 million pesos to a billion .,_.
So, there was no failure in meeting the monthly paymlls of City
All the demands of Manila's public school teachers for instance,
fully granted."
The mayor, a commerce graduate, saw a way to swell the
income without raising taxes: organize and enfoR:e a ~
intensified tax collection. That program was the feat of hie
hundred days in office.

il '~-
''From the 61 movie theaters in Manila, we were able to inaea
collection by no less than 180 per cent. From the 33 public madcett'.
talipapa, we .increased our income by no • than 110 pes:
managed to make even the Manila Zoo FOfitable: we
income by up to P6,000 a day on weekdays and up to ffl,
Sundays. At the same time we reduced its expenses."
That combination of jacked-up revenue and cu-t-down
might steer Manila away frolll deficit budgets a n d ~
income topping 100 million. An income ever on the 200tQ' WAI
for a government that had to provide a plethora of services for
a half million citizelil. And Manila, as Mayor Lopez could
the only Philippine ll\unidpality offering free education all the
to college.
"We have doubled the budget for the city university 'fQ,tbat~
the city's youth can enj9y the ~ standard of · ~
J:!amantasan ng L~ - - . :·Ml~L 'the -- ~,M . , . ~
._ ,-en fn1ln 5,000
t
 Mllllf, ,
New Year!' Young people bring out the stereo and start &lasting out
;ftKic music and dancing in the streets."
Word that troops and loyali$ left behind in ~ g are looting
lhtarts a general rush to the Palace. .
To one boy who had. to push and shove his way into the Palace
~ d s , so great being the throngs wanting to enter, that night was a
~ ~ta:smagoria.
''My first impression was of a Mardi Gras: two girls were dancing on
of a car. Inside the falace my impression was that it was all
:.corated with capiz shell. Every room was a mess. People pushed
11\d. shoved- and looted. Finally I simply refused to go any farther; I
'Nl stood. there and let my eyes absorb what there was to be seen. I
.JjEt early. Of my vigils, this at Malacanang was the shortest - and the
most shocking." ·
Corinta Barranco says she was with "what might be termed the
second wave" to invade the Palace, at around two o'clock a.m.
"The gates were open but people were clambering over the fence,
.impatient to get ~id~. Fortunately, by then, the Palace had been
aeeured by General Ramos's men and the looting had stopped.
Through a window I caught a glimpse of the famous chandeliers, all
~laze, as if the former tenants were still there. On the balcony_where
Marcos had addressed his paid a~dience at noon now stood a poster of
~ and Doy. People were milling around, wreaking havoc on the
iuanicured lawns. A group of boys had climbed on top of two tanks to '
liave their picture taken. Everyone was taking pictures. Outside on
Mendiola, in front of San Beda, a crowd was praying the rosary in
thanlcsgiving before an image of Mary."
The Marcos nightmare was over; the new era in Manila would get a
f,esh gung-ho face on March 31, 1986, when Gemiliano "Mel" Lopez
Jr. was appointed acting mayor of Manila. ·
 Palace grounds; they didn't ~ their p.Nllidei\t had nm out on
them. What's embarrassing to mention is the vanity you cah't take
away from the Pinoy. .In the mi~t of all that stoning and stampeding,
the moment camera lights flashed, we all froze, those in frs>nt kneeling
down so as not to cover those behind, and everybody grinning and
flashing the L sign. Pa-picture! Afterwards, on with the rain of stones,
on with the broken heads, on with the blood, on with the riot! How
brave really is the Pinoy, with a gun or without!"
At 9:05 p.m. tlie fleeing Marcoses and their party were airlifted to
Oark Air Base on four helicopters provided by the U.S. embassy. The
refugees crossed the Pasig by boat and boarded the helicopters in
Malacaiiang Park. Mr. Marcos wore a hat and a long-sleeved white
shirt. He had originally requested passage for 30 persons; the final list
numbered 89.
Like a flash of lightning in Manila sped the report that the tyrant had
fled at last. And like thunder reverberated the rapture of the metropo-
lis.
Corinta Barranco was on her way to Channel 4 when she heard the
news on her car radio.
"We couldn't believe it, it seemed too good to be true! At Channel 4
the crowd was packed solid. The volunteer announcers and entertain,
ers made a public appearance to confirm the good news and lead the
crowd in song and prayer~ celebration, Of course we felt we had to
go to Malacat'iarig. But driVUlJ there was difficult with all the streets
jammed up with celebrating throngs. It was as if all the New Years of
the 20-year dictatorship had been saved up for this one hysterical
outpouring of delight over -a people's liberation. It's impossible to
describe the wild joy of people driving round and round in all types of
vehicles, shouting, waving banners, greeting each other with the
Laban sign. The hordes on the street were giving away food and drink
they had prepared for what everyone thought would be a long siege.
Despite the public exuberance, there was no dangerous wildness. That
night the streets of Manila were really safe."
The Midweek reporter found the entire length of Espana swarming
with revelers ftaslting the L sign at motorists blasting their horns.
"Sparlclers and roman candles light up the night, and confetti litter
the streets. Tues am burning in the Tunog area, where ttaiftc is
impoNible. ~ pf tbousm4&ol~lme --., . . .
,.,--_ :!!lg. Not J f e w ~
 Mnd in solemn oath, the live television coverage w a s ~ tut of.
uoh Jesus! Oh no! This is too muchl" groaned Presidential Assistant
Juan Tuvera. Channel 9, which had been covering the inaugural, had
been seized by the rebels.
After his swearing-in, Mr. Marcos briefly addressed the crowd; he
and Imelda even sang a duet. Just off the scene were nine tanks and
APCs, engines running, and hundred~ of soldiers wielding automatic
"M-1.6 rifles.
For the elite in the ceremonial hall, there were lunch boxes from Via
Mare: fillet of fish and pancit canton. (The noodles were intended to
sigrufy a long term in office.) Incidentally, during the four days of
~ . Malacaflang ordered a total of 10,000 meal boxes. These catered
meals for the defenders of the Palace were still unpaid when the
Marcoses fled.
At seven in the evening U.S. Ambassador Stephen Bosworth no-
tified President Cory Aquino (she had been inaugurated that morning
at Club Filipino) that Marcos was definitely leaving the country that
night. So, the new President and those close to her knew of the
Marcos departure even when the tyrant was still in the Palace.
Malacaftang was- then under siege.
Recounts the Midweek reporter:
"Three rows of barbed wire separate the Marcos troops from thou-
sands of people who look grimly determined. There are a handful of
nu~ present and red is the predominant color of flags and. banners.
trowds jam the Santa Mesa rotonda and spill into J.P. Laurel, which
leads to Malacar\ang. Hundreds cram onto the overpass while others
watch from the windows of buildings. A tank and an armored person-
nel carrier block all access to Nagtahan Bridge, and the crowds stay
about fifteen meters from the soldiers, with a row of barbed wire
between them. Carrying food and water, three men approach the
soldiers, who meet them with applause. Thinking the soldiers have
been Won over, people move closer to the barrier of barbed wire
between them. They back off-when others in the crowd appeal to them
to stay clear of the barrier. A few minutes later we see eight truckloads
of marines moving from the direction of Malacaftang on J.P. Laurel
toward Nagtahan Bridge."
Witnessing the final street fighting at Malaca1".ang was film director
Lino Brocka. It was, said he, now advance ·and now retreat.
"Stones were raining from the M.rcos loyalist& 1rapped inside the
midnight. The superstitious. Mai'coses slbuld ~ beware
full moon.
Sleepless were a lot of Manilenos during the small hours of Tues-
day. That Marcos D-Day (for Doomsday) began with midnight~
works because persisting rumors of his fall and flight prompted many
to celebrate by exploding rockets and firecrackers .
. At five o'clock Tuesday morning, l\.:farcos got the grim word from:
Washington: "You should cut and cut cleanly. The time has come."
But he chose to go through with the farce of an "inaugural."
In the areas off Malacaftang, sporadic street fighting was breaking
out. Wh~n Cprinta Barranco returned to that scene there was a lull in
the action but flame and smoke made the Sampaloc streets look like-
actual battlefields; and the UST profeso.ra felt that war might explode
any moment as she crossed to a sidewalk.
"It was nine o'clock Tuesday morning, when I found myself again in
the Malacaftang area, this time with a bigger group of friends and
neighbors. We had intended to keep watch at Channel 4 but were
irresistibly drawn to the University Belt. Sampaloc had become a
veritable war zone. Burning tires were smoking everywhere. Rocks
and hollow blocks and large tree branches had been placed across
streets as obstacles to any tanks or trucks that might be sent from the
Palace agai~st the people's strongholds. Traffic was sparse for that
hour ·but people were everywhere and everyone looked alert and
determined. Even the verucles that dared to run the gauntlet of
obstructions were there for one reason only: to display their bit of
people power."
On Morayta the staff of the FEU Hospital was out in full force on the
street, ready for medical service.
"I saw some of my UST students manning the barricades (mostly
made of tom-down movie bjJJboards) at the Morayta-Recto comer.
They said the situation was touch-and-go. Me, I very strongly felt that
the crowds at all the Sampaloc batricades were ready to hurl 'them•
selves bodily against Malacanang .if the Palace should d~re to try and
crust them."
High noon was the hour Mr. Marcos chose for his inaupral, whicl).
w,as held indoors, in the ceremonial hall. Out on the Palaee groun
were some two or three fhousancl ~ l e - a far ~ fx.om the: otl\ei
hakot crowds of yesterday. & the ~hilg-stro~ ndied ms-nm
 ~ blocked by a tank on the
l,y tile marines and pn!licletitial .,a., who have SUft:S -
at the yel1ins crowds in ~ 1t,l;oiw mwed Oft the sfde-
aild on the overpass at the rotonda.
, people in-groups of ~ are allowed to cross Nagtahan
U ~ t h the span, another tank stands guard beside the
6amcb while troQpB with bazookas, mortars and-rocket
ere-dug in to repel any thrust &om the river. At-the other
_..Bridge, two tanks block Quirino Avenue while more
Pint Light Armor Contpany shoo the crowds away from
• 01:it Street is hastily evacuated as rumors spread that the aiea
to be bombed.'' .
iWl'lltiv.w is tKe Palace that nobody on Nagtalwt mtght pause to
and it seemed ironic that Malacaiiang (''Power k there!") was
tMNltened by mere words - the epithet that by now was on
,'s llps: People Power!
ten miautet past eight p.m., Mr. Marcos appeared on TV with a
tlueat. He himself personally, thundered the ctumbting dim-,
ewra his voice squeaked at times), would lead the armies to
• Bnrile and Ramos and their confederates if they persisted in
N6eDion. As for Jaime Cardinal Sin, who was bidden to desitt
his "illegal" acts, Mr. Marc::ol had an ominous memo: '1 wm.
to him later.,,
at the TV interview were Imelda and the Marcos children
respective spouses and spawn, but missing was the array of
uniforms that had backdropped the previous Marcos telecast,
tlk! msis. Now that Marcos was defying Washington by insist-
en a military showdown with the rebels, the armed forces he
t to depend on were already manifesting their own indifferen'°'
fact that he was "fighting for my OWJ1. life!"
just as vivid a sign of his erosiol'l was the indifference of
M i . ~ to his announcement of a six-to-six dusk-to-dawn curfew,
was hailed only as another chance to practise "dvil disobedi-
/' The curfew crowds roaming all over downtown Manila as well
the Tourist Belt were as large as the citizen hordes manning
~ ~ militant ~ of ~ San .Rafael, Le-
~~
~ through to Centro Bscola-, ~1 W IOUle
But Ceittro Escolar- tmned out to be dosed.
"We stood aro~ talking with a few acquaintances. Tileii I
some soldiers, around fifteen or twenty, emerging from: Mailaeq
and marching towards the barricades on Mendiola- Bridge.
troops now moved with a sense of purpose, as if they were
deployed. Marcos had just appeared on TV to prove he had not left
country. So the soldiers must have received sterner orders, or had
their spirits 'revived' by the Marcos reappearance. An)"Y:ay I
uneasy: it was time to get out of the wrong side of Mendiola. My sifts
Majela agreed. But when we returned to the bridge we found it
already closed. On the other side people had already started t ·
away the barbed-wire barricades."
Corinta and Majela headed for the alley between Centro~ an(l
Mapa High School that exits into Calle San Rafael.
"We were accosted twice by soldiers in that short 15-meter stretch
alley. They asked where we were going. They were ~lite, so I wa
· polite too. But they carried long arms and, though I wasn't afraid, I
that the whole area was tense and watchful. Just five minutes after.
got out of that area, shots were fired to disperse the crowds moving
down Legarda towards Mendiola Bridge."
The Marcos "loyalists" had a victory of their own to celebrate
Monday. Having lost Channel 4 to the rebs they were withb&i
station until Marcos troops were sent to take Channel 7. Captured,
became the "government station" vis-a-vis Channel 4, previously
conduit of Marcos prop.lganda but now the Channel -0f Liberation.
His people, however, had their own ground on which to
"They shall I\Ot pass!" - meaning, of cowse, the avenues
Malacanang that had been closed for some 14 years, or since the
day in September when he holed up in the Palace as a total
endangered dictator.
Reported a Midweek staffer on the state of that ground during
embattled Monday of people power:
"While Quezon Oty seems to be the country's liberated area,
Manila the situation IS still ~ the contn,l of the Mattos
But people power. is aw, ~ much in ~ a&
barricades a r e ~
Jook o.A,. •
 LE People Power massed on EDSA, Marcos power was massin~
Mamta. Monday morning, February 24, saw the fall of Channel 4 to
Revolution. The strongman had lost his No. 1 electronic tuta.
But-at ten o'clock that Monday morning the presidential helicopters
were to ensure the escape of the Marcoses from mob fury landed
~caflang Park, the recreation complex across the river from the
. The air force rescue group was composed of five pilots and
soldiers. ·
Narrates an observer on the scene:
ery shortly after the helicopters landed, an F-76 that had earlier
n spotted flying around Malacanang fired six rockets. One rocket
't the garden of Dona Josefa Edralin Marcos, about 30 to 50 meters
ay from the helicopters. Some shrapnel hit the choppers, but they
still flyable. This bombing made the people in the Palace very
tense. General Ver was partici.tlarly shaken."
At an oval table in the Palace's community hall (which was known
a& 1'the war room") Ver, seated before 30 telephones and several
nerals, expressed a desire to attack Camp Crame.
''The firepower inside Malacafiang was enormous. There were over
a dozen APCs, the new models, not like the ones seen on the streets;
tnere were scorpion tanks, guns in placement (meaning guns
· · ned on rooftops), and at least two battalions of troops."
The Palace under siege was moreover well stocked with food and its
nders feasted on lechon and fried chicken.
"The helicopter crews were nevertheless getting restless. They
expected to fly out the President and his family - either to Ilocandia
or to Clark Field - but no orders came."
For Corinta Barranco, that Monday was chiefly the time she spent
on Mendiola Street before it became battleground. Corinta, an English
~fessor at Santo Tomas, was with her sister Majela at around nine
p'clock in the morning.
''W.e had heard the erroneous announcement of Marcos's depar-
~ I didn't believe he had left. It wouldn't be that easy to get rid of
, I u,.C>JMJ:tit. When we arrived at Mendiola Bridge, the ~ at
#lltllledto~ata:los$andwere~
 u~.
harn.........,.... ,skfi~~ Ana·atterwuds - -
every variety of pubs.
At these beer houses the ~ t .tune then waf Baytzn "41: -
every beer drinker in ~-allowed himself to be p e ~
along to. After that August day when Ninoy Aquino fell -m
tarmac, two more militant ~ Wel'e added to the Manila
• repertoire: Tie a Yellow Ribbon-and Htlp Me Make It Througlt tlt.
Then came the yellow confetti showers and the prayer~
des and the noise barrage. And of course the hallelujah ffi0"9<
"Co-ree! Co-ree! Co-ree!" By then the Marcos limbo was, to:
dismay, getting its windows smashed open.
And finally, as the Year of the Tiger 1986 opened, came del:iiio.aa
tidings. .
People Power had dawned (at twilight time!) on the Marcos ·
 four cities and thirteen municipalities into an integrated unit of gov-
$1ffllent" composed of Manila, Kalookan, Pasay, Quezon City, Pasig,
Makati, Mandaluyong, Paianaque, Mar:ikina, Malabon, Navotas, San
;:!}ttan, Muntinlupa, Las Pifias, Taguig, Pateros and Valenzuela. Metro •
Manila thus came into being and Imelda was made its gobernadora.
On May 29, 1976, Presidential Decree No. 940 established "Manila
as the capital of t_h e Philippines and as the permanent seat of the
tional govemment." At first glance, the decree se~ms to restore
nila to its original preeminence, .but this is not quite the case. The
text specifies that "the capital of the Philippines is hereby designated
to be Manila" - but "the area prescribed as Metro Manila . . .. shall
be the permanent seat ,of the national government." In other words,
Congress, the Supreme Court and the President's office can as validly
be located in Pasay or Maka ti as within Manila's borders.
The-preeminence now belongs,-not just to a specific capital city, but
to a region: the original delta ground formed by the Pasig. This is not
the first time the metro idea has transcended the urban walls. When'
an earthquake ruined the Spanish governor's Intramuros palace, his
office and residence were transferred to the villa called Malacaftartg, in
San Miguel, which is far outside the city walls - in defiance of a
centuries-old tradition mandating an address for the viceroy inside
Manila.
The transfer to Malacanang proclaimed a de facto, though not a de
hJre, tecognition that Manila already extended outside its walls.
A similar.recognition (that was however both de facto and de jure)
:w.as the building of City Hall outside Intramuros in 1904. The wooden
edifice that rose on what's now the corner of Taft Avenue and Burgos
Drive proclaimed the rise of the arrabales as authentic Manila ground,
affirmed by American ruling. When the wooden shack gave way to a
,olider City Hall in 1941 (the earthy Arnang Rodriguez was then
Hizzoner) Pinoy governance was adding its own recognition of a
Greater Manila not confined to traditional boundaries.
In 1976, Mr. Marcos was recognizing in his turn that Manila alre.a dy
surpa·ssed not only its old walls but also its old arrabales and was now
spreading to new frontiers. Therefore the creation of Metro Manila.
That was a landmark in the city's history.
The sojou iiQ the Marcos limbo will always resound to its victims _
with memory noises from the Hot Dog, the young creative tombo
~ w h at Me.l'lQW ~~ Taf§lish about fint
 On the landfill off Vito Cruz she would conjure up a veritabte
acropolis of parth~, environing the shapelyCtiltural Center-with
the mod elegandes of the Folk Arts Theater, the Jntemational Conven-.
tion Center, the Philippine Plua Hotel, the Film Center and, for a
papal visit, the whimsical Coconut Palace. The grisly item here ia the
Film Center, built in a matter of days or weeks, for an international
film festival, and in such a rush that a hastily done upper ·floor
collapsed. onto the floor below, burying the workmen there in still wet
concrete. In that quick-jelling cement, rescue was instantly impossible
and the poor workers buried alive were allowed to rest in peace -
which, :tis said, they don't do, haunting this movie temple with their
footfalls and p}:tantomings, eeriely complaining because their bones
were not brought home to be buried in land of their own but must lie
in CQDUilercial cement to be trodden over by the feet of movie fans.
Was it the curse of those phantoms that blocked the Marcos bortes
too from being buried at home?
On :Inutlda's panem et circenses program, the circuses included, be-
sides the international film festival, an -edition of the Miss Universe
beauty pageant; a state visit of Spain's king-to-be, Don Juan Carlos de
Borbon; a. col~ parade, I<asaysayan ng Lahi, patterned after the
prodigal show in Iran that proved to be the Shah's valedictory; parties
at the Palace that occasioned the presence in Manila of super celebri-
ties like Van Cliburn, Margot Fonteyn, Sean C<>ntlery, Christina Ford,
George Hamiltan and Princess Margaret (not to mention fl gaggle of
Italian marquesas); and the beatification on the Luneta of Lorenzo
Ruiz-.-- which even the Pope couldn't stop Imelda from turning into a
"production." . ·
Possibly the two Imelda projects with the longest-effects on Manila
are the mosque in Quiapo and the series of luxury-. hotels on ~
a
bayside. The mosque has created Muslim presence in Manila that
has produced casbahs in the Arlegui and Echague areas. The five-stat'
hotels made Manila the "sin capital" of Asia, notorious for the "sex
tours" that bring to Ermita international seekers of kinky capers and
funky thrills. These two Imelda projects have added certain new an4
lurid hues to the Mattila palette.
Also t'wo .are the events with which Ferdinand Mattos influ,enced
the history of the city.
On ovember 7, 1975~ hi& depee No. 824 ctel.clihe·MefiOl.,_tari--:
Manila ConuniStion t)at - 10
 alQng with the opposition candidates for the Senate. This was on PJaza
Miranda, at an evening presentation !Jf the candidates. Two grenades
hurled at the stage at half-past nine almost exploded the opposition's
chantes. Bagatsing lost a leg. But the ultimate result was a poll victory
for a party whose ·candidates were mostly "walking wounded." Ba-
gataing's winning of City Hall indicated that Manilenos held Yeba
accountable for the fact that a massacre could occur in the heart of the
dty.
The atrocity gave Marcos an excuse for suspending the writ of .
habeas corpus. ·
As mysterious seemed the next "crime" that Marcos exploited to
move himseH further into autocracy, and this c.o untry deeper into
limbo. On the night of September 22, 1972 Juan Ponce Emile's car was
"ambushed" in Mandaluyong._' The defense secretary was not in the
car then- and he has since revealed that the "ambush" was faked to
justify Marcos in declaring martial law.
Marcos did claim that the "ambush" was one of the reasons he was
prompted to impose martial law, the proclamation of which, said he,
he had signed on September \21, 1972. Since the "ambush" only
happened ~e next day, September 22, .Mr. Marcos was guilty of
putting the cart before the horse. _
As a political writer observed, Filipinos would learn through the
next 14 years that martial law meant "a one-man dictatorship, the
suppression of all democratic processes and civil liberties, the impri-
BOnment of some 50,000 Filipinos, and the torture and murder of
thousands. . . . culminating in economic and political crisis by the
1980s." .
The first year 'of the "New Society" did give Manila an amazing
surface: clean streets, neat sidewalks, no garbage, thanks to Imelda's
metro aides, whom she would garb in red-and-yellow uniforms with
neckerchief and coolie cap. Alas, it was all but ningas cogon, no thanks
to Madame's short attention-span, and the streets of Manila were
presently back to pigsty condition. The colorful metro aides, who we~
mocked as "Imelda's troops," kept_themselves useful by lining the
streets to cheer her as she left for or returned from abroad.
Still,.it can't be denied that she changed, or glamourized, the look of
the city. The rebuilt walls-0f Intramuros and such "restorations" u the
Palacio del Gobemador and the Casa Manila vindicate to the hilt her
µedffke ~ ~ , ,
Chapter 8: THE SOJOURN 1N UMBO

PROLOGUE to limbo was a curious year of hue and cry. Congress was
to open in 1971 on January 25 and the word spread that on this day
would erupt the revolution, in Manila. People were warned to stay
indoors on that day; housewives stocked up on candles and corned
beef. . '
But Congress opened on January 25 w.ith no shot heard around the
wild. There was a demo at the capitol steps but nothing comparable to
the passions of 1970' s First Quarter Storm.
Later, 1971 offered bombings - at cinemas and department stores
and street comers. But what Manila really worried about was the rice
shortage and the rice prices. Which were also what bedeviled Mr.
Marcos, who was supposed to have told his henchmen: ''Just don't let
there be any breadlines!" Alas, Manila 1971 had its rice queues.
It was the year of bush jackets for boys and the midi for girls (worn
· with trousers yet!) but hot pants perfectly fitted the Uhaw year of Merle
Fernandez and Yvonne. _The vocabulary of the trendy young was
topped by arcane terms like damo and durog. The song hits were Sweet
Caroline, Bridge Over Troubled Waters, We Almost Made It This Time and
that anthem of the love-means-never-having-to-say-you're-sorry neO-'
romantics: Love Story. But the tune that really ruled beer houses and
strip joints (of all places!) was Jesus Christ Superstar. And right up to the
onset of limbo twilight, the Age of Aquarius was still dawning on
Manila's bandstands.
As election year, 1971 in Manila served up some surprises. The
United Opposition decided to snub the incumbent mayor - none
other than Yeba the flamboyant - and to let Mr. Ram.on Bagatsing
carry the banner that was both Liberal Party and United Opposition.
Not in the least discomfited, Gatpuno Tony Villegas set up his own
ticket - an independent or rebel LP card -_ that offered a very Odd
Cpuple indeed: the orchidaceous Villegas nmning for mayor with the
very macho JayveeCruz as his veep candidate! And for his campaign
jingle the urban veep runner actually turned Jaus Christ Superstar into
his own electronic refrain: Jayvee Cruz Superstar!
The blasphemy may have cost Yeba another go at Oty Hall. _
On August 21, 1971, Ramon Bagatsi,ng was to be prod.aimed the
official CJndidate-0£ the u~ ~ for tlte tc,p Manila pest,
 .
seemedto
day ht 1mana learned in shoc:kihat dear
us an 1n under- martial 1aw.
 The demonstratorcrea a ~ • · ~ i n the yetawhen.
nights were cold, he marched ln turtleneck. H i s ~ wete
and pJacard. After the initial riots, the use of Molotov and
became more prevalent, provoked· by J)9lice ~wer. The
itself became stylized into various varieties: picket, long march,
theater, people's tribunal, parliament of the streets.
The chants of the year were: "Down with imperialism, feu
fascism!" and ''Makibaka, huag matakot!"
Specific actions were instant history. The siege of Ma1acat~I.
when Gate 4 was rushed and the activists came within hearing
tance of the presidential quarters. The Battles of Mendiola Bridge.
march on the U.S. Embassy that left its front yard a sh@mbles.
barricades on flame along Azcarraga during the various battle&
University Row. The Long March. The Holy Week staging on~
streets of the Passion and Crucifixion of the Filipino People.
Lakasdiwa disrupting a session of Congress. The mammoth march
protest the Bantay atrocity. The Yule indignation riots downtown.
What Filipinos never thought to see in their lifetime, they saw •
year: street fighting at barricades. Almost no month in Manila
no streets emptied, no stores closed in a hurry, and no pavemen
became a battleground between the youth marching with red flags and
placards and helmeted troops marching with truncheon and
shield. · ·
The man on the street came to learn what tear gas smells
Behind plywood shutters vanished store front, hotel facade, and
windows of Malacafiang. Campuses looked like armed camps,
soldiers in battle-green at the gates.
The proto-revolution made ne:ws of underground names. The
taang Malcabayan. Nilo Tayag. Jesuits like Father Blanco and Bro
Ed Garcia. The Lakasdiwa. Edgar Jopson. The I<amanyang Pia
Joma Sison. But the name that really emerged that year was that
Commander Dante, the mysterious Huk who was himself a young
athwart the old Huk establishment. To the young insurrectos he
Kuya Dante, the liberator expected from the hills.
By 1971, . third-term talk had become very cold potatoes as
Marcose$ vanished from p1l,blic view and speculation shifted to
many helicopters or m.oto,:boats stood on the ready to whisk
away should the volQmo erupt. -
The~-,wt
 ~ . . . .-very: ~t--tune wr.
,- "''-1'!"'1:·~
--.iu ,· became the cry. Oil the Janumy eve,diYg bt mo·· whert
·
'and Imelda emerged &on, :the Congress opening to find
~!Y!!S.c.J,eing booed, rushed and stoned by youth pidceters. ~
of demos- had burst that would rage the whole year.
lbat siege of Congress on January 26 would be followed four nights
with the invasion of MaJacai\ang. A mass of young militants
~;Nil·1g on the Palace was blocked by a firetruck whose hoses
proved ineffectual: no water. The students captured the
and used it to batter down the Mendiola gate of the Palace.
~ journalist Jose F. Lacaba:
R()nce inlide the gate, the rebels stoned the buildings and set fire to
ftretruck and to a government car that happened to be parked
. Before they could wreak more havoc, the Presidential Guard
tatlalic:ltll came out in force. They fired into the air and, when the
held their ground, fired tear bombs at them. The rebs retreated.
who were slow on their feet, or had been blinded by the tear
, got caught on the Palace grounds and were beaten with rifle butts
billy dubs and good old-fashioned feet and fists. The young rebe
steadily driven_s,ut of J.P. Laurel and into Mendiola."
Followed the Battle of Mendiola Bridge, which the activists occupied
• while, lost for a while, recaptured again only to lose again, and
pied before being finally driven away from it. The battle ended
nine o'clock p.m.
011 Febtuary 18, 1970 there was a second Battle of Mendiola Bridge
was almost a :reenactment of the January 30 combat, with the
being seized and lost, now by the rebs, now by the cops, during
-liptlng that lasted almost all night. .
Ott-Sunday; May 24, 1970 the Long March of the workers that had
snaking all around the city for a week headed at last for the
, set up camp on the small park in front of the main gate which
the workers picketed all morning, and in the afternoon departed for
8au Miranda, where a People's Tribunal condemned Ferdinand
Marcos and other leaders of State - and Ch~.
A y ~ demq (the word became part of the language) was 1970,
• historic dates and a fearful geography: Giite 4 of Malacdang,
ltlNlieJa, Ullivenity lww, Plaza Mbaitda and the undmpue roof
, Plaza Perpaon and ~ U.S. ~ . San Lu.ta act 'lhF
over the vacated te11::itodes.
lh:am kldl,eftgapf ia«tlYltlel-Da _ __ ,_.-.,
a,mpoeecl aauallyof well-4D-doboys. raileclllelljal!ftlotthelidaftt.
their chief activities being the invuion of mat turf ana the umMe.
The top lcanto-boy gangs spawned by the '60s were t h e ~
Commandos, the Paniki of the Felix Huertas area, the Indian of Pmm
Street and the Swastika of Mi8ericonlla.
The top student ganp, ·some of whk:h wen! led by the eona of:
bigshots in Congress, City Hall and even the MPD, were organiJ.ed
aamding to · schools. The Exotic Gang datmed the UE-FEU asa,
where its war whoop - ''Hep Hep Bxoticl" - was enough to lelld
folk tcampering to safety. The Combat Gang had for turf the NU'S
complex of stieets. HaVOCI Mft JllOltly rich boys from the UST.
Oddly enough, the gang that united two ndenlly nationalist liChoctla
- UP and the Lyceum- was caDed Amboys.
The youth gang that was to make history - }o&e Maria Siaal\'1
Kabataang Mabbayan - e!Kelted, Ol\ campmes, the stnJngeJt ad;
appeal of an. It was very Now and veay Mod to~ a 10.t -.-,Ply Jf
you -were ~eyed and 1,,,,g1s. The ICM apocalypses of the 1970a can
be said to have _sprung &om the ievolts against SquareviDe in the '60ia
of young fat cats. ·
Similarly - or, rather, unsimilarly - revolts against ~
were such '60s phenomena as Helen Thompson's U1og (jazz and Qdi
Porter round a pit where the National library is now), DavidM~
Ja's Cave d'Angeli (art in a barong-barong where the Hilton was to'
rise), Loma Montilla's Mod Houae (eardrwn-shattetjng hi-fi), Islunael
Bemal's Gray November (the lamdiman with a French accent), and
Betsy ~mualdez's Indios Bravos (Manila as Bohemia).
The later '60s brought in the shirt-Jae, the mini, the Beatie hair, t:M
Twiggy haircut, the mau-mau and the mas-k-pops, expressions
''Dehin goli" and "pogi," the ~ e e k T-shirt in apple-green~
with fancy nec:kJace and pend.Int, the skiJt.tight jeans, and thf: ~
of the Age of Aquarius.
In 1968, Manila got a really deluxe hotel, the Manila Hilton; an:
underpass and overspan at 1he ~ aossil1g; and-a
ing earthquake, on August 2; t h a t ~ down the RuhyTawetit
Santa Csvz, bu,ryiftg oY.el"'300-of.ta 700 ~ . . . .
ruins. That was ttiia w.
()I,
Chapter 7: FROM MOD TO DEMO

YBBA, the cry with which Manila launched the 1960s, has no meaning
at all, is just a whoop, a hoot, a yawp, a yelp - the sound of high
.spirits bursting through. At the same time was coined the term
''happy-happy'' to mean a binge, a ball, a good time. Anybody who
talked b1g $Ot flattened with a new street jeer: "Sino ang ktlaway mo?"
And the superlative was no longer "genoowine" nor "baguio1' nor
"matinik" but ''blue seal."
Lo-waist were the pants when the decade began but by 1962 the fad
was hi-waist (belt-line above the navel) and dropped crotch (or law-
law), worn with red red shirts. Girls Jooked like astronauts in their
pouf hairdos, and wore dresses with plunging backlines.
The tunes of the early '60s were Teen-Age Senorita, Sad Movies AlWIIYs
Make Me Cry, The Young Ones, More Than the Greatesl Love, Yellow Bird
]figh Up 1n Banana Tree and I Left My Heart In San Francisco.
The top dance was, of course, the twist, which Teddy Randazzo had
introduced locally when he did a yuletide show at the coliseum in
1960. Soon proliferating in the Manila discotheques (they still weren't
called discos) were twist variations like the Mashed Potato and the
Watusi. Decor in the early discotheques was mostly mirrors and
a-go-go dancers in cages.
In 1963, Manila got a Bonifacio Monument (by Guillermo Tolentino)
on Plaza Lawton; a big handsome new theater, tKe Cin~ama; an
illuminated Triangle of Freedom in front of Qty Hall; vapor mercury
an? lamps on Espana and Santa Mesa; and a "purified" Rizal Monu-
ment: the metal pylon that had disfigured it was removed at last -
and reappeared on the Baclaran rotonda of Dewey Boulevard. The top
Manila event of the year was the liberation of lntramuros: it took less
than a week to rid it of squatters. The year's local polls inspired a new
street cry: "Ayos na ang buto-buto!"
The '60s saw the decline of the _youth gangs, possibly because the
young were too busy forming combos, the universal craze in Manila at
that time, when every boy dreamt of becoming a Beatie. So he joined
boys with guitars instead of boys with icepicks. Besides, the police had
made Manila too hot for such street gangs as the Oxo, the Sigue-Sigue,
the Bahala Na, the Tres Kai\tos, the Mama's Boys, and the Persian.
However, new kanto-boy ~ student gangs did spring up to ta.ke
 213
down all foreign-owned retail itiJtes in Manila on the ground that the
Retail Trade Nationalmtion Law allowed only Filipino citizens to
engage in the retail business. The mayor's closure plans woukl have
affected not only 3,288 Clunese .stores and 59 Indian buaars but also
56 American establishments, since Vdleps argued that parity rlgl,tts
did not include the right to compete with Filipinos in the retail trade. It
took Malacanang and the Supreme Court to stop Villegas from enforc-
ing his closure orders. " ,
The mayor's program of government was titled ''Libreng Pilipino,"
which assumed that the citizens of Manila, especially the proletariat,
should enjoy for free the basic services provided by City Hall. So there
were free health and social welfare services, free treatment at the
Ospital ng Maynila, free child delivery, free nursery care for the
children of working mothers - even free weddings for those who
~ could not afford a marriage license! Juvenile education became entirely
free from the grades to high school with the free textbook program;
and in 1967 even college education became available for free with the
opening of the city university in Intramuros.
In his own way, Tony Villegas was as fascinating and colorful as~
predecessor; and what Manileftos now fondly remember of ·him are
the pop expressions that became associated with him.
In' 196.3 the prevalent street cry was-"Yeba!" Villegas made that his
campaign whoop and. it became so identified with him that everyone
took to calling him Yeba. Just as amusing were the titles he invented-
like Gatpuno, ~eaning mayor; and Maharnilad, meaning City Hall;
and Tagusnilad, meaning a nearby underpass. It was Yeba too who
installed Bonifacio as the Hero of Manila, and who tt.imed June 24 into
the annual holiday known as Araw ng Maynila.
Yeba's high spirits made the later 1960& an enjoyable era in Manila
- the time of a-go-go and discotheque, the time of mod and twist.
p , one of them . . . his foimer
Manila proved true to type when it
_,_.,.r _.
,.,.....l.aalorl W ~ him
--..
with a Liberal vice-mayor, Antonio J. ViDegu, who palled more votes
than Lacson did. Nor wo the Cllty ~ m NP l'eM1'Ve my more.
Manila was apn going LP now that the LP was the opposition party.
~ his third term it was an open secret that Anenk was
gunning for the presidency but it turned out that Qty Hall, not
Malaca1iang, was his final destiny. When he died on April 15, 1962,•in
mid-term, his ten years as Hizzoner had run up a whole catalogue of
a<lCOll'lplishments, foremost of which was the liquidation of a
21-million-peso City Hall debt incum!d by the nine previous admi-
nistrations. Oty folk cherish h,im for two particular delights: the
Manila 2'.oo and the Quiapo underpus. But old-timers still fume to ·
find Plaza Golti gone. What's then! now is~ Plaza Lacson disgraced by
a monument that Lacson himself would have refused to have "in this
corner.''
The second elective mayor of Manila, Tony Villegas, was a Manila
boy - born in Santa Cruz, on Sales Street, on January 9, 1928. He ·
liked to say he was born during the Quiapo fiesta and that he' grew up'
in the swampy slum area that's now the Abad Santos Avenue area.
On assuming the Hizzoner mantle after Lacson's demise, Villegas at
once deaeed that the Quiapo underpass was henceforth to bear the
name of Arsenio Lacson. And he swore to complete whatever Lacson
projects were on the drawing board - like a city hospital, citya
university, a city compost plant to recycle gut,age, a city reclamation
of the Tondo foreshore. Vdlegas was as good as his word- as can be
proved by such actualities as the Ospital ng Maynila and the Pamanta-
san ng Maynila.
A prime Augean accomplishment was his clearing of Intramlll'08 in
1963. The vast and nauseating squatters' village there was finally
uprooted, after 18 years of defying Oty Hall. In this, Villegas proved
to be tougher than Lacson and Quirino, both of whom had feared the
backlash of the squatter vote. ·
Indeed the horrors predicted. as conaequent to any general ej~on
of squatters from urban turf somehow never eventuated.
Villegas was just as harsh with the haves. When the In.days and
sugar barons of the Kahirup announced their usual annual display of
ternoe and diamonds at the Manila Hotel. Hmoner ihzeatiau:d to
anat them for dii!orcledy CDlldJlCt. Another threat ol bis wa ID doee
 everything old had found a voice.
Lacson was youth itself: noisy and brash and violertt. Legends
sprang up about his virility and sexual prowess. His p h ~ courage
was equally blazoned. A famed instance was the incident on Pier 7 in
1948, when college students jeering a departing group of senatorial
junketeers were threatened with shooting by the senators' y-
guards. Lacson, then still a n~perman, strode right up to the
drawn pistols, shoved thel'J\ away with '8 sweep of .his hand, and
ordered the students to resume their derisive despedida.
In his mayoralty campaign, Lacson abolished the era of eloquence
and instituted the person-to-person approach, jumping down from
the platform, after having intro4uced himself, to mingle and make
D\erry with the crowd. Even the barrio-to-barrio strategy had already
been anticipated by Lacson, somewhat cynically, with his bar-to:bar
~paign tour of Manila.
Becoming Hizzoner was not to mellow the young Terror from
Talisay. His friends claimed that the enemies at whom he stuck out his
tongue perished completely from public esteem, so fatal was the
Lacson venom, and they cited such fearful examples as Valeriano
Fugoso, Manuel de la Fuente and Elpidio Quirino. ·
The Quirino-Lacson feud is one of the funniest chapters of our
political history and it was climaxed by Quirino's ,;uspension of Lac-
son as mayor of Man\la - a "martyrdom" as profitable for Lacson as
his 1947 suspension from the air by Presi6ent Roxas. On both occa-
sions, Lacson found popular opinion vociferously on his side and
against the President of the Republic, thus disproving the Dale Carne-
gie rule. Arsenic won friends by making enemies. Manila rocked with
laughter when Quirino's defense seaetary, Oscar Castelo, sent tanks
to the Luneta, to flush out Lacson from the bar of the Shelboume
Hotel. But the ''Battle of the Shelboume" was in vain: Hiu.oner was
doing his drinking somewhere else that day.
' When he ran for reelection in 1955, he and his running mate, Jesus
Marcos Roces, won by a landslide and the Nacionalistas -again mono-
polized the municipal board. And Lacson showed he was as ornery as
his city by turning into an arch.-critic of Malacanang's most popular
tenant: Ramon Magsaysay. During Lacson's second term, an assembly
of American mayors cited Manila as one of the ten best-administered
cities in the world - the onJy one ~ in all Asia.
Running a third time jn 1959~l.aqldin face,::l a field of seven ~
 T helped young Arsente Lacaan block out veteran Manuel de la
,, - . wae. (1) the orneriness el the Manila voter; and (2) the
. . . . . . of. the kiss of Quirino.
~ unpopular, our first lloc:8nO President passed on his bad
to the Liberal Party. De la Fuente WU well-liked but Quirino's
_.._ pulled him down. ·
1h.e othel- factor is the ManiJeAd• notorious penchant for voting
1JNIOlitioa, or going against the current. As the nation goes, so does
~Mania not go. And in its fint mayoralty polls the dty went all-out
Nadona&sta, sweeping in Llaon and Gatmaibm and almoet the
'Whole opposition ticket for Gty Hall. Only one Liberal, Salvador
Man6o of the 81st district, IMll8gecl to win a council seat.
'the belief that Magsaysay IW'ted the strenuous style in Philippine
politics is more affectionate INn accurate, for long before the Guy
attracted notice, another, yOllllgel' !e11ow was already startling the
nation with his loud shirts ancl louder mouth, his hfgh leaps and fast
pk'e, and his general air of l'Ollghtte11, toughness, youthfulness and
fltality.
To post-Uberation voters, Arsenlo Lacson of Talisay, Negros Oa:i-
dental, seemed a completely new Jdnd of politician, a brute wind
b,urt1ing through a wasteland of old men. Quezon had Sxed the type
of. the old-style politico - an elegant, eloquent, rather jaded man of
the world who belonged to the elite, pm.ed gentility, and danced the
1ango. Manuel Roxas was of the true Quezonian stamp- courtly and
polished and vaguely jaded - but when in the 1946 campaign he
attempted Quezon's grand manner, he was rudely rapped by the
rowdy new age in the person of Anenio Lacson.
Lacson symbolized the postwar world almost too perfectly: he was
not only a newspaperman and a columnist, he was also a radio
commentator. He looked and talked like a stevedore; he was a gaudy
dresser; and he didn't dance the tango. He had no respect for political
parties and no great lilcing for Americans - and he said so, in his
newspaper column an4 9n his radio program, !n This Ccmter.
When President Roxas barred htm &om ~ air on October 4, 1947,
Laclllon became the first ~ tclol of the postw• era. It .- .CiP
~ in public~
beneSt woning mofb.m;'wnll
to1ynareaof1idewalkvendo.ri.
That last item still irlc8 'OJ,d<4ime Mantleftos. The site of Centitl
Market was formerly a public playpound and promenade callell, it
memory serves - Osmei\a Park, and it wu the only oasis in clowft;.
town Manila. Suppressing that park to build a market · not Qnly
worsened the traffic situation in what was already the wont bott1eaiec:k
in the city but eliminated still another of the '1ungs" - or wide open
breathing spaces - a congested bia town badly needs.
That aime was repeated when another stretch of gieenery -
Harrison Park on Vito Cruz- was destroyed to make way for a holel
and a shopping mall. ,
~ 1951, in conformity with its new charter, Manila held its first
ll\ilyoralty elections, with Manuel de la Fuente as the Palace candidate.
The opposition man was a militant journalist tun\ed politia,: Anenio
H. Lacson, known among the saibes as "Arsenic," because- he wu...
supposed to wield a poison pen.
A most flamboyant Visayan, Anenic Lacson was about fo betome a
Manila legend.
 WHEN we bad ft!CDftNd from dw shl,ck ol our first day at--.
~ pity for thoee poor Ja and began to enjoy Olll'
into global hillory. It was going to be a thort war, of coune, aa4
meant to savor eveay thrilling momei\t of it. The p1e11 went . -
orgy of extru. Jap stores and home, were atormed and ocollPIII
Civilian guaads prowled the blaed-out streell at nipt with tM
1111d daring of a>JIUMlldos.
We dnped our windows, taped the glass panes, dug air-raicl
111'1, and evacuated the women and children. (Antipolo was
aowded and merry with ~ it teemed to be in the mldet
Maytime inslead of a war.) One ship OVldoadtd with evacuees unk
Manila Bay and the tragedy IOIN!What dampllled OIII' holiday IRUQI~
But :newllN!ll traveling throup Centsll LU7.011 found the countay
pnparing as 1IIU8l for autstm.. the hapPf lM!lief that the Japt
. beeit repwaed in Unpyen.
In Manila the talk was of·mlJe..lona convoys on the way, IIQt
mention hordes of airplanes. ·
Summoned to a ~ with MacArthur on December 12, at
air-cmditioned Wmter Gardenolthe Manila Hotel, PNsident Qu.-
was startled to learn that he might haw to evacuate to Conegidor.
Said he to MacArthur: .
''Were I to go to Corregidor, - , people would think I had aban-
doned them to seek ·safety under your pretedion. This I shall DtWIII'
do. I shall stay among my pePple and tuffei the same fate that .,,,.,,
befall them.,,
MacArthur exp1aQ_,.ed that he was mtlely asking Quezon to be nwtJ;
to evacuate on four hours' notice, There might no need to leave -
unless a decision was reached to declare Manila an Open City, to uve
it &om destruction. This was a hint that the Americans were plannillj
to pull out of Marula. The war wu not going well with them.
At nine o'clock a.m. of December 24, Quezon was served notice to
be ready to leave for Corregidor at two o'dock that afternoon. Thi
President's deputure was delayed ~ a e Jap ~ were pound-
B'S the Port Area. It was past thlee ddock before the alklear ~
:.~-:i...Jlll!lilil!ile,;ll-tiQJIIQelOIIGGUld boanUke S,S. ~ Only when
'8.;IIIVlli~'CJ av,i.
 ~

,....•...
wa~ii\'.
~ - , . · wasn't its VIP

-On December 26 MacAithur isllled a proclamation dedariilg Manila

and its suburbs (Qua.on City, Pqay, kaloolcan, San Juan, Makati and
Mandaluyong) an Open Qty: _
~ American High Commisaioner, the Commonwealth Govem-
inent, atld all combatant Diilitary installations will be withdrawn from
its environs as rapidly as possible. The Municipal Government of
Manila will continue to function with its police powers."
Tokyo rejected the MacArthur proclamation. The Japs said they
would recognize Manila as an Open Oty only if all military camps
were withdrawn from the city and its suburl:,s. Moreover, the Philip-
pine army must cease resistance _and cooperate with the Japanese
forces.
Meanwhile, Manila was to be bombed as usual, daily and contin-
uously.
PerhaJ:'il the worst raids were on December 27 and 28, when the
bombers destroyed such Manila landmarks as Santo Domingo
Cl\utth, the Intendencia, the original Santo Tomas, the colegios of
Santa Rosa and Santa Catalina, San Juan de Letran, the D-M-H-M
Building, and Engineer Island.
From Washington came Delano Roosevelt's "solemn pledge" that
the freedom of the Philippines would be "redeemed." Obviously Mr.
ltoosevelt had already written us off, his concern being for his British
cousins. But Manila papers interpreted his words as a pledging of
•poemve aid" for the Philippines. And the U.S. high commissioner's
<>lice assured us that: "Help is swely coming-help of such adequacy
and power that the invader will be driven from our midst, and he will
be rendered powerless ewr to tluftten us again."
So we chortled to each other: "The Japs will never know what hit
them!'' As it turned out, it was we who wouldn't know what hit us-
ieceuse we had already b e e n ~ by the United States, at least
for the time being.
While we waited for mlle-b;lg con.~ and a ~ o t airplanes,
ii"\tilbiliae.AmeibnautMidlella~aaeurei•1-t~wuon
. . ~. - !ft:,J,.INJ~··J JIA~
was snatched back: a convoy n ~ ~ : a l t o d . y J:iwndi.:
Manila bearing arms and planes wete ordeNd to tum back. 1he
convoy was diverted to the Fiji Islands; the tmopships mumed told::
Francisco. All this was kept secret from Manila, even from M a ~
Meanwhile, Washington continued to pledge aid, while Mai::llllthm
continued to applaud the s u ~ of his troops, whether on Janet al
~a, or in the air. ·
-In Manila, however, people were noticing that enemy planes c:a:me
and went unopposed, bombing Camp Nichols, the piers, lntrainuro&,
and the docks along the Pasig·. Was this what Manila had been
declared an Open Oty for1
But our confidence remained unshaken even when we saw Ameri-
can soldiers giving away army food supplies and setting fire to theit
barracks on Arroceros and to tJ'le fuel dumps in Pandacan. The city
became ringed with fire; even the Pasig was aflame, for oil and.
gasoline washing into the river instantly blazed, presenting the bizarre
spectacle of water burning.
Then, just before New Year's Eve, all Americans and Chinese
vanished from view. Mobs broke into Chinese stores and looted them.
The city had apparently been abandoned to fire and pillage.
According to the extras, the Japs were still being repulsed in Lin---
gayen; and people said that MacArthur had said he would eat his New
Year's dinner at the Manila Hotel.
On New Year's Day, 1942, Manile:fios learned the truth. Homma
and his army _were already at the outskirts of the city; and Jorge
Vargas, who had been appointed mayor of Greater Manila, had gone
forth to meet the Japs and surrender the city.
The enemy began to enter that night. Listening behind clqsed
windows, city folk heard the rumble of tanks, the tramping Qf feet,.
and strange guttural outcries. ·
The city awoke in the morning of January 2, 1942; to find, at every
street comer, on every bridge, the terrifying figure of the conqueror-
unshaven, unwashed, evil-smelling, and victorious. Manilei\os
quickly learned that not making a deep bow to these sentries would
earn them a slap in the face, a kick in the ass, or a blow from a gun

.-..---
butt. .
All thw- in the name of the O,..P.n:>sperity Sphere that had eome...to
1ftCUC! the- Asian 'ridlms of We$teffl impmalism.
~;; ~~~~
 was the lint mayor olCreatet
fact of Imelda Mateos beirig iater the
Metro Manila. She didn't, after all, create t1r4t iole. But
·t her with dNli1\ing up an even greater tole- that
'mega.Manila extending all the way from west COllSt to
from Manila Bay to Tayabas ~y, across the enthe waist

would be the ultimate Greater, or Metro, Manila- and if that

a
is ever achiCMCI, la Imelda will deserve tiow.
 PART FIVE
THE FREEDOM OF THE CITY

Chapter 1: THE UNGODLY YEARS

WHILE the USAFFE went through its death pangs in Bataan and
Corregidor, Manila stood still and waited, its schools, shops, factories
and offices closed. On vacant lots and unused streets men played
softball all day long while the women stayed at home and played
.mah-jongg. · '·
There could be no business as usual while the cries of war across the
bay haunted our stopped lives. Only the streetcars ran as usual.
For the young this was _the time of the "everybody's party." The
scene of the party shifted from the house of one barkada member to
another, by rotation, and everybody who attended had to bring
something: a platter of pandt, or sandwiches, or a pitcher of juice. The
favorite teen-age drink then was calamansi juice. The parties were
held in the afternoon and had to end at six o'clock. The black-out
forbade movement on the streets after dusk. Portable phonograph
provided the music; and the tunes the young danced to were mostly
boogie and rhumba but also included some "sweets" that have be-
come standards: All the Things You Are and Indian Summer and Green
Eyes and Yours.
Mansions in Malate, Ermita, San Marcelino and San Miguel were
careful to have a large sign at the gate proclaiming that they were a
"Filipino House'' or a "Spanish-Filipino House." Usually there was
another sign that said: ''We buy anything. What have you got?" The
New Year's Eve looters were unloading what items they couldn't use,
like jars. of olive oil, or tins of fine needles, or sets of fancy tablecloths,
napkins and place-mats.
A new government had been .set up - the Philippine Executive
Commission - with Jorge Vargas as chief executive. Small, obscure
an,i ft0n1>0)itic:al, the "little president" of Commonwealth days had
served as Quezon's shock absorber, and had been left behind to do
 just that: absorb the biggest shock of all. Since his duty obliged him to
be the first to "collaborate" with the invader, he was regarded more
with pity than anger: he was merely the "fall guy."
But he administered the country for two years with competence and
without flourish. Having done his job, he then stepped back into
obscurity, undoubtedly relieved to be unhonored, unsung, and unin-
cluded on our usual lists of Philippine chief executives - or of Mayors
of Manila.
Meanwhile Bataan fell in April, leaving Corregidor alone to carry on
the fight. The Rock read its fate in a sudden radiance across the bay.
The black-out was lifted in Manila on May 4, 1942, as good a sign as
any that the Japanese thought the war was over, as far as the Philip-
pine campaign was concerned.
The twilight curfew in Manila was lifted; night clubs re-opened; the
softball players of the duration returned to factory or office. The
women at home turned mah-jongg into a business, charging tong for
every game played in their salas or verandas.
The Rock that stood across the bay stood for hope no more, nor for
resistance, only for hopelessness and resignation. Manila dined and
danced again as the Rock went into its death agony.
Up Corregidor's north beach, toward midnight of May 5, rolled
wave upon wave of the enemy. Next morning, the Jap beachhead
extended 50 yards inland. The assault during that single day of May 6
sufficed to annihilate the island's defense batteries. The ill-fated Jo-
nathan Wainwright, under whose command Bataan had fallen, now
'helplessly watched as Corregidor in tum collapsed. The "Gibraltar of
the Orient" had, alas, proved to be a matchstick.
. At noon of May 6, 1942, the Rock ran up the white flag.
Three days later, Homma made a ceremonial entry into Manila as
the "Conqueror of Bataan and Corregidor.'' The streets were lined
with cheering folk; windows were decked with flags. The Filipinos
who cynically cheered the triumphal entry as cynically jested that
Wainwright should have been called Wainwrong. ·
. About a week later that May, there was another - and very
different. - entry into the city. American troops captured in Bataan
and Corregidor were paraded on the s ~ of Manila, ~ g
under Japanese ·prd. Silent mardled the Gringos through silent
.. streets where the F'dipjttos stood and watdt.ed in an agony of embar--
rassment.
people, we had never had ·the patience to stand in line; but now we
found ourselves forming queues all day long- for food rations, for oil
and matches, for identity cards, even for the streetcars. But the longest
queues, which started forming as early as seyen in the morning, were
at the stage shows, where the curtain didn't rise until noon. And
pa~d to the rafters was each of the three shows a day. The optimistic
predicted that the appetite for theater recovered by the ,Jlilipino would
outlast the war.
Another thing said about us then was that we had become as bullish
businesswise as the Chinese. Everybody was into buy-and-sell; and
anyone with something to sell got swamped with a hundred people
offering to find him buyers. Every comer of Rizal Avenue had its
horde of middlemen eager to lead you to a bargain - everything from
a house-and-lot to secondhand shoes.
Even shoes had become extinct by the second year of the Co-
Prosperity Sphere and what Manileflos were wearing were wooden
shoes - but what spectacular clogs! Carved fancifully and lacquered,
and with rainbow straps yet. The lowly bakya had become "society."
Coat-and-tie was gone for good from our daily life.
With motorcars in storage (no gasoline available), everyone rode the
tranvia, except those who owned a bicycle or a private rig, now the
prime status symbols. You were really lordly if you owned a horse and
had turned your garage into a stable and had hired a coachman. Th-e
rigs ranged in style from dokar to victoria; the ingenious took a car's
chassis and turned it into a horse-drawn cab.
The catchwords of the period were "genoowine" (anything
firsthand or imported) and "Yon ang ikinagalit!"
Mixed emotions tore at us when, on October 14, 1943, we watched,
as a Qtptive audience, Mr. Jose P. Laurel ~d his Japanese sponsors
proclaim the second Philippine Republic. We saw our tricolor rise in
the air alone and were told that our procllgal country had finally
returned to its proper place in Asia. We all sang (and couldn't help
being moved by) the fine anthem of the period: Tindig, aking inang
J.n.,, , .
.,..:,an,
But at the same time we were whispering to each other the great
names of the resistance: Ablan in the north, Vinzons in Bicolandia,
Kangleon in the Visayas. And in the Manila area were the most
colotful guerrillas of all: Marking, the former truck driver, and Yay
Panlilio, the -former n ~ who ~ e r SUJ)l'lied 11- under-
 These were the God-bie.red Americanl, the suppoeed1y invincible,
who would "not let us down." Now here they wm: Jllighty ~
being herded rudely by little Jap soldien.
We would never recover from that loss of innocence.
Actually, the first two years of the Jap occupation were bearable if
highly abnormal. Rice and breed were still available but sugar had
) disappeared. The supply of American cigarettes of COUl"&e gave out in a
couple of months and we realized at last why in a t o b a ~ g
country Virginia tobacco was never introduced nor dguetlemanufac-
~ g encouraged. We were too good a market for Chesterfielck,
· Lucky Strikes, Camels, Piedmonts, etc. For a wl'lile., being too busy,
the Japs allowed the showing of Hollywood movies and Manilei\os
even managed to see a number of first-~ films: Maytime, \vi1't ·
Jeanette MacDonald; I Wde Up Screaming, with Betty Grable; and The
Chocolate Soldier, with Nelson Eddy and Rise Stevens. But in time the
Jap censors clamped down on the American product and the city's
cinemas had nothing to show ~pt-0ld old Tagalog movies, since the
local studios had stopped producing. However, this resulted in the
resurrection of theater in Manila. ··
It had been depressing, in the days before the war, to seek out
vaudeville in the dingy howies on Echague where it was making a last
stand, and to see there, grown old and fat and ill tempered, the
vaudeville queens of the 1920s. But now, during the first year of the
occupation, the •~stage show" returned in triumph to the city's biggest
theaters; and old-timers like Katy de la Cruz and Diana Toy seemed to
recover their youthful glamour in the jo.y of performing again to huge
and responsive audiences.
At the Life Theater were Pugo and Tugo and a dazzle of movie stars.
The Avenue Theater had the great Lamberto AveDana directing a
company headed by Leopoldo Salcedo and Rosa Aguirre. (Among the
Avellana productions was a Filipinized version of Street Scene.) Fer-
nando Poe Sr. and Norma Blancaflor were the stars- at the Capitol.
Both the Lyric and the State had- their own resident stage troupes; and
• at the Metropolitan Theater altemate4 such '1egitimate theater'' com-

productions included La V•
panies as Dramatic Philippines and the Spanish aficionados. The Met
Alegre, with Nellita Farias; Privtite l.iva,
with Daisy Avellana and Bimbo Danao; Tit l..lpmg (which was Chtrrlit's
Aunt in,Pinoy ~ , andte'!fd Spanitll.zarneJas.
Not since the 19008 had ~ . . . _ been eo- lively. M a
~ ilnd
We ha4, , not lost our~ f o r ~ ~ ffiat Weril rot
witty jesting t Port Santiago for so many of us. But not even tM
kempeetai coq,td make us hold our tongue.
Such was the normality, more or less, of this period from the Fall of:
Bataan to the inauguration of the Second Republic. Then, in Nov~
ber 1943, a typhoon hit Manila and the heartland. And the ~
got washed away. .
The typhoon was of such singulat fury that the devastated ~
could not recover from the blow. There .w as no returf,ting to normal
Prices, until then quite stable, began their panic spiral: money turned
itlto waste paP'f, Pushcarts replaced buggy _Jnd bike as people went
afield looking for food. The Great Hunger began.
As the wartime bank notes became meaningless, commerce re-
turned to the barter system. Mongo, dried fish and coconuts became
luxuries and we lived on kangkong and shellfish broth; ate a rice gruel
mixed with crushed com; and sweetened our eriatz mffee (com
i'oa8ted black and then ground) with precious black panocha sha:vings.
The stage-show troupes abandoned starring Manila and led to the
provinces, where-audiences paid their way in with rice, com, eggs and
poultry.
Indeed there was a ~ond mass exo4ua from· th~ dty as ManileAos
went off to throw th~lves to the mercy of country a>usins. Now
but a valley ,Of the shudders was Manila, where the famine had
become visl'ble as bloated bodies a>llapsed on sidewalks. A particular
hom>l' was Calle Carriedo in Quiapo, where outside the ancient
bookstores, now padlocked and shuttered, Jay the putrefying corpses
of those who had died of hunger.
The buy-and-sen- folk were now hawking secondhand clothes ru-
mored to have been despoiled from the newly buried. A ship laden
with rice sank in Manila Bay and men dived for the cargo and ate the
si,i4 rice and died. Hoarders locked themselves in for fear of looten.
And agony became desperation as the Jap grew aueler and the
"nationalisf' Makapili unloosed its thugs on the public. It was October
19'4 and the ~waited Kano had landed in Leyte. The Japs wanted
~apW (kfabbayan Kalipunan. ng mga Pilipino, or Nationalist
~ a COUf d'etat in Manila and lefU the
~water ~tunning, an.(,
came to a final Ndt~ No moae ~ JIOW -nor bikes, nor buggies,
nor horses. The hones had long been eaten. And everybody walked.
No longer on chic wooden shoes. Only on robber ~ begged,
borrowed or stolen from the Japs. And in short short pants - the
remnants of trousers repeatedly recycled, repeatedly mended, re-
peatedly cut. .
You saw people sallying forth in the dark before dawn, lugging pail
and am and risking death (tM Americans were bombing the city), to
stand in line and fetch water from an artesian well.
Under such conditions, how could Manila celebrate the New Year's
Day of 19457 But it should have celebrated - for, even as it agonized,
the "mile-long convoys and skyful of airplanes" so-long expected were
arriving at last.
But like all dream-fulfillments, this one was only half~happy.
 ON Christmas Day 1944, Manilenos got the dearest Christmas catds
they would ever receive. Scattered from U.S. bomben flying over the
city were leaflets that read: "The Commander-in-Chief, the officers
and men of the American forces of liberation in the Pacific wish -their
· gallant allies, the people of the Philippines, all the blessinJS of Christ-
mas and the realization of their fervent hopes for the New Year."
How we cheered the raids of those bombers even if some American
raids dismayed us - for example, the bombing of Binondo church. By
December the raids had become so incessant (it was now the Ameri-
cans who flew in and. out of the city with the greatest of ease) that 411
schools in Manila had to be closed. Followed another exodus as city
folk with rural refuges hurried thither.
Yamashita and his troops also left the city that December, having
heard that the Americans were already in Mindoro. Yamashita's plan
was to entrench himself in the northern highlands and fight &om that .
fortress until aid arrived &om Tokyo. The Cordilleras wen to be the
Japanese version of Bataan.
To all intents and purposes, Yamashita had already surrendered
Manila to the Americans, without a fight. The few Jap troops left
behind in-the city were, it would be alleged, supposed to perform only
a token resistance - certainly not a mass destruction of property and
life. But ingrained in the Jap is the cult of hara-kiri, which can include
the impulse to amok. That might explain the fate of South Manila. The
Jap troops there had decided to immolate themselves - and to take
along with them to the grave an entire city. So: the b ~ , the
looting, the rapes, the massacres.
The Americans had been expected to come in through Manila Bay;
instead they landed in Lingayen, in mid-December, and then made a
blitz drive down the Central Plain. towards Manila. By the end of
January they were in Bulacan, although the Tribune; the Japs' mouth-
piece in Manila, was still insisting that the enemy had been stopped in
the Central Plain.
The two U.S. armies s ~ y assigned t o ~ Manila were
the lat Cavalry Oiviaion, which aossed the Pampanga River at Caba-
~ on February 1 1945, and the 37th Divi9ion, which secured
~ and ~ - ~ 2.
 "surrendered" to the Americans without firing a shot and the 1st
Cavalry tank entered the Palace grounds as die clocks struck mid·
night. The Japs. inside were slaughtered without a qualm.
Next morning, residents in the Palace neighborhood were awa-
kened by shouting on the street. A crowd had gathered on the
intersection of Arlegui and San Rafael and everybody was jumping
and cheering and pointing toward Malacanang: Ther.e, from the flag-
pole, waved the Stars and Stripes! .And the towering guards at the
gates were unmistably Yankee. They smiled and waved back but
gestured that nobody was to come near Aviles. ·
At noon, several of Ramsey's Gq,errillas came out with a pushcart
piled up with the corpses of the last Japs in Malacatiang. The bodies
were dumped on the vacant lot b_ehind the Bas house, drench~ in
. gasoline and set aflame. Throughout that euphoric day the Arlegui
and San Rafael neighborhood reeked of barbecue. ·
Opposite the vacant lot was a house whose Jap occupants had
vanished. People broke into the mansion and found its swimming
pool brimming with soy sauce; barrels of toyo were lined up on the
diiYeway. Everyone rolled off a ~ l to his own door. ,
Despite the lightning speed of the American arrival, the Japs were
still able to blow up all the bridges on the Pasig and to set fire to
downtown Manila. The last battle they fought on this side of the Pasig
was on Echague, near the Quinta Market, whei-e they held back
elements of the 1st Cavalry during a whole day of fighting, on Febru-
ary 5. When darkness fell the Americans retreated and the Japs fled
aaoss the river.
The 37th Division reached the city on February 4, at noon, and made
a beeline for Bilibid Prison on Azcarraga, where they liberated over a
thousand Allied internees. The 37th then advanced towards the river,
cleaning up a burnt-out area of ruin and rubble where lurked scores of
Jap snipers, suicide-commandos left behind to delay -as much as
possible the American leap across the river.
Also left behind were the ultra-nationalist of the Makapili, whose
patriotic duty it was to set on fire whatever of the city was still not
ashes. The fires they lit succeeded in razing the business section of
Sampaloc when the Americans were -1ready in Malacanang.
In San Miguel, the Makapili fires started at two cigarette factorles
and were threatening the church and the rest of the district when the
parish priett, ~~ Vicente~ thpught of tushing to the altar and
 196
fetching from there the iffl9 of St. Michael tlw Archarigel, patron of
the district. The image was put in position on the patio to face the
huge advancing tide of flame. Suddenly the fire reversed its direction,
a new wind turning it away from the chmdll Not only the church was
saved but also SQ.ch historic spots as San Miguel Brewery, the ,Aviles
row of old mansions, and Malacaiiang Palace.
The following February days brought the main body o1 the U.S.
h"beration troops: very young Gis carrying cartons of powdered milk,
ice-cream mixes, refined sugar - and beert Such a rich rich drip did
· the mix: of milk, ice aeam, sugat and beer make that the streets of
liberated Manila seemed to be flowing with milk and honey.
On the instant did every family there acquire a GI of its own, who
~ with gifts of GI rations, cartons of coke and beer, and even legs
of ham! And he escorted the family to evening movie showings in
camp. .
The Gls had set up camp on the school grounds of Holy Ghost
College and-the Colegio de la Consolacion, both of which had been
commandeered as hospital sites (even Malacanang's social hall had
been transform~ into an infirmary) and.for the first time in some
three years Manileftos with GI friends could have their fill of new
Hollywood movies. The GI camps had screenings of new movies
every night and every GI could bring guests. So, in the open air of
convent lawns, under the chilly skies of February, the Gls' Manileno
guests watched Deanna Durbin in His Butler's Sister, Ingrid Bergman
in Casablanca, and Randolph Scott in Gung Ho!
Afterwards there would be a late supper at the mess hall: ham
sandwiches and K-rations and all the coke and beer you could drink,
.from taps. That was when Pinoys really became coke-conscious and
beer drinkers.
And the new songs we learned to sing then! You Art My Sunshine
and Paper Doll and You'll Never Knmo Just How Much l Love You and
Amor and As Time Goes By.
But as we sang those songs with GI friends, su4,denly the ground
would shudder and the windows would flash red and yellow - from
the holocaust still in progre,s across the mer. In those latter-half of

concerned. But in South Manila the~-

Feoruary days, the war was over and won, a far u North Manila was
weie d being died.
 Chapfe!r. S: INTRAMUROS ~

NOT the Americans but the Japanese desttoyed lntnmuros, says Dr.
Antonio 0. Gisbert, whose family lived in lntramuros for more than a
hundred years.
''My brothers and I weie bom in lntramuros and we lived there up
to the time of the Ll'beration in February 1945. There is a miscon~
lion that Intramuros was destroyed by the U.S. Uberation forces.
When those forces finally penetrated the Intramuros walls (which
were,demolished by their bombardment) Intramuros was already a
skeleton, l"ith its churches and houses gutted by the· fire set by the
Japanese forces."
Early in February, as Dr. Gisbert recalls, a barrio teniente went &om
house to house bidding the residents to evacuate to the San Agustin
monastery.
"We took along as much as we could carry of food and clothing.
That was the day they blew up Santa Cruz but in Intramuros there
were no bullets flying yet. The next morning all the men were lined up
on the patio. We were told that we were to be confined for a day or so
because there would be fighting on the streets. (The Americans were
already in North Manila and were experted to cross over any mo-
ment.) At mid-morning we were marched to Fort Santiago. There we
were herded into a building so crowded with tho.u sands of men no
one was able to sit down. I was with my father, then 63, and my
younger brother, 21. That aftemoon, about 60 of us, including the
priests - Franciscans, Agustinians, Recollets, etc. - were transferred
to another area. That night our families were allowed to send us
dinner pails. I was able to get our fiambrera and four cups of mild tea." -
The next morning he won permission from a Japanese officer to
omy water to the prisoners in the. other building, who had had no
food or water since the day before.
o;. "There were some 2,000 prisoners there, among them a brother-in-
law of mine, and I was carrying them water in a pail from a well in the
fort. I was helped by my brother and five or six other boys."
After his labors fetching water for the,prisoners, Dr. Gisbert found
himself being lined up along with his fellow detainees.
"A Japanese officer ordered us to follow him out of the fort but he
waroed us to follow him exacdy bec:ause the area was mined. I got
separated from my father and brother and I nevs eaw them again.
Where the Palacio del Gobenuu;lor now stands, that was where they
were killed, with aH the pries~. I found my father's buckle there. They
were surrounded and drenched with gasoline. A few survived and
escaped. I am one of those few survivors, probably not more than SO in .
all, out of more than 3,000 men herded into Fort Santiago and, two
days later, massacred. They were bombarded by a cannon placed at a
distance of a hundred meters from their prison building."
On his way back to San Agustin, Dr. Gisbert saw that all lntramuros
had burned down, including the Gisbert house, which stood on
what's now the Casa Manila area. At San Agustin he set to doctoring
the sick and wounded until the day they were allowed to leave
lntramuros.
Dr. Gisbert thinks the Japs had a purpose in assembling the civilians
in San Agustin: "We were to be used as hostages." The Japs may have
thouglit that the Americans could thus be ~rsuaded not to shell
lntramuros and to let the Japanese garrison there exit unharmed.
When the Yanks proved adamant, the Japs put the ~ailed Qty to the
torch and massacred its menfolk.
Another Intramuros sundvor is Tony Trinidad, who was a child of
eleven during the Battle of Intramuros. He and his family stayed in
San Agustin for more than two weeks, sharing a small room with a
hundred other refugees. The other rooms were just as crowded.
"We got our water from a shall~w well in an inner garden. When
that well became contaminated, we found another well on an azotea
overlooking Santa Potenciana Street. This azotea was very dangerous
because of flying shrapnel and stray bullets. One day a woman beside
me was hit in the back and nearly fell into the well."
The shelling of the Walled Qty continued day and night.
"Sometimes, as twilight fell, there would be a pause in the ban-age.
Observj1tion planes would be heard overhead. There would be several
small explosions. Up in the sky., small parachutes with bright lights ~
would be seen hovering. Immediately we would stuff our ears with
cotton and -place a piece of wood between our teeth. The deafening
shtilling would reswne, to continue all night."
Of the burning of Intnimuros# Tony Trinidad remembers that first
there was a series o f ~ then they saw the u ~ stQ.des of the

ously the Japs had,...~bembe

houses ~ Urdanela tnd Genefal Luna bursting jnto flame. Obvi-
ia-1lie ~
ttie lllets. T h e ~ ~ dtbeecfllc,e,troaftd Sfll
Apstinandlicbdatthealesofthecllmdl,butlll\Nastin,.._
\lived because even it,; m8ings were of conaele. All1he RSt of
hdl.amuros WU OOftSmned l,y that holGalust.
'lhen, late in Pebruaty, a day dawned with no IOUlld of war. the
shelling had stopped. Jap Nldiers entered the church and lined up lhe
n?fugees there. They were aeked if they llad a Philippine~
WII produced; inlflead, a wllite .flag was lmplorised from a
Aa Tony Trinidad ftll\embm it, they were told they would have to
Me lntrmnuros; they WM In take aloag only what o,uid be hind•
canted and they were inslrw:ted to mad\ as a group towards the
ndnsofl.Atran.
"We were allO ordered not to look back. My ll'lOther asked the
mmne mmmand:er if we G>Uld stay in the church kt he tmd all
d6m had to leave. The aodus started lt the side"door leading out
to General Luna. At the head was the belrio tenien.te hoking.aloft the
white flag but on the way he met an A8'erican IOldier and lhooklds
haad. The Japaneee in San Agustin saw tldsand &led at him. A taDfatr
ltdy picked up the white flag and continad the march. Shedesenes a
medal for bravery. Without that white flag, the Japaneee and Ameri-
cans would not ha.e known if there was atill a truce."
At the cmnerof Calle Real and Solana,-lheman:hen aw tine white
soldien in strange green uniforms and Tony's mother began weeping,
thinking they were Germans. But they were Amerkan Gls.
On Calle Anda were several huge tanks with stars on their sidea,
and beside them were soldiers in green. Three of them came to meet
the nervous Jl'l4fChers and hailed them in Tagalog: "Don't be afraid!
We are Filipinos and the soldiers over there are Americans." At Letrah
were ambulances for the sick evacuees. Tony and his family along
with the rest of the evacuees exited from Intramuros through the
Letran gate. .
"Our main concern was to move as far away from lntramuros as
possible. We proceeded to the Metropolitan Theater, where two
American soldiers were distributing one spoon and one fork to each
ev.acuee, and from there to the YMCA, w:here we were loaded into
aix.:f,y-six trucks and taken to Welfateville in Ma,ridaluyong.''
~ ~*-"''4::'~~ the Ameriains delil,etately ~ San
•
• ''Wjdi i.e ~~ a.
 1M °' ~ &um•
Oh were'lheling it
- . . ~~1M11-.i 1W
mer .a
dthet of the
Aimed-
advancing
upon- it by w.y of Plaza Lawton and t h e ~ The Manila Hotel
alone had to be fought for in-exquisite iietail! floor by floor, and room
by room. The last Jap pocket of resistance, in the Finance Building off
th« Luneta, took a month to dean out.
Of the south districts, only Santa Ana remained intact after the
Battle of South Manila. Paco, Singalong, Pandacan, Malate and Ermita
had all been reduced to rubble. You could stand on the Herran-Paz
crossing in Paco and see all the way up to the Luneta, where the Rizal
Monument alone had been left standing.
One who remembers aossing that vast battlefidd during the
fighting is businessman Antonio L Cabangon Chua. He and his
mother were trying to make their way aaoss Paco to a ferryboat point
on the river. .
"The bombs were bursting all over, but I was a child and it wasn't
the explosions of war that scared me but the sights and smells of war.
What especially horrified me was the smell of death. The dead Jay
everywhere, blocking our path. We had to make our way to the
crossing over dead bodies, bloated bodies, rotting bodies. I was crym.g
with terror and I told my moth.er I didn't want to pass that way- but
there_was no other way. I .d idn't know rotting corpses had so strong a
smell!"
For weeks after the battle, the ruins of South Manila contiatued to
taint the air and a wind blowing from there carried to the other side-of
the river the ghastly mtor of chamel ground.
 OUR first rapture over the Liberation faded quickly enough and we
found ourselves, not in a sweeter and nobler world, as we had'
dreamed during the dark days of the war, but in an evil and decaying
world, during the still bad days of 1945.
Everything seemed to be rotting as fast as the ruins all around us,
which teemed with crooked night clubs, burlesque shows, and prosti-
tution dens. The solons we elected in 1941 came back to Manila,
reas~mbled the Legislature,· and at once -coolly collected "bad( pay,H
amounting to three million pesos, for the years they weren't in ses-
sion. What they-used for legislative hall was the old Japanese school-
house on Lepanto Street in Sampaloc.
Don Sergio Osmefia was at last in Malacafiang, as President, but
elections were coming up in April 1946 and Manilefios were turning a
sour eye at Don Sergio. He kept saying the Commonwealth govern-
ment was bankrupt. More cheering were the high spirits of Manuel
Roxas, especially since behind him loomed the august figures of
General MacArthur and U.S. High Commissioner Paul V. McNutt. '1
can't work with Osmefia;" MacArthur had remarked, to explain his
preference for Roxas. And McNutt had said that Osmefia had "no
backbone" when what the Philippines needed at the moment was "a
strong man, a dynamic man, a fighter." And: ''That man is Roxas."
So the ancient Partido Nadonalista was split still once again, be-
~een Osmei\a and another Manolo. Don Sergio ran (if that's the word
for it, since he never left Manila) as the NP standard-bearer, while
Roxas proclaimed himself the candid.ate of "the Liberal' Wing of the
NP." The presidential campaign (the last under the Commonwealth)
unfolded against a background of physical and moral squalor.
There were guerrilla rackets, and army-surplus rackets, and relief-
goods rackets, and a fri~tening wave of violence, espedally in Ma-
..c......nlla. A boy named Angel Zapanta was only 17 when the Manila police
caught up with him but he had already committed three murders and
had made over P200,000 from a series of robberies. He was an early
exponent of the postwar younger generation that we were learning to
calrteen-agers, bobbysoxers and juvenile delinquents.
The Hukbalahaps, hailed as a noble teSistance group during. the
WV, had ncnt' ~ Ute of ti-, boondocb - and the n!IUlt-
 .,,
whole
aze,thelechon, the
fiesta street~ and of course the ati-atihan. Enthu-
old days was the ~ ' s welcome for the country
his luggage of green coconuts md honey and dried deer
white cottage cheese. But for these latest hqmlgrants who
Manila's dingy squatter populatkm, the welcome was
fervid.
that matter, even our feetinpfor our .liberators had turned
GI had outsta~ his welcome and a growing hostility was
, on our side, by cruel gibes at the jeep-girls - "Hlmggtmg
tgl" - and on the Amerlam side by signl' multipl~ at
camps: "Filipinos, Keep Outf',. "they had taken to refeuift& to
• "Flips."
In that climate of ill-will, violence, peed and disillusion was the
. Republic born. The preliminary election of 19'6 already pre-:
the goriness of later polls. Omlng the campaign Mr. Osmda
in MaJaca6ang and wearily reiterated that there weie no funds,
funds, no "funds, to the cljagust of his own aupporteis. Mr. Roxas
all over t h e ~ why he bad foiuld i t ~
his feJlow Na .
in the 'fight WIS a ~ from the put ffDarlo Catnino Mon-
e of the "Doniintoll Status lo:t '· tlle Philippines," who
rihowed was decades ahead of his time t,y offering the ~~ a-
- - - - .slate composed t1most entirely of showbiz folk lib Joe
Cliililc.t>, Carlos Padilta, Canoe Vand4!1' Tolosa and the great clown
po. And running for v i ~ was the fertile patri-
Salvador.
Osme1\a made only o n e ~ appearance, on Plaza
• him and vote
 ing, whose charnel stinks had been i:empo,arily rteu:trali2'Jed. A aowd
of less than "200,000 witnessed the ceremony. Justice Manuel Moran
administeled the oath of office, after which Roxas announced that he
was appointing Quirino the secretary of a new office: the Department
of Foreign Affairs.
With the Roxas win, the "Liberal Wing of the NP'' became formally
the Partido Liberal.
Five weeks after the Roxas inauguration, he and Quirino were
inaugurated again, on July 4, 1946, this time as President and Veep of
an independent ~ppine Republic. They took their oath on a stage -
improvised on the Luneta, facing the Rizal Monument.
It was a wet muddy day; the monsoon was blowing; and the aowd
that got drizzled on was not to be compared in size or enthusiasm with
the 1935 multitude that welcomed the Commonwealth.
Stealing the show from both Roxas and the Third Republic was
General MacArthur, who had -flown in from Tokyo for the event. His
.oration dwelt on "two peoples who, despite racial, cultural and lan-
guage differences and great distances of geographical separation, ·
forged an affinity of understanding which s\ll'Vived both the vagaries
of peace and the shock of war." The proclamation of Philippine
freedom, said he, foretold "the end of mastery over peoples by force
alone; the end of empire as the political chain which binds the unwill-
ing weak to the unyielding strong."
MacArthur got the biggest ovation of the day. Remked an Ameri-
can lady on the grandstand: "The Philippines may now be indepen-
dent, but they are still MacArthur's country."_ ·
Paul V. McNutt recalled how, a few days before, the Unit~ 5attes
had tested an atomic bomb in Bikini; now it .;;;;.a granting indepen•
dence to a former colony: "Orie action, an expression of limitless
power; the other; • manifestation of . infinite understanding." The _
drizzle ~ e a heavy downpour as he spoke.
At 9:15 a.m. McNutt lowered the American Bag. On the same white
cord l>resident Roxas slowly raised the old flag of the Revolution
presented to him by General Aguinaldo. (It was the same Bag Agui·
naldo had presented to President Lawel during the inauguration of
the Second Republic.)
The flag ~ ilyillg alone, saicf Roxas, symboliied a sovereignty
:SlilW ~ in hiJl measure: '1118 in the hearts of ejghteen million
.ftltpioos, the - - - m.. . _ ~ t h a n ever.
 My people look back in = d e and forward in 'harmony with the
United States. We ue a area of democracy in this part of the
world."
Said MacArthur to-Romulo as the rites ended: "Carlos, America
buried i m ~ here today!"
Overhead American planes enacted a thrilling air show while on the
ground the crowds cheered and clapped as American troops and their
armor paraded past the grandstand. The ruins all around ·made all this
look like "a carnival in hell," said one observer.
The issue of parity rights rent the country under Roxas and almost
caused his death on Plaza Miranda . at the hands of a philosophical
barber named Julio Guillen. Parity triumphed; Guillen went to the
chair; and Roxas was to die, curiously enough, on the American
airba~ he had championed.
Mr. Quirino, who ruled as our first "president by accident" while
these mystic petals were falling over Lipa, thought to inaugurate an
era of reconciliation by-granting amnesty to the Hub and inviting Luis
Taruc to take his seat in Congress. The Huk solon appeared in Manila,
• collected his back pay, then vanished again into the wilderness to
continue the revolt.
Ml-. Quirino had been shamefully; doublecrossed, but Taruc was not
the only worm in his c;u.p of care. There was the Manila press, which
seemed to be uncovering a new· anomaly in the government every
week. There wu•the cynical Mr. A ~ ("What are we in power
for?") who, by deciding to run for Presidt?!_!t to spite Mr. Quirino, had
split the Liberal Pain7 in.two. And then there was Jose P. Laurel, who
hac:: ~ from the shadows to save the Nadonalista Plirty and to •
vindicate his war ra.iird.
The 1949 electiGns, so corrupt anci criminal, were a fitting end to a
decade of disaster. Mr. Quirino defeated l\(r. l..al.h~! b\lt found public
opinion angrily doubting his victory. The advent of imPQit' ~trol
further sharpened the temper of a people long used to imported cars,
clothes, coffee. and cigarettes; and their ugly mood was expressed by
ugly styles - sloppy skimers for men; the "New Look'' for women -
and by ugly dances like ~ guaracha and the- slow dlag. But the pop

~--
Wll1gs included-such beauties as ftW Aw,iy Placts, and :Again and Red
Rosa for • Blw LJldy, and J,f.y f«,Zish Ham. The male coat and tie and
the female ~ W b e e a i ~ ~ and t h e ~
~
All dty schools were crowded thoa&h Nhools'CIOWded the dty. A
Manila joke had this chap standing on a comer being asked to step
aside because "we're building a school there." · ·
Five ~ars after the war ended, when other countries had already
smoothed away the scabs and scars of war, Manila was still in the
same condition in which it had been left after the Japs and the Gls
were through with it. And the ~hift devices of Liberation days,
like the pontoon bridge and the quonset hut, had not been swept
,away in a general return to normal conditions of living but had, rather,
become the normal conditions - as permanent a part of our world, it
seemed, as the ruins, the relief goods, the racketeers. There was no
return to "normalcy" because abnormality had become the pattern of
our lives. And the abnormality showed most in the three freaks that
the Liberation spawned in Manila: the jeepney, the barong-barong,
and the squatter.
All three should long have become anachronistic and it's a mark
against Gty Hall that all three are still with us.
N'ot all the ravings over the jeepney as cute folk art will alter the fact
that as public transport it is impractical, unreliable, anarchic, and plain
evil. And all the heart-bleeding o:ver the barong-barong and the
84.f""Uatter only helps them to multiply when what should be done is to
make squatting ~ .the barong-barong impossible in any part of the
city. ,Then the drifters from ~ provinces may hesitate to move to
Manila unless they have somewhere to stay.
It was these migrants that turned into unspeakable casbahs ih.e
ruins of the BIR building on Juan Luna, of the Metropolitan on P1az.a
Lawton, of lhe Gaiety in Ermita, and of ancient Intramuros. From the
later 1940s to the '60s the Walled City was one huge shanty town, the
capital of Manila's underworld. The Noble & Loyal had become
ignoble and faithless. •
Cftapter 5: INTO AUTONOMY

IN 1948 Manila lost, after four centuries, its position as the capital of
the Philippines but it was shortly to win a more valuable status: total
autonomy.
Since its creation as a chartered dty on July 31, 1901, Manila had
been fighting for complete independence from Malacaftang and had
been winning~utonomy bit by bit.
All the five members of the original municipal board, whose first
head was Arsenio Cruz Herrera, were appointed by the American
governor-general. They were answerable to him and hold office only
at his pleasure.
In 1908 the city engineer was made an ex-officio member of the
municipal board. Two of its seats - the ones for Fmpino members -
were made electjve. The three other members continued to be ap-
pointed by the chief executive.
With the coming of the Jones Law in 1916, not only the national but
the Manila government too gained a large measure of autonomy. The
number of councilors was increased to ten, all to be elected at iarge.
The mayor, still a Malacafiang appointee, ceased to be president of t..'ie
municipal board, whose first . ~lective head was Dorninador Gomez.
Through the next three decad~, th~ cl~ charter would undergo no
other tnajor char.ges.
·I ndependence in 1946 installed a Republic in which the President
has the power of supervision over all local governments. Those who
saw the likelihood of conflict between the chief executive and the
mayor of Manila pressed for a new charter that would make the city
government completely autonomous.
In 1948 Congress decreed tha an appointive vice-mayor be added to
the municipal government of Manila. This was the Jast revision to be
made of the 1901 charter.
The movement for a new dty charter was by then swell4,g into a
partisan political issue (Roxas was peeved when Manila rejected.the
Bell Act in 1947) but the autonomists won over the Palace when
Congress enacted Republk Act 409 on June 18, 1949, providing Manila
with a new charter.
In tNs, the ~ b l . 6 . , the mayor and the vice-mayor were
fllade elect.lu, the - - ~ . . ,....,. ~ lht
 thaftbe-,.or wu Qt.theOfflce
the ~ t (spedfically of the the mayor Gt
Manila was now no longer a creature of the chief executive and, in ca~
of conflict, could invoke the will of the electorate against-the presi~
tial authority. . -
The new charter divided Manila into four representative district$
that were each to elect three councilors to the municipal board. Tlie
number of councilors were thus upped to twelve. The four district$
are: (1) Tondo; (2) Binondo, Quiapo, Santa Cruz; (3) Sampaloc and San
Miguel; and (4) South Manila, from Intramuros to Santa Ana.
A charter amendment in 1955 made the vice-mayor the ex-offic:.io,
president of the municipal board, but he could vote only to break a tie'..
The first vice-mayor to preside over the board was Bartolome Gatmai!
tan. ' -
A further amendment in 1956 enlarged the board from twelve to
twenty members. And further autonomy was won by the•city govem•
ment with the passage of the Local Autonomy Act (1959), whidl
inaeasec:J the planning powers of local government&, and .the ~
tralization Act (1961), which transfened from the President to the city
mayors the power to appoint such city officials as the chief of police,
the chief of the fire d~ent, the city assessor, the city agriculturist,
and their respective assistants and depu~. Also removed from the
Presic:lept was the right to approve the remittance to local go.vem,-
ments of their :regular allotment from internal revenues. The allotment
w.as increased from ten to thirteen per cent a year and its ren@anc:e to
.-i governments was made automatic: not later than five days after
the end of each month.
The id~ of a Manila fused with its suburbs into a federal entity first
became factual in 1901 when the Americans deaeed that the City of
Manila was to comprise lntramuros and its arrabales. A second fusion
was achieved on January 1, 1942, when from a Corregidor .tunnel
.President Quezon issued an executive order appointing Jorge Vargas
"the Mayor of Greater Manila." This new metropolis was defined as
Manila proper plus Pasay, Makati, Mandaluyong, San Juan, Qua.on
City and I<alookan. The existing executives of the suburban govern-
ments were reappointed as "assistant mayo;l'S."
Whlen Vargas was picked by Homma to chair the Philippine Execu-
~ -• · m (the: · · iy-ernment ~ t i n g With the
',tte Mtyor.of ~ ~ , , v..-.-melfl>-.,..Cotleas than
a month: up to January 23, 1942. 'l)ui)ughcNt the Jap ~tion,
Greater Manila existed as a reality • performed as a unit, but the
mvaluable concept was allowed to lapse at the end of the war, not to .
be revived again until martial-law times, when Marcos created "Metro
Manila" (a much bigger federation than Quezon's "Greater Manila")
and appointed Imelda its "governor-general" (that seems to have been -
the original intended title).
It seems inevitable that, as Spanish Intramuros ultimately wedded
its arrabales, so the present Manila will ul~tely absorb, not ·only its
current suburbs, but also most of Bulacan, most of Rizal Province,
.most of Cavite, perhaps a slice of the Bataan coastline, and all the
islands on the bay, from Corregidor down.
At the end of the war, who would have wanted to be mayor of a city
that was 90% in ruins? Roxas appointed Valeriano E. Fugoso, who had
been a Manila councilor from 1934 till the outbreak of war. Fugoso was
mayor for a much shorter period: a year and a half. He reorganized the
police and fire departments, restored prba~ collection, reconstructed
neighborhood latrines. On being appointed Racing Commissioner, he
was ,succeeded by Manuel de la Fuente, like him a veteran Manila
councilor.
De la Fuente had been on the board from 1925 until the war, and
presided over it during the Liberation period. But when he became
mayor, the board was his biggest problem. The perpetual shifting of
forces on the board - now a majority there were for him; now the
majority there were against him - was ·so exasperating that finally 54
congressmen, including Manila's Arturo Tolentino and Arsenio H.
Lacson, importuned President Quirino in April 1950 to kick out Mayor
de la Fuente and his councilors, accusing them of-inefficiency, espe-
cially in their "failure to minimi7.e the high rate of criminality in the
city." .
Quirino played deaf to the solons' outcries and did not eject de la
Fuente from City Hall. Defenders of both men say that Quirino's
~ was justified by de la Fuente's accomplishments. The mayor
rebuilt City Hall, the city's blown-up bridges, the police headquarters
and precind stations, and the various health centers. He installed a
city-wide fire alarm systel'n; diarec:I away the squatters on Governor
Fmbes Stft!dby rel9atlilll&JllJemto~ Roxas;helda~.f-. to
~ t!
 ized and started training in Paranaque but never saw a c t i o n ~
The Casino Espai\ol, an elegant building that would become a Manili
landmark, was inaugurated, with a young lawyer named Claro M.
". Recto being crowned prize poet there fer his Eulogio de Espanol. The
University of the Philippines, founded in 1908, in Ermita, now had a
Filipino president, Ignacio Villamor, and was already rent with strife.
The U.P. students charged that Villamot was a weak administrator
and that the university was actually controlled by the Benitez family,
which had four of its members on the faculty. '
_As the war and the decade drew to a Cllose, prices of prime com-
modities shot up, the hemp industry suffexled a slump, and there was
a terrifying rice shortage in 1919. And yet, quite unnoticed, prosperity
was coming around the comer. The war had not been bad for the
country's principal exports and Manila was a boom town. The city's
well-being was expressed in the liveliness of its theater (it boasted at
least a dozen big repertory companies) and the growing luxuriousness
of its_tastes (the phonograph, the automobile, the Kodak, the Singer
machine, and Piedmont and Cycle cigarettes were becoming the
commonplaces of urban life). Everybody was humming the melodiM
from The Merry Widow and in the 'Cabarets one saw more and mOl!e
people doing such shocking dances as the tango and the foxtrot. Theie
were Saturday-night bouts at the .Olympic Stadium; Italian troupes a
the.Manila Opera House; and such festive annual institutions as the
circus, the carnival, the baseball season at Nozaleda Park, and the
Rizal Day parade - so much more popular than today's "correct" but
colorless commemoration of the hero's death. Best of all, Borromeo
Lou had arrived from the States with a new form of entertainment that
he spelled Vod-A-Vil. , •
The stage was set for Manila's most glittering period: the 1920..
fflOUGH the Legislative Building was erected in the 1920s, it is a
product of the Empire Days and, architecturally, the landmark divid-
ing the American from the Spanish era. During Spain's more than
three cei,tturies in the islands, public architecture clung to the roman-
!!Sqlle and to variations of the baroque.
The early Americans introduced two styles of public architecture.
The first was the California mission style, typified by the original
buildings of the Philippine General Hospital, the Bureau of Health and
the Normal School. This style never caught on and examples of it have
a nostalgic look today. But the other style introduced by the Ameri-
cans - the neo-classic - dominated our public works throughout the
prewar era.
That style may seem an anachronism in the tropics but none other
could have served the spirit of the Empire Days, when every American
in the .Philippines fel~ himself to be an tmipire-builder and was not
afraid of the grand manner. The o ~ Legislative Building, for
instance, was merely part of a greater design, was merely one unit in a
vast Gapitoline group of edifices that had been dreamed up by a very -
typical empire-day American, Daniel H. Bnrnham, the foremost
Gringo city-planner of his day. ·
Burnham cam-: to the PhiliJ)pines in the early 1900s on an invitation
&oltt the government to plan a modem Manila. The city thep had a
population of only a hundred thousand but Bumrunn envisioned it as
•,..etropolis inhabited by millions, with multi-laned ~venues rtdiating
thn)ugh all its districts: He proposed that the Luneta be enlarged into
a l(}acre park and that a seaside boulevard be built from the Manila
waterfront- to Cavite.
Bumham's most audacious dream for Manila: was a government
occupying all of Wallace Field, which then extended from the
pleSent Taft Avenue to the LQneta. The P.hilippine Capitol was to rise
en~ Taft Avenue end of the field, facing toward the sea,-and would
:form, with the buildings of the diffeient ~ t bureaus and
departments, -a mighty quadrangle with a ~ in the center and a
monument to Rizal at its LllMta encl
Theilumbam Plaa- .,_ Loailan Timt.s c.ui.l ~a
aside two million pesos every year Mr the execution of the plln.
the fund had reached some 16 million, however, Mr.•Quezon d
to use the money for irrigation projects instead. Ricefields were m
important .t hart fine buildings for Manila: Mr. Quezon never had mum
affection for this ornery town.
Of Bumham's proposed government center, only three units were
built the Legislative Building (originally intended for a national li-
brary) and the buildings of tlte finance and agricultural departments,
completed on the eve of the war. By then Mr. Quezon had doomed the
Burnham Plan by creating a new capital city outside Manila. · '
The Legislative Building was started early in the-1920&; construction
was sporadic, lasting until 1926, and cost about six million pesos.
When the building was halMinished, the solons d e ~ that it was to
house, not the national library, but the legislative session halls and
offices. Later, the national librcl}'Y was allowed to occupy the basement
floor.
The building is undoubtedly our happiest achievement in the neo-
classic manner and would inspire a whole generation of provinc;w
.capitols. For a moment in our history, the style of the Romans suited
our temper perfectly and we built with grace and dignity. The beauty
of the old Legislative Building was inherent in its design arid has
survived even the bombs of war and the hammers of a hasty recon-
struction. The postwar edifice still glows with the serene spirit of the
original and stands as a melJlorial to Burnham' s glorious dream and to
the days when we all felt like noble Romans, gravely founding a
republic. . .
As felicitous were the other public works of the era - like the four
bridges on the Pasig 0ones, Santa Cruz, Quezon and Ayala); the four
great new roads (Rizal Avenue, Taft Avenue, Ayala .Avenue and
Dewey Boulevard); and the ground reclaimed from swamp in Malate
~d Ermita and transformed into residential streets bearing the
otAmerican states. This reclamation gave Manila a smart new Ma
stretching from the San Marcelino neighborhood in the north (a
mestizo enclave) down to the shining pillars of the La Salle campus
(another neo-classic landmark), the playing fields of the Rizal Memo-
rial Stadia, and the deep dense woods of Harrison Park, which then
a,verecl the area·along Vito Cruz between Dakota and ~ey.
redamation that ~ ,the face of Manila extended the
• - - the ... · _, with a
Area. ~;grid of 25 streets ~ by 1W toads supported a
series of docks, the most famous of Which was Pier 7, long enough to
~«omntodate the huge oc~n liners then plying the waves, like the
President Lines. As in the days of the galleons, the arrival and
departure of a ship was merry and festive, with noisy crowds on the
dock, a band playing dance tunes, and no end to the- showers of
confetti and serpentina, or to the champagne toasts and the singing of
Attld Lang Syne. · Afterwards there might be a late supper or early
breakfast at Legazpi Landing, an all-night bistro on the water, just off
Port Area, ~here refugees from Saturday-night parties - the men in
frac, the ladies in jewels and ball gown - might be found lingering
over a coffee or cocktail, waiting for four o'clock and the first mass at
some Intramuros church, bef?re hieing off to bed.
The 1920s also grew new suburbs for Manila - Grace Park in the
north, possibly our first factory town; aria·Pasay in the south, where
Americans were building all along the seaside and had located their
polo club just off Pasay beach. 'Tis said that when Quezon urged his
friends to buy up the Baclaran foreshore before the Gringos did, the
friends thought they were doing Quezon a favor by buying lots in
terrain so unpromising and so far from "downtown." Even less
inviting were the boondocks of San Pedro Makati, popularly known as
Sampiro. Long after Grace ·Park and Pasay had definitely become
suburban, Makati was still strictly sticks, known only for three things:
its pottery kamaligs, its red"'.Jight district in Culi-Culi, and its cabaret
zone, whidt ranged from the chi~ of Santa Ana Cabaret to the
ugoy-ugoy of the dance halls in Olimpia, which preferred to call them
"salons."
But yugyugan was only one ef the varied amusements of an era that
was the golden age o1 a lot of things-of vaudeville, of the carnival, of
IN social clubs, of Philippine baseball and boxing.
This was the era of the silk shirt, for the silk shirt was the era's mark
1W success. On gala days, in fact, the affluent Filipino arrayed himself
efttirely in silk- a silk shirt, a silk suit, silk underwear, silk stockings,
-. Bilk tie, and numberless silkhan4'erchiefs. You said of a fighter who
was rising fast but had not~ found his niche. that he "still has to buy
his first silk $hilt.,,
The great ~ of the era was Pancho vma, the most brilliant
fighter of a ~ lbJt
l3i$da., Frileo~l(lijl~(~ -
~~ u.,;,_l.;:::.,k.i
--:~~
 these boxers, like Pancho, placed the Philippines on 'the
winning laurels abroad, but Pancho was the top idol becaUM
personified the 1920s in a way that none of them did.
Into his person he collected all the swank and swagger of t_!te period
and the w1'ole country felt a vicarious pride in his · from rags to
riches - and in his magnificent wardrobe, his collection of silk shirt.l
and natty hats, his pearl buttons and gold cuf:flinks, and his ~
retinue. He had a valet to massage him, another valet to towel him,
another valet to put on his shoes, another valet to help him into ma
trousers, and still other valets to comb his hair, powder his-cheeks and:
spray him with perfume. He was, perhaps, more idolized as a inag-
nifico.than as a boxer; and when he died the nation's heart broke. The
hysteria that possessed the masses during his funeral was not to be
equalled until the funeral of another popular idol: Magsaysay, in 1957.
Like Pancho, everything his era did, it did in a big way. Theae were
the days of gorgeously tinted life-size photos at the Sun Studio. ~
were the days of the Oub Filipino, the Kahirup, the Smiles, the
Bachelors, and a dozen other fashionable clubs to whose dinners and.
balls the gentlemen came in chaleco and the ladies in diamonds. The
carnivals J:iad become riotous, with the crowds dressed in cl<>WR'
costumes. A Miss Philippines (Anita Noble) was elected for the fust
time in 1926; and the coronation balls, veritable production numbers,
ranged in style from the Egyptian to the Hungarian to the French of
Louis xv. ,.,
· The Prince of Wales was in Manila for three days and was given a
royal welcome. (Prince Edward justified his comic reputation by al-
most falling off a horse during a polo game.) Far bigger and noisier
was the welcome accorded Spanish aviators Gallarza and Loriga, who
brought the Air Age to the Philippines by flying non-stop from Madrid
to Manila. Two radio stations, KZI<Z and KZRQ, were already opera-
ting in Manila and radio sets were, said a wag, becoming as common
as calesas. A festive -era had a festive climax, in 1929, when the Vitgiti
of ~tipolo was borne in triumph from her mountain shrine to ManiJa,
qt,e crowned at the Luneta before the biggest multitude the city had
ever seen.
Nevertheless, one cannot den_y that the Jazz Age had its dank side;
~ ~ Villa was also the era of Santiago Ronquillo, ttt.-
~~ with terror (he
'.Civfbtwho
•t••·-1·~
166
vard) until ~ PC shot him down in Noveleta. Dead, the young
outlaw turned into a folk hero; he and his famed anting-anting have
become part of our folklore. Then there were the Colorums, who
claimed descent from the I<atipunan and staged an abortive and
piteous uprising in Nueva Ecija in 1925 - to tlte astonishment of
Manileiios, who thought that jazz, progress and modernity had left·all
such rebellions be~d. And then there were the Apos- most famous
of whom were Apo lro, who claimed to have healing magic, and Apo
I<abula, who led the Colorums - mystical folk leaders whose easy
success with the masses bespoke a dangerous hunger in a time of
abundance. Was the American writer Katherine Mayo right after all
when she labeled the Philippines "the Isles of Fear"?
The average ,Manila burgher of that time would have snorted that
the Gringa senora was crazy. He, certainly, knew nothing of fe~. He
led a solid tranquil life, occupied an orderly world as {ar removed from
the glitter of the I<ahirup as from the ancestral folk terrors of the
Colorum. His house was cluttered with furniture and photograph
albums; the doors had bead curtains. His wife was pious and prolific;
his children were firmly disciplined. He took his large brood to the
beach in Malate or Pasay on Saturdays; to the Jardin Botanico, the
Aquarium and the Luneta on Sundays; on the way home in the family
Renault they stopped for ice cream and emparadados at the Refugio in
Quiapo, or for a comida china at the Nueva or the Antigua on Plaza
Santa Cruz.
Once a week, he took .h is wife to the cine or the vaudev:llle. (The
zarzuela, alas, was slipping away.) The entertainment brought over by
Borromeo Lou had become big business and had produced a galaxy of
stage talent that has yet to be equalled in our history. Isang Tapales,
who matched Pancho Villa's achievement by singing at the Scala in
Milan, was one of our first vaudeville stars. After her came a host of
glamorous I}ames: Katy de la Cruz, Dimples, Hanasan, Miami, the
Uopices, the Alabama Brothers, Maggie Calloway, Nena Warsaw -
how the names and the memories evoke -each other ad infinitum!
Manila's three major vaudeville theaters were · the Savoy on
Echague, the Rivoli on Plaza Santa Cruz, and the Palace on_Ronquillo.
Vitang Escobar was the star at the Savoy, where the vaudeville com-
pany was known as the Nifties. Enrique Davila and his troupe were at
the Palace, where vaudeville had a Spam.sh accent. At the Rivoli were
the Varieties, Don Adolfo ~ the diredot, Ping the Kin.g of J~
 and lhe great Vicente Ocampo, whose Chicltiricmt bu
nostalgic whem of the. gaiest of ouryesterdays.
Our Manila burgher had an equal afec:tiort for all- the di
features of bis dty: the Sunday serenata at the Luneta, the pagetntry
of the traditional processions in lntramuros, the annuai. fie&tas a{ the
diferent arrabales. His world then seemed ·so stable he was ~
Nrbed even when, toward the ef\d of the 1920s, the word came ht
business had aashed in the United States.
The disaJter merely added another topic - -''the Depression" - to
local men's-talk. A far more exdtingtopic was the "taUdes.'' A. former
zarzuela theater on Plaza Santa Cruz had tumed itself into a movie-:
house called Cine Radio and was exhibiting in 1928 a movie titled
~tion, the first "sound picture" to reach t h e ~ When
the movie's hero ran his angers across a p i a n o ~ and the ripple
'of sound was heard loud ahd dear, the audience audibly ffipped. ·_ -
As the 1920s ended, a tall U.P. coed named Padta de lot Re,-
became queen of the Manila carnival, and m eclipse of the sun drew
-tdentists to the Philippines. The edipse which, said the scientists, WM
disappointing, as usual scared the country folk as an omen, a bad oia
This time they may have been right. Upon the bright traditional wolkl
of our fathen, upon our very last age of innocence, now felt tlie
shadow of the 19308.
 "
LOOKING ~ on the era of F ~ and the Depression, SJipinos .
.
~ sigJl 1Q, recall the blessings of "peacetime," which is how the .
1930s -l\as ~me knOWll among us. That time of breadlines and .
~loyment very incongruously began in Manila with a gold-mine
boom. The incongruity was typical of the supposedly hard-up 19308,
wluch were also the days when the Sweepstakes were ·overnight
making rich folk out of poor folk. . ·
The Sweeps were an inStant Jut. The first prize race - September 8,
1935 - had jockey Ordiales riding "Sugar Babe" to a victory that won
P'lS,000 for · th~ lucky ticket holder: a 12-year-old peasant girl of
Ta.ya~. In those days '15,000 was a huge Jorttine.
What hopes and thrills th~ Sweeps brought to our lives - but the- ·
coµntry was ill, and so was its noisiest leader. President Quezon
returned from a 1930 trip to the· United States looking like .a ghost of
himself, looking indeed like a forecast of the new era: -thin, haggard
and diseased. · .
. The once opulent coconut planters couldn't pay their debts ~ the
National Bank and had to be granted a moratorium. 'f!le Compania
Maritima offered free passage back to the provinces to the jobless.
thousands in Manila. Malacanang set up an unemployment cotnmittee
and decided to abolish the fireworks and athletic gaxnes of the July 4
celebrations. The gaiety was going out of the carnivals too: the public
no longer cared to don clown costumes or even to throw confetti.
Sighed the Manila Tn'bune, glancing back wistfully at the Roaring
'Twenties: "Pove~ is a tradition. The boom period was but a happy
interlude, like a town fiesta. Both come but once in a while."
Yet the impoverished 1930s began with cries of "Gold! Gold! Gold!"
The Gold Rush was a wild goose chase. Few mines. were dug; only a
little gold was mined. But a multitude of mining companies sprang up
and, as the decade dragged on, the Manila newspapers grew bloated
with full-page ads announcing the formation of still more mining
companies.
At the Escolta's newest and flashiest buil4ing, the Cryetal Arcade,
which had become Manila's stock ~ " t,here were 11\0DlOt& of
~ as gold-aune stockholders feverishly traded stocks among
themselves. Molt of the.stocks were ~ -P>St of " • ·
 'COll\paiues* :never sank a,ij,,,.,...•a.a
profits" were paper prollts. e
Crystal Arcade were a previe\9 of the l,dy
· time, when a can of beans would, through so m
selling, achieve. a fantastic price, though its contents haa.
rotten. ··
Into the 1930s the Pinoy male carried the jazz era's ''London'
of trousers, with bottoms as wide as cme's shoes were•~· Thde
bell-bottoms, usually in white duck or sharkskin, were matched \ti.th a
double-breasted americana. Formal wear meant, not "coat and tie,,.,
but the-tuxedo, strictly the tuxedo, with white tie, cummerbund, vest,
and patent-leather pump . The barong tagalog had become extinq.
For ' ~ da,nces" and Antipolo excursions, the stylish .wore strippi
camisadlino with gaudy neckerchiefs. Girls wore the wide slacks ttiat
Ginger Rogers was popularizing and had their hair set in the -~ -
nent, or cold, wave that spurred the mushrooming of ''beauty parlors''
all over the land. .
Campus antics in the style of Joe College and the John Held Jr.
cartoon juveniles further evidenced the Am~ricanization of our young.
Filipinos of the Empire Days did make an effort to maintain a cosmo-
politan outlook, but their children of the 1930s, confined to a world
completely bounded by Hollywood, Washington, Broadway and W..
dison Avenue, thought themselves very knowing and sophisticated
but were reallY. quite provincial compared with the generation of the
1900s, who were at least aware o~ the existence of other cultural
worlds.
During the 1930s, throughout the murk and misery of ~e Depress-
. ion, our basic product was ~nfidence. The hard times might have
•caused a loss of faith in a number of things - but not in the Gteat ,
Am~rican Dreamf True, a rising star on the politicaJ. scene, Manuel
Roxas, had founded the New I<atipunan, which proposed to turn the
Filipino's ey~ back to his own country, but the malicious noted that
Mr. Roxas addressed his New I<atipuneros 1n English, wearing -a
woolen suit.
The true mind of .the times was expressed by a m~ch-admired
c:oh:cmnist of the period, who saw in the collapR of a watchtower built
in Spudah times a touching parable on American superiority. That
:Watchtower, said he, was ~ to fall, since it was built with 1'4Nl-
Aaleibn materials
'-
1iiJ:• ~ t k ~ Had it been bailt
~r oJd Yankee-~'"'a1111 4111, it~leave ~lirever.
n111JUY had ha Spoken.~ , . . an ~ shook MmiJa and a
just,-a>mplet.ed • ~ • on the &mlta, the Hea~s building,
erected ac:madlng to the wry latest Ameriam know-how, sagged to its
knees and bad to be demolished.
If the thing was a portent, no one noticed. People were too busy
checking their Sweepstakes tickets and leaming how to aoon - for
this- was the heyday of the aooner and the country had already
produced a ''Bing Crosby of the Philipph:les," a "Russ Colombo of the
Philippines," and a horde of little native Shirley Temples.
We were also too busy teaming new dances: the Carioca, the Big
-Apple, the Lambeth Walk, the Boogie-WOQgie. And we were absorb-
ing a lot, of new terms: swing music, jam session, jitterbug, oemph
girl, glamour boy, in the groove. The two loudest street aies of the
period were Huli 'yan and Hi-yo Silt1er Away/
Only a few Filipino girls had bobbed their hair during the flapper
era. By the 1930s a Filipina with a head of hair had bea>me as rare as a
Filipino without it. And now a woman could wear make-up in public
without being mistaken for a bailarina or a vaudeville artista. For the
males, still spooting in double-breasted -suits ~th exaggerated shoul-
ders, Don Manuel Quezon (who, like the era, seemed to have ovei-
adne illness) set a new style: a fascist dark-blue or dark-brown shirt
wontwith a pastel tie apd a white de hilo suit. Thus attued, the groovy
jitterbugged to Flat Foot Floogie With The Floy Floy and A-Tisket A-Tasket
A Bruam And Yellow Baslcd. ,
To such noises did tne nation move towards the grandest happen-
ing of the decade: the establishment of the Commonwealth that was to
govem the country during the ten-year interim before the gtanlir'8 of
full independence.
This autonomy ended the colonial Governors-General. Ended as
well, it seemed, were the perpetual intramurals of the Partido Nacio-
aalista. The.year 1935 marked the final recoflriJiation between Quezon
and Osmefta. The two titans had battled through thn!e decades; now
they made peace in the name of autonomy - and Os1nefia showed
patness in aa.-epting the No. 2 role in a drama where he had .started
out as protagonist. In ht elections lorthe prelidency of the Comlbon-
weallh, Quezon faced; 1lCit hi, llllllll advenary, but two hapless
anaduoniams: General Eaeo ~ - - ~Cnpil>Af/1!--.
.-,.111ey ........ ptto
 On ~ember 15,. 1935, in Mas1ia, the nation-embar7ted on the raid
to independence from America. It was a Fridq: the ~ ~
"fine, clear and cold." Since daybreok all roads had led to tlte ......._.
tive Bqilding. By seven o'clock, about a quarter of a million people.
aowded the Sunken Gardens.
. At that hour, escorted by cavalry, Cadillac 1-1 drove O\lf'. of
Malacaiiang carrying U.S. War Secretary George. H. Dem and •
Frank Murphy, who the day before had ceased to be the Governoi"!
General of the Philippines on being sworn in as the first U.S. High
Comtnissioner of the islands.
Also at seven, Mr. Quezon and his family had left their Pasay home
in their car, escorted likewise by a company o.f horse.
The porch and driveway of the Legislative Building had been turned
into a grandstand, where guests from all over the world sought their
seats as the sun rose. Among those present: U.S. Vice-President John...
Nance Garner; Mr. and Mrs Francis Burton Harrison, former
Malacafumg residents.
For the VIPs, the uniform was cutaway, vest and top hat. Even
Manila Mayor Juan Posadas had for the nonce exchanged his trade-
mark white sun helmet for a silk topper. Just to be different, General
MacArthur came in gray doublebreasted suit and a straw hat with •
scarlet band. The young Nonong Quezon, still a gradeschooler, was in
white military uniform with gold braid and he glared at ladies who
begged him to autograph their programs. A number of gentlemen
chose to come in derby hats, among them the dashing Con-Con
delegate Enrique Magalona, whose young daughter Susan was then.
the darling of the nation.
The Filipino ladies were of course in temo, which was then still in
jusi, with panuelo and train. The foreign ladies wore hats.
Cebu Archbishop Gat,riel Reyes pronounced the invocation. Then,
at 8:58 a.m., Secretary Dern, personal representative of President
Roosevelt, read the Washington proclamation of the Commonwealth
of the Philippines. Judge Ramon Avancena swore in Mr. .Quezon as
President. Also sworn in were Mr. Osmena as Veep and 98 members
of the new unicall\eral National Assembly. (The day before, Senate
~ t Jose Avelino and Speaker Quintin Paredes had gaveled out
o f ~ tbe Philippine t,egjslature, lawmaking body of the land for
bfo'deatdes.) Mr. Quezon's bdef and fiery speech~ the__p1d
,-.de, in which thousande IIIU8helL
 For weeks, M$ila bad~ 111 ttw;lwaaaafc:ohmUWfl AnnliMlo G.
· "rich with ~ l\$ICh tJf ~ -a,me to attend the
;~..--~..~ - Catching every eye were thct retinues of tfte Moro sheiks -
Gerce-looking peacocks in their tight red trousers, rainbow j a ~ and
-green turbans, with ~pilan ~ at the lo~, a pistol in every
belt.
-The city had a variety of entertainment for the hordes of visitors;
vaudeville, talking pictures, a big basketball game, a gala rught at the
Santa Ana Cabaret.
Sh~g al the Cine Ideal was Bro,ulway Melody, with Robert Taylor
and Eleanor Powell. At the Lyric was Shirley Temple in Curly Top.
Matinee prices began at 40 centavos, excepl at the Capitol, where the
..i,oadshow run of Midsummer Night's Drmm Oames Cagney, Joe'E.
Brown, Mickey Rooney, Olivia de Havilland) cost a peso for an
orchestra seat. At the Fox Theater was a Tagalog musical, Awit ng
Pa"gibig, with Norma and Rosa del Rosario and Domingo Principe. The
big stars then of the native cinema were Carmen Rosales, Rogelio de la .
Rosa and Leopoldo Salcedo. ·
Sports fans trooped that afternoon to the tennis stadium at Rizal
Memorial for a re-match of the University of Santo Tomas team,
national ~ge champions, with the San Beda NCAA champs. UST,
with Primitivo Martinez and Mari Hernandez starring, outhustlec:l the
Bedans, despite heroic work by Clwtie "Blond Bombshell" Boidt and
Antonio "Bantam" Carillo.
That night there were fireworks at the Lunefa, a public ball at Plaza
Santa Cniz, and the bash at Santa Ana ~ , where the ftoorshow
bad Miami Salvador doing Hawaiian numbers and Bafani Casimiro
hoofing if"up with the Diaz Sisters.
The day ended as it had begun, with the weather very fine, clear
and cold, and crowds happily jostQng downtown. At Plaza Santa
Cruz, transformed into a vast ballroom under the stars, the hoi polloi
IIWUftg to the tunes of the snoment: Deep Purpl.e, 0.- to Chak, Raf
Stdls in the Sunset, Star D,ISf and You AflMy LNdcy Star.
Chapter 9: '1RJSINESS AS USUAL!"

PLAYING host to the world in 1937 during ·the eucharistic ~

Manila ~ it was no longer just a big t ~ but a worlc:l<lgs
metropolis, expert enough to stage an international happening. In-
trigued were the pilgrims by the juxtapositions of ancient and modem
all over the city. Also much praised: the beauty of streets like ~
Drive, Taft Avenue and Isaac Peral{ so tree-lined as to have ceilings of
foliage; and the tttusk of the past haunting Chinatown and the W.ited
Oty.
The city entered the Air Age with the establishment of the Pan..
American Clipper service between .Manila and the U.S. west coast.
Taxis were replacing· the old coches de garaje and the streets- weie
spawning a new bread of passenger vehicle: the Austin cab, or auto-
calesa, ancestor of the jeepney.
The decade that began with the building of the grandiose Post Of6.ce
on · the benks of the Pasig would climax with the building of the
Quezon Bridge and the Quezon Boulevard, lordly thoroughfares for
whose greater glory a historic section of Quiapo was o b l i ~
including the picturesque Puente Colgante. · ..,
But a public now accustomed to the stateliness of the neo-classic was
al&onted by the nonde$Crlpt•architecture of the Oty Hall rising juet a
.street away from the Legis]atiye Building and wondered why the
government of Manila should be housed in what vaguely looked like a
prison. . ,
War broke .out in Europe but aroused ito terror in a land that still
recalled how good the first world war had been for Philippine buii-,
ness. Besides, this was the time when our faith and confidence in
American almightiness wa!J at its most ardent. And wasn't MacArthur
training a new Philippine army in Gringo invincibility? The "trainees-,"
very young citizen soldiers in short pants, were wildly cheered and
applauded when they marched in parade. Who would have thought
that their ultimate destination would be horror and holocaust?
Nocturnal academies were springing up in Manila for a new kind of
youth: the "working students" - a commonplace today but a bold
mw race then. Their gods were "youth leaden" like Ernie Rodriguez
-.I Arturo Tolentino; apd. their ~ t i o n s - like the New Youth
r.tr~ the Young~-- ~ BditDn Guild - had
 come potent enough to aiutoy Quezoi\.
Beth the New Youth and the New FlliP,no Woman (who won the
right to vote in 1937) were personified by Camien Planas, ''Manila's
'-Sweetheart/' first lady councilor of the city (she topped the municipal
polls) and a different kind of feminine thorn in Quezon's side (she al9o
tangled with prelates). Mameng and her arch-rival. Josefina Phodaca
were the first to leaven the grossness of Philippine politics with the
yeast of feminine malice. . '
As the 1930s drew to a close, the voices of its doomed youth seemed
to grow louder. One saw the young gathered everywhere - on
~wey Boulevard in the evening, at jam sessions, at indignation rallies
and, noisiest of all, at the NCAA, the prime cage fiesta in Manila that
was turning basketball into a national obsession, providing the coun-
. try with a new set of idols: Arturo Rius, Charlie Borek, Moro Lorenzo.
The lights went out in Europe but our young sought sweetness and
light in the pictures of Deanna Durbin, an ikon of the era, and in the
beauty of the young Susan Magalona, a national topic at the end of the
decade. At the Crystal Arcade the mezzanines still rang with cries of
"Gold! Gold! Gold!" •
The holocaust had been kindled but the victims were unaware; and
Manila confidently swung into the 1940s mouthing slogans that now
sound sardonic: "Keep 'em flyingl" and ''Business as usual!" But they
were at that time the very tune of faith.
In 1940 the National Assembly imposed art 'immigration quota of 500
nation. Japan read this as a move to curtail Japanese immigration
the Philippines and its reaction was hostile. Then, early in 1941,
Quezon organized the Civilian Emergency Administration, to under-
take "defense work." Oearly, the Philippines was preparing for war.
Mine fields were laid at the entrance of Manila Bay and ships were
allowed to enter only in the daytime.
Iri July 1941, the Civilian Emergency Administration programmed a
~ of Manila "practice blackouts." The first one, on July 10, started
at 11:00 p.m. with a wailing of sirens. All lights in the city were
supposed to be turned off at once bat the 11,000 volunteer guards
ll'tonitorirtg the exercise had a busy time ordering forgetfulbouseholds
to bladt out.
But even with all -the city ~ts huned ol, Manih!ftos saw how
vub\eral,le f:hm city WJI, ft WM & fu&.moon: ~ md1.lie ~
~ in tlle:'ts,eq;Jf11st
 located the city through that luminous coil. "The river betrays ua,.n
aped ManileAos, shalcing their heads. But the ~ght gave them no
pause. They felt fO certaip that no bomber, no Jap bomber, would-ftef
get so close overhead to the dty u to be able to identify the shining
snake below as the ,Pasig River. Long before those enemy boamea
could inva(e Philippine air space, American fighter planes would'
have gone to intercept them and chase them away, or shoot thelll
down. The Americans had our sides protected by their air force. So:
"Keep 'em ftying!"
Maybe because of over-cortfidence, Manileflos resented farther
practice black-outs, especially the one in mid-November, which lasled
12 hours! No more seriously did Manilet\os take the first "practice
evacuation" of Manila civilians. The 400 ~acuees from Tondo and San
N°ICOlas were tittering uncontrollably as they boarded the buses that
were supposed to evacuate them to the highlands of San Mateo.
Actually, when war did break out, Antipolo was where Manilerlos, the
women and children, mostly evacuated to- and it was still a ~
lighthearted exercise, that December of 1941. Menfolk visiting their
families in the hilltown found Antipolo as merry as in Maytime, with
everybody •ying the war would be over by Christmas and thaf
MacArth would eat his New Year dinner at the Manila Hotel.
How fervently we sang God Bles!i America as we ftashed the V-signf
Indeed, before the bombs fell on Pearl Harborrthere had been such
an utter fearlessness among us that, despite such ominosities as
practice blackouts, practice evacuations, and the CEA, Philippine
commerce could chortle: "Business as usual!" And it was as true as i
word. ·
• As the old folks had predicted, the war in Europe had reinvigorated
Philippine business and we celebrated the end of hard times with a
gaudy new style: the Hawaiian shirt, untucked and uninhibited, and ii
blow against the bondage of the white drill suit. The women went
gaudy in the South American Way, a la Carmen Miranda, for the
dances of the period were the rhumba and the conga, though the
young stuck to the wild boogie and took their styles and manners from
Mickey Roortey ancf,Judy Garland and that new sensation of the
scretm, Betty Grable. The songs were bad and mad: Man,, Yo Quiero
-~~ Choo andJ1ae Music Goes Round ilnd Roun4. Not to
_.don that 86ogfe,-Woogie B9gle Boy from Company A.
Fan the ..,...., to ea..,,..._ VitD en. coms ~
ooulevard then ended on Vito Cruz, at-the comer white stood Casa
Manana, a night dub where the sounds Wffl! mostly Latin) Dewey
Boulevard nightly offered a vast jam session of youngstelS stomping in
~ right on the sea wall to the music of portable phonographs.
Into that groovy world of the boogie and the conga fell the bombs of
December 8, 1941.
 Chapter 10: ZERO HOUR MONDAY

AT five o'clock a.m., December 8, 1941, the Manila office of' the
· Associated Press rang up Executive Secretary Jorge Vargas with hor-
rendous news. The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor and the United
States had declared war on Japan. A moment later, staffers of the
United Press were reporting the cataclysm to Vargas. .
The executive secretary called up General MacArthur's office. Mac-
Arthur himseH confirmed the incredible report.
Vargas lost no more time contacting Mansion House in Baguio,
· where President Quezon was weekending.
"Mr. President, Pearl Harbor has been bon;tbed. by the Japanese and
war has been declared." _
"George, you're crazy! The Japanese would never dare. Where did
you get that nonsense?"
"From the United Press and the Associated Press. And General
MacArthur .says it's true."
"What happened?"
"A surprise attack, it seems- and with disastrous effects."
''Tell General MacArthur I'm coming down to Manila today!"
Seven o'clock brought a woman reporter from the Herald wanting a
statement from the President.
Said Quezon: ''The zero hour has arrived. I expect every Filipino -
man and woman - to do his duty. We have pledged our honor to
stand to the last by the United States and we shall not fall her, happen
what may."
Before he ,could have breakfast, the sky droned with planes and
suddenly Mansion House trembled. The Japs were bombing Baguio.
One bomb fell on: a house just outside Camp John Hay. The owner's
head was blown off. ·
That was the. blackest Monday of our times.
In those days, only the Bulletin, of Manila's morning dailies, came
out on Monday. Because his paper, ,t he Tribune, had no issue the next
day, Editor Joe Bautista had spent Sunday night at a party with his
family. They came home at two o'clock in the morning. At four"C>'clock
the phone rang. On the line was Don Alejandro Roces, owner of the
T-V-T.
"Hurry over to the office, Joe. Big news."
 ''What's up?''
"The Japs have bombed Pearl Harbor."
"Oh. I'll be right over." .
His wife awoke and he told her the news. She registered no special
reaction. It was just another headline, in a seasol) dark with headlines.
Save for the red-trousered sweepers, the chilly streets were empty
when Joe boarded a treetcar on Rizal Avenue. He took a seat beside
an American sailor.
"Hey, bud," said Joe to the sailor, "the Japs have hit the U_J."
''They wouldn't dare."
''They just bombed Hawaii."
"Must be some mistake. It's probably Hanoi you mean."
At the T-V-T there were only a couple of linotypists at work. It
would be impossible to put out an extra that morning. The casting
furnace was cold; it would take at least half a day to reheat. The
Tribune had long had a special cut in readiness: War Flames! - to be
used should war break out suddenly. The cut ~ould never be used
now. No one had counted on the war breaking out on a Monday
morning. Joe sat all alone in the editorial office and waited for the rest
of the staff to sho~ up. He had the biggest news of the year on his
hands and there was nothing he could do about it.
At the house in New Manila of Assemblyman Benigno Aquino, ,
nine-year-old Ninoy Aquino Jr. awoke, jumped out of bed, took a
bath, and hurried into his white shoes, white pants and jusi barong
tagalog. It was the college day of the Ateneo and Atenean Ninoy
Aquino was attending the gen.eral--communion mass at the college
chapel in lntramuros. On his way there, in the family car, he heard
dum:h bells ringing all over the dty and saw church-bound crowds on
the streets as though it were a Sunday. That Monday was the feast of
the hmnac:uJate Conception.
(For the Philippines, the war began and ended on a feast of the
V ~ for news of Hirohito's surrender in 1945 reached us on August
15, fast of the Assumption.)
Moat of the Manileiios trooping to·euly 111886 had not yet heard the
news. The city's mood was feative. lntramwoa windows ftew the
blue-alld-white banners of the Virgin and eveiy dfurch there wae

wt in MandaluJOIII, and
and in Taal, wl ~ 4XJUlllleN
in,...,
aowded. ·Many a Manila family waa attending' the fiesta in Malabon,
wt i n ~ . and~ Maloloe.
did had die Pv~ I • b
patroness. But what greeted city folk at eight oiclock a.m., dispelling
holiday spirits, was the BuJjetin Monday issue, with news on the Pearl
Harbor sneak attack. The Bulletin had scooped all the papers in town.
Just before the Bulletin came out, Tribune reporter Armando MaJay
had been startled awake by the booming of anti-aircraft guns. Una-
larmed (he thought it was just firing practice) he listened awhile,
lazing in bed. Upon getting up and hearing the bad news, he and his
wife Paula dug up all their savings and bought all the canned goods
five pesos could buy. (Don't snigger, as Paula Malay would say; five
pesos then could buy plenty.)' - .
At seven o'clock, Manuel and Lydia Arguilla were gaily breakfasting
on papaya when Manuel's kid brother came in with the bread and the
morning paper.
"We're at war," said he.
"Oh foolishness!" said Lydia.
"It says so right here," said the boy, holding u~ the paper. ·
The Arguillas gaped at the headlines.
, "SQ what?" said Lydia. "Those Japs will be licked in a month."
"Don't fool yourself," said Manuel. "This is going to take years."
''Well," said Lydia after a silence and more papaya, "what do we do
now?"
"Better go to the bank and get some cash," said Manuel.
At the Ateneo the young celebrants were being frantically fetched
home. Ninoy Aquino was jubilant. "No more classes! No more classes!
A long long vacation for all of us!" he told his sister when he got
heme. His mother looked troubled. (Assemblyman Benigno Aquino
was in the provinces; his eldest son _~as in the army.) With Ninoy,
Dona Aurora went downtown to buy groceries. The streets were
swarming with people. On the Escolta . Ninoy saw the Jap bazaar-
0wners being rounded up by soldiers.
When they got home Mrs. Aquino told the children to pack their
clothes.
"Are we going home to Tarlac?" asked -Ninoy. In Tarlac he could
ride the horses all day long.
"I don't know," said Dona Aurora. '1 don't know where we are-to ·
go. But s~rt packing, all of you. And be sure you take only what's
~-'' .
Ninoy ran upstairs and packed his riding pants ~ e l ~ train•
.For J ~ Mllriaac:t Albed'JJ -,aician dau.gh~ Telly, the war meant
llt,andoning all preparations for a "dream" wedding. She had planned
to be manied the followmg week, in an elaborate ceremony with Baby
Quezon as maid of honor. Baby Quezon called up to cancel a .shower
she was- throwing for 'telly Albert that Monday afternoon in
Malacaftang. Telly called up Ramoning Valera to cancel her wedding
gown. Then she summoned her bridegroom, post Rafael Zulueta da
Costa. They decided to keep their wedding date, war or no war. (They
would be married in haste, in a sacristy, during an air-raid; and would
spend their honeymoon .in a crowded evacuation center.)
.,Across the street from the Albert house, a crowd was pounding on
the closed doors of a grocery store. The owner refused to open: he said
his stock was all sold out. The mob smashed the glass windows and
surg~ into the store, fighting and screaming. From their windows,
the Alberts watched the wild looting. Could civilization crumble so
fast? In half an hour the store had been stripped clean, even of its
wooden shutters.
A huge mob,ias riotous too at the bank when Lydia Arguilla got
there; She promptly decided against fighting her way in. She would
go to Intramuros instead and visit her family. She was wearing
high-heeled shoes and had begun to repent them. There was no
transportation available. The army had commandeered all the buses
and taxis, and the rich seemed to have commandeered all theplesas.
Crossing Jones Bridge on her way to the Walled City, she paused to
touch the head of Mercury on the balustrade: the stone head at least
was still solid. She dropped in a moment at the Herald office, which
she found in uproar. Dashing down the stairs was newshen Yay
Panlilio, in slacks, camera slung over a shoulder. "Keep 'em flying!"
yelled Yay as she fled.
At noon Assemblyman Benigno Aquino arrived at home and found
his fa~y at lunch. Mrs. Aquino burst into tears - her first tears that
day. Do\\ Benigno told them he had seen Clark Field being bombed.
Then he ran upstairs, changed his· clothes, and rushed off to
Malacafumg, for an emergency conference. Nino:,, Aquino · became
restive: when were they going to "evacuate" to Tarlac? Then twelve
carloads of refugee relatives arrived frQm Tarlac. Ninoy was in ecstasy;
his mother was speechless for a moment.
Frotn the conference i n ~ where it was decided to set the
Emergency Ovilian Adminisbation in motion, Executive Secretary
Jorge V.arps went h ~ ~ Ind plapc,l tennis. He told his
family not to wony. At the conference, ukl ~. it had ~ ~
that the war ~ould last, at the most, three months; d government
employees were therefore to be given thiee months' advance pay.
After inspecting the air-nid shelter he had built in his swimming pool,
Vargas returned to the Palace. Quezon was still in Baguio, waiting for
his aide-de-camp, Colonel Nieto, who was coming from Manila to
fetch the President but was held up by traffic jams on the road and the
unceasing air-raids.
Varps informed President Quezon that the Japanese had bom-
barded Clark ·field and that the entire air base was in flames.
"Pufleta!" aied Quezon. "What the hell are the American planes
doingr' Neither he nor Vargas knew that the Japs had already wiped
out the American air force in the Philippines. But people were still
cackling: ''Keep 'em flying!"
W h i l e ~ Vargas was returning to Malacaflang, Lyd ~
was wandering around lntramuros. She had had lunch with her
family and was waiting for four o'clock so she could fe~ Manuel.
Passing a hovel built in a niche in the qty wall, she thought: That
would make a good air-raid shelter. She went into the Cathedral. Jt
was the one peaceful place in the dty. Up in the dome the little birds
were twitterili:g as usual. Life had been 10 sweet, so happy. What
would happen now? (Three years later, Manuel Arguilla would be
dead, killed by the Japs; and Lyd wO\lld be up in the mountains with
Yay and Marking's guerrillas.)
At four she fetched Manuel and they had c9ffee at a Chinese stoie.
People kept coming in, clamoring for canned goods.
'1 have some money," said Manuel. ''We might as well buy some-
thing too."
But there were no more foodstuffs- only pomade, bobby pins, and
matches.
~'Matches are always necessary," said Manuel. "Let's buy a lot of
matches."
Instantly, everybody in the.store began buying matches too.
Walking home in the chilly twilight, the Arguillas saw A.merican
soldiers digging trenches in the Luneta. ·
"Black-out tonight," said Lydia.
/)And this time, the real thing/' said Manuel.
ddkhen ~ t to...,
~ d ~ last on the weary city. T h e ~ women and
wllile·- .,- ielltives ~ tlte garden.
182
Rafael Zulueta, who had stayed for klnch., then for supper, at the
Alberts' was asked to sfay the night: it would b.e too dangerous ta walk
home in the blaclt'"()Ut. At the Tribune office, Joe Bautista. and his men
were keeping a 24-hourYigil. The Arguillas supped by candlelight and
retired early. Secretary Vargas went home late in the night he did not
like to sleep in Malacanang and had never sta.yed the I!_ight there.
At Tutuban station, a multitude slept on the stone floor, pillowed on
suitcases and bundles of clothing, waiting for trains. Civilian guards
roamed the dark streets; searchlights probed the heavens. The dark-
ness was total, protective, sweet.
Then the moon rose.
And suddenly the sky hummed with pbmes, explosions rent the
silence, the earth rocked. The Japs were bombing Nichols Field.
Young Ninoy Aquino bounded out of bed an~ ran to the window.
There, to the south, he saw a mighty pillar of fire, swaying with the
I
wind. Joe Bautista and ~ d o Malay saw it too, from the top-story
windows of the T-V-T building. Telly Albert rushed downsta.irs and
fell to her knees sobbing, bµt could get no farther than the first line of
the Hail Mary, which she kept repeating over and over. Rafael Zulueta
stumbled through the reeling darkness and gathered his screaming
bride in his arms. Secretary Vargas herded his large clan clown to their
spacious air-raid shelter. Awakened, the Arguillas listened but did not
rise. ,
"It's far from here," said Manuel.
The house shook and groaned again. Lyd waited for what her
husband would do.
"lf it's a direct hit, it's a direct hit,_" said Manuel. "We might as well
be a>mfortable."
After a long while the immense silence rolled baclt.
''There, it's over," said Manuel. ''Let's go baclt to sleep. We'll have a
lot to do tomorrow."
 -w
~ as nuns of any not
in aurununity because the sodal law a t tune was
woman should be Ul)der maleaQrhority- that of her father,
brother or son. But women could not live under female aQ
their own choosil}g, as the bea:tas were doi:(tg.
In other words, the bea,ta movement of the 17th cen
pioneering in Women's Lib. And because they elected
superiQIS, they were the first F'dipinas to use the ballot.
Francisca Fuentes, Antonia Ezguerra, the Hermana Se
their cehorts had to battle both Church and State to assert a
right to -exist outside male dominion. And their triumph
recognition by both Church and State of their community as a
beaterio, a legitimate orpni7.ation.
NeUher Antonia Ezguetta nor the Hermana Sebastiana lived
that fulfillment. It was left for Fnmdsca Fuentes, thenceforth kn
as Mother Franc:isca del F.spirttu Santo, to act as the foundress of
Beaterio de Santa Catalina, the first Philippine teligious comm
established on July 26, 1696.
For 349 years, or until- 1945, Santa Catalina stood in lntramuros,
Calle Beaterio, next door to Letran; anctthe school it ran was, until
tum of the omtury, the top girls' achool in the land, its nffiil&
their elegant Spanish.
The second native ~oua community, the Beaterio de San
tian, was fpundecl by two sisters, Dionisia and Cecilia 'I
daughten of a POOJi peasant c:ouple of Calumpit, Bulacan. In 1719
two sisten came to Manila and settled down in Quiapo's
Calumpang (the pzesent Bilibid Viejo), where they supported
selves as seamstresses. They lived as solitaries, emerging onl
attend servkes at the nearby duttch of San Sebastian.
Like the .,_.tas of lntramuros, the sisters Talampas had to fight
for the righl to start a religious house. But finally, on Jul 16,
they with the mantle-of a Reeollet
1r' - ~• did ~ and em.broiclery, and heel iii 'ii pt'den
opposite the ~ Sebastian. There were eforts to close the
beaterio; people were shc:icbd by the independence of these women
who had not taken the veil and abandoned the world and yet lived
apart as if _under a government of their own. When the Marqu& de
Obando became governor-general, he too was baffled and vexed by
these Philippine beabls who seemed_to be neither fish nor fowl,
neither nun nor secular, and he ordered the beatas of San Sebastian to
stop wearing habits and living in seclusion. The beatas resisted- and
they prevailed.
The Beaterio de San Sebastian has survived three turbulent centu-
ries. It is still at its old site on the Plaza del Carmen, where it runs St.
Rita's College. The beatas are now known as the Missionary Sisters of
the Recollet Third Order.
The mystical movement in · Manila climaxed with ~ career of
Mother Ignacia del Espritu Santo. A Chinese mestiza !,om in 1663, in
the Parian (her surname was lncua), she pw_up in Binondo but her
spiritual education was under the Jesuits of Intramuros.
At 21, to escape being married off, Ignacia left home and went to live
as a recluse in lntramuros. Other women joined her and there was
presently quite a large community in the hermitage at the CQl'ller of
Victoria and Santa Lucia.
This community was formally established as the Beaterio de Ja
Compuua, under the spiritual direction but in no way an adjunct of
the Jesuits. Mother Ignacia limited admission to. "pure Indias" and
Chinese mestizas desirous of learning "the ways of perfection."
A pioneer labor of this beaterio was the conducting of retreats for
women - retreats that drew native women as well as Spanish ladies
and mestizas. All these women-of diverse races lived together during
the eight days of each -retreat, and together worked, ate and prayed.
Racial integration started in the beaterios.
Mother Ignacia died on September 10, 1748, at the age of 85, having
headed the Beaterio de la Compania for 64 years. Popularly regarded
as a saint, she was honored with the lond o ~ reserved for great
personages. The lords-temporal and ~ of ~eland a«ompanied
the bier te San .laftllldO.
With ~!llllMll., the mystklal alil!Nll111mt•fn**;tiDme to a dose,
about aiumdred' y-. after t h e ~ oth Hemuma S - .
~-~~ -of
that 111ovemmt but its ~ i8 a layman, ~ Riai»
'Sinon~, the first Filipino to be canc,ni%ed by the Church: '1¥B one of
the glories of Maiwa that the first Filipino saint was a Manilefto.
little is known of l..onmz()Ruiz t,eyond a few~ facts: that he~
.a Chinese mestizo; thal he was a clerk of the Binondo P8l1sh -~ ;
that he was-married and ~ .father; and ~t he was fleeing .a aimilw
chatge when he joined that-'fatal expedition to Japan.
This was in 1636, when Japan had outlawed Christianit,M,d dosed;
its door to foreign missionaries, especially those from'Mjdla. With
Lorenzo Rutz w«e three Dominicans, two of them S~~
French. Fray Antonio Gom.ales wa~ a former rector andi;fray
Jetmo Courtet was a former professor of Manila's Univ~of
Tomas. Fray Miguel Ozaraza was formerly a missionary ~•tua.
The group sneaked into Japan through Riulciu in 1 ~ ~
their way to Kiushiu with a Japqtese Christian and a JaP&IJlle secuJ,r'
priest. They were all arrested the following year, 16.17,
Nagasaki for questioning.
takf:li_,
During the tortures, the Japanese-priest faltered in spirit
tized but, on seeing the fortitude with which his com
further ordeals, he reaffirmed his faith and rejoined
torture chamber.
Lorenzo Ruiz too had his moment of faltering blitin UltMlll{I •
repined his spirit on ~ w i t h what v.alor .Fray Aliimio
zaJes underwent the water cum. That was when ~ ~
that nothmg could temmze him into renouncing his faith,:
pain--
With his-c::ompanions he conq,letedthe litany of ms b,ea4'
shaved and smeared with red dye,had his hands tied behi{ldhimand
his mouth gagged, and on horseback was taken to Mount/P a ~
w~ he and his four .companions were thrown into deep pits. ,At
once resounded from those pits an exultation of prayer and canticle.
Once, the Japanese guards haul~ the prisoners out to see i f ~
cared to recant but the queer Christians merely asked theit forgi\t~
for 1?eing such a nuisance. When the pits were next opened, thtee of
the Christians wei:e still alive and were beh~. LOlrenzo Ruiz and
the Japmese Jayman were already dead.
In Manila the news was feceived with rejoicing ua ,,.,._ph
~ , , ,ancl dlllntied with Te,W111111, :a ~
of,._
and Sie--
Olapter 8: MANILA EXTRAMUROS

BEFORE the British invasion, there was a Manila·intramuros (inside the

walls) and a Manila extramuros (outsid' the walls). The latter was a
series of settlements on the banks of the moat that surrounded the
walls and it extended from what's now the Old Luneta to what's now
the Lhyasang Bonifacio.
There were at least six of these original suburbs and they were:
Ba~bayan, Santiago, San Juan, San Fernando de Dilao, San Miguel
and \he Parian. ·
Bagumbayan and Santiago were on the bayside, approximately
where the Old Luneta is. San Juan was where the western part of Rizal
Park is, up to the Congress building. San Fernando de Dilao occupied
the present site of Gty Hall and the Normal College. San Miguel stood
in the San Marcelino area, where Adamson U, the Sweepstakes Office
and Hotel Mirador. now stand. The Chinese Parian was on the banks
of the Pasig where later would rise the Post Office, Plaza Lawton, the
Metropolitan Theater and the Jardin Botanico.
Earliest of these suburbs was Bagumbayan, or New Town, built
after Legazpi occupied the island of Maynilad, burned and abandoned
by Soliman's folk, who fled across the river to Tondo. Those who later
returned were mostly of the native nobility and, their old kingdom of
Maynilad being now in the hands of the Spanish, they decided to
settl~on the bayside 801'.lth of the old kingdom.
A 1591 report to the king listed "300 whole tributes" in the new
village of Bagumbayan: "This means 1,200 souls." About a third of
these were under the care of the Augustinians and heard mass at San
Agustin ins~de the walls. The rest were under the charge of the parish
priest of Ermita, where they heard mass, at the shrine of La Virgen de
Guia.
Adjoining Bagumbayan on the seaside was the village of Santiago,
which apparently began as a Spanish settlement, for those of the
whites who didn't care to live inside the walls. They had a church of
their own manned by a secular priest, with St. James the Apostle as
patron.
A famous legend about this village of 5.µltiago is that on the night of
the great earthquake of November 30, 1645, the lndiQ saaistan was up
in the belltower ringing the llell for Animas (the evemil8 prayer for the
dead) when the tower began to sway. The sacristan aied to St. jaJnes
for help and on the instant a "caballero" appeared who bade him have
no fear: he would be saved. The tower crashed down, along with the
church, but the sacristan was ·found lying on the ground in a faint,
unhurt. When he came to, he related how he had been saved by a
"caballero" on a flying horse who had ridden through the air to the
belltower just before it crashed.
The village of Santiago may have had a neighbor. There is mention
of a village called San Antonio, apparently beside Santiago, . being
"also near the walls," and also under the charge of a secular priest, but
little more is known of this suburb called San Antonio except that it
was likewise ruined by the 1645 earthquake. Perhaps it wa-s never
rebuilt and thus faded from memory. ,,.
The village of San Juan must have been a fine location, for there, in
the 1600s, Governor Pedro de Acuna built himself a summer house,
with gardens and ponds, "only 300 paces from the walls." When the
governor died, the newly arrived Recollets bought the property and
there established their first convent and school. .
Said a chronicle: ''The arts and theology were studied at that school.
In the convent rest three incorrupt bodies of the fm;t founders, so well
preserved in a country so damp and hot it is regarded by all as a
miracle. Moreover, that college possessed a great treasure in the image
of Our Lady of Health. Brought from Mexico, the installation of the
image was celebrated with great pomp in the presence of. the Real
Audiencia, and the church was soon filled with votive memorials.
offered by the faithful."
Next to the Recollets' San Juan was the Franciscans' Dilao, where
the friars ran a hospital for lepers (the original San Lazaro) and a
mission house under the advocacy of Our Lady of Candlemas. This
village of Dilao was where some Japanese Christians lived, under the
care oLthe Franciscan friars.
The site is assumed to have been called Dilao (yellow) because it was
the Japanese ghetto but the name may actually refer to a plant there
that yielded a yellow dye. The titular patron of the parish church was
St. Ferdinand the King but popular devotion prompted pilgrimages to
La Candelaria. In 1603 the Japanese in Dilao numbered some 500.
The original parish of San Miguel was established in 1618, as
another mission for the Japanese, but under Jesuit auspices. Japanese
refugees fleeing the rule of the tyrant Tayc:osama were gravitating to
Manila, to the Japanese enclave on the left bani of the Puig, where
the Jesuits, many of whom were leammg Nippoitgo, preached to them
in their own tongue.
Since many of the refugees were samurai, or warriors, the Jesuits hit
on the idea of proclaiming a soldier saint as the patron of the growing
Japanese community, to attract the knights among the migrants. _And
what heavenly soldier was more glorious than St. Michael the Arch-.
angel? ·
Hence the name of the parish of San Miguel, for which Governor
Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera would build a "rich and very beauti-
ful" church in thanksgiving for having escaped death during his 1637
campaigns in Mindanao.
By 1622 the archbishop of Manila was notifying the king of Spain
that most of the Japanese in the Philippines had been instructed in the
Christian faith, especially those dwelling in the Manili suburbs of
Santiago, Dilao and San Miguel, and in the province of Cavite. Of t1!-
Japanese migrants then, 1,500 w~re Christian.
A rectory built in San Miguel in 1627 would go down in history as a
"seminary for martyrs," because many of the Jesuits assigned there
would later shed their blood for the Faith in Japan.
Largest of the original suburbs was the Chinese quarter, or Parian,
where the Sangley had their silk market, porcelain factories, tool
shops and o,ther hardware stores, not to mention the eating houses
where Filipinos first developed a taste for "comida China." The
panciterja began in the Parian.
By late 18th centwf, Manila extramuros had bea)me a teeming
crescent confronting Manila intnunuros with a jumble of roofs, towers,
massive stone churches and crowded streets. The pcu,ulation of the
Parian alone, fur instance, periodically zoomed over 30,000, when the
government ha~decreed that the Chinese there wen! not to exceed
6,000 in number.
Ail alarmed military COJJ\Plained that their guns on the city walls
would be' thwarted by this barricade of -extramJU'OS roofs in case of an
enemy invasion. But the Church rejected in horror the army's demand
that the whole of Manila extramuros be cleared away, along with the
anabales of Malate, £rmif« ~d Binondo.
The British invasion FOVed how right were the lean of the military. ·
The enemy, after lal\dinlon MaJate beach, towmd&Jhe-
:Walled City;under~of ~~ -~ - ilfie ~
WAR broke out between ~ and England in 1762. A British fleet
sped east to capture Manila. ~ invading squadron of 13 ships was
under Admiral Samuel Comish. The fighting forces, totaling 6,830
men of which 800 were Sepoy fusiliers from India, were under Briga-
dier General William Draper.
The fleet entered Manila Bay on the evening of September 14, 1762.
Two officers landed to deliver the demand that Manila be surrendered
to the furces of his Britannic majesty, George m (the mad king wbo
lost the United States). The demand being rejected, Draper disem-
barked his troops on the black sands of Malate.
Next day, September 23, the enemy seized th.e villages ot Malate,
Ermita, 13agumbayan, Santiago and San Juan. Cannon were mounted
on the stone churches of these villages and the bombardment of the!
Walled City began. Manila was being shelled from its own daughter
suburbs! •
The defending regiment inside the walls numbered only 600 troops
with 80 pieces of artillery. Just the European troops alone under
Draper included 1,500 soldiers, two companies of artillery, and 3,000
seamen armed with muskets - all this in addition to some 2,200
Sepoy Indian troops and workers.
The Philippines was then without a governor. Acting as head of
state was Manila Archbishop Manuel Antonio Rojo, a defeatist from
the start, disheartened by the superior forces of the enemy. But a party
of militants headed by Simon de Anda of the Real Audiencia blocked
every effort of the archbishop to surrender to the British, even as
British guns in extramuros m~essly stunned, Intramuro_s.
Fue from the defending batteries on the walls of Manila_had little
elect on an enemy safely entrenched inside stone churches and
moving unseen through the dense residential mazes of extramuros.
That was when the public realized that the Spanish military were
right in warning that the suburbs just across the moat of the walls
were as a noose around the neck of Manila. -
Archers from· Pampanga, Bulacan and Laguna were let loose With
bow-and-arrow on those residential labyrinths, to shoot-
invaders - but theirs was moetly a terror value. The
thoee:lolkof .t.,ow~
~Ud.~GllllQl theintol>ombud~.
After the British invasion, tht-..nny's demand that ~
suburbs be removed could no longer be denied, although the Chwdl
still succeeded in preventing the demolition of Malate, Ermita and
Binondo.
The parish of Dilao wa& moved south to the banks of the Estero de
Paco. The parish of San Miguel was transferred across the river to the
marshy island called Malacai\ang. The rest ol Manila extramNTOS -
Bagumbayan, Santiago, San Juan and the Parian - was completely
exterminated. That's the '1ost'' Manila we-never knew.
Where the extramuros villages stood, there appeared a wide swath of
open land extending in a great arc from the bayside to the riverside.
On that cleared ground is where we now see Rizal Park, Burgos Drive,
and Mehan Gardens and the Liwasang Bonifacio.
JJ all that area had·been kept clear of construction (as the S ~ h
military wanted) we might have had a h1.1-ge Central Park running from
the river to the bay. However, we did get the Luneta - the best
legacy, you might say, of the British Occupation.
 tilt oft your head as shoot n-e a>lumns of native ~ •
marched on the churches of .,..,_ Ermita and Santiago but were
driven back by the withering fire of the enemy.
Astonishingly enough, when the situation was most desperate, the
aaven Archbishop Rojo led 580 natives and a number of Spanish
volunteers in an effort ~ stop the British advance. They failed - and
the British entered Manila on October 4, 1762.
When the Union Jack was seen waving from Fort Santiago, •
warsbips on the bay boomed their hooray. For three hours the city-w
given over to the troops to be looted, with the Sepoys proving to
the most rapacious. Even graves were vandalized.
The British demanded four million pesos as "indemnity" but Rojo:
could raise only half a million. Though the whole of the archipelago
was surrendered to them, the invaders actually occupied only Manila,
Cavite and Pasig. They successfully invaded Malolos but could not
hold it.
An effort was made to win over the country so the Philippines
would volunteer to become a British colony without having to be
conquered province by province. The people were told that, wl)eieas
they had to pay tribute to the king of Spain, they would not have Jo:
pay anything to the king of England. But the public h,eld the Britishers.
in horror, having been told that they were infidels who, if allowed to
rule the Philippines, would completely wipe out religion.
Only in Ilocos Sur, where Diego Silang had raised the cry of revolt in
_ Vigan, might the British have enjoyed a voluntary cession of territoiy
- territory which they could have kept even after the war. But
between Manila and the Ilocos were the Tagalog and Pampango
provinces, which, being staunchly loyalist, prevented any British
advance northward.
Who were won over to the British side in large numbers were the
Chinese. When the British marched on Bulacan, in their ranks wei:e
companies of Chinese volunteers. In Pampanga the Chinese battled
Simon de Anda, who had set up a guerrilla government in Baa>lor.
Rebel grappled with loyalist in Guagua. The Chinese were crushed:
hundreds of them fell on the battlefield. Those who got captured were
hanged.
j o . ~ ~ ~. . . all tile .
W~hiniNH~ofthe~,deidaring
that Ardlbishop Rojo and the other collabciraton 4n the Manja gov-
ermnent were "dead m the eyes of the Jaw," since they weie actually ·
prisoners-of-war of the enemy, During the war, Anda's guerrilla
govemment was able to confine the enemy to the delta area and to
keep the country in general loyal to Spain. He was much admired for
his courage-and much loathed for his wild temper.
Also.heroes of the British war were a host of anonymous friars who
left their convents, took up arms, and led the resistance in Cavite,
Laguna, Bulacan and Pampanga. The Franciscans of Laguna held off
the British while treasure smuggled out of hiding was conveyed to
Anda in Pampanga. When Chinese rebels -armed by the British at-
tacked Pasig, they were driven back by an impromptu army captained
by a Franciscan friar. The fiercest fighters were the A~stinians,
whom the British abhorred as mortal antagonists. Ten Augustinians
died in action and nineteen were captured in battle. An Augustinian
friar led the guerrilla band that ambushed British troops in Bulacan.
It is said that several of the friar guerrilleros became so fond of
fighting they did not return to their convents at the end of the war but
continued operating in the boondocks, this time as bandit lea4ers.
The British Occupation was a proud hour for the Tagalog and
Pampango, who, by staying steadfast, saved the country from being
dismembered- as it might have been, for instance, by the rebellion of
Diego Silang. Silang "acknowledged the King of England as his legiti-
mate sovereign" and allowed himself to be appointed mayor of Vigan
by the British governor of Manila. Had the Silang revolt succeeded,
there might have been a British North Luzon as there was a British
North Borneo. ·
Our first contact with the King's English left no touch of Cockney on
our culture. But Cainta town still shows the Sepoy nose and coloring
that came over in 1762. Many of the Sepoy fusiliers deserted and hid
out in Cainta during the war and were left behind when the British
troops sailed away.
A valuable disillusion is what 9UI' history owes the Union Jack. The
British war made us realize that Spain was past its prime and that its
arms were invincible no more-.
When Manila.fell on Octebet 5, 1762, the ~that s u ~ never
set on the.S p a n i s h ~ ~ for a while. It roae11pin:1N1~:tae1··
t,eeat-,undecf.-4dw~•~ ~ WOOldJindit~sink-
ChapterlO:INFRASTRUCl'URING

IF the 17th century was metaphysical, the 18th century was distinctly ·
physical, its concern focused on infrastructures for the city of man. In
this era began the idea of a Greater Manila.
The old concept of the city as a Spanish enclave inside the walls
faded away as more and more of the I<astila abandoned Intramuros
and moved to the arrabales. Not all the entreaties of the governors
could stop the depopulation of the Walled City. When Intramuros had
less than 400 households, Binondo had over 700- a record number-in
those days.
The flight to outside the walls of course changed the character of the
arrabales: they were no longer "suburbs," they were "city." And the
Cabildo of Manila recognized this by funding more and more infra-
~tture for that part of the city, until Santa Cruz had el~ven paved
-streets, Quiapo had fourteen, and more barrios were planned for
Tondo, San Miguel, San Sebastian and Sampaloc.
San ·Miguel, newly reestablished across the river on the swampy
islet of Malacaiiang, was especially favored by the I<astila, who began
building summer houses on its riverside. Where San Miguel and the
other villages of Extramuros had been before the British war, was nOw
an empty .~weep of ground stretching from the bay to the great bridge
across the Pasig connecting Aduana with Binondo. On this swath of
ground were built two parks: the Luneta beside the bay and the Jardin
Botanico -beside th~ river. -Between these two parks ran a boulevard
formally titled Paseo de las Aguadas (because it skirted the meat?) but
more commonly called Paseo de Bagumbayan. .
The great bridge (not yet known as Puente Espana) at the Aduana
point of the river was in a ruinous state in 1729- and was rebuilt at a
cost of over 20,000 pesos. A further reconstruction was carried out by
the Recollet Fray Lucas de Jesus Maria in 1757. He did such a fine job
the governor-general conferred on him the title of "Administrator of
the Royal Public Works."
A new Ayuntamiento, or City Hall (the second on the site), was
started in 1735 and apparently took more than three years to .finish.
The edifice, described as "the best in the islands," was of stone and
two stories, with a clock tower~ an arcaded facade, and interior
courtyards.
 ing even as the Union Jade steadily~ to J)l'9daim Great Britain :the
new imperial -champion. .
The setting sun that everyone can eye inspired, in the Philippines,
mutinous ideas of separatism.
But, to repeat, the best legacy of the British Occupation is that swath
of open country (and potential parkland) that appeared when the
extramuros villages were cleared away. They were removed not only
because they had proved how dangerous they were but because for a
long time after 1764 Manila continued to fear another British invasion.
So, the Parian was abolished; San Miguel crossed the river; Dilao
moved east to Paco; and Bagumbayan vanished,- becoming the half-
, moon of the Luneta.
But the full moon of a great Central PMk extending from river to bay
never materialized .

...
 On the lower flt><>r were the mayor's office, the scriveners' offkts,
the vaccination clinic, and the municipal jail. Upstairs were the session
hall, the archives, the chapel and the auditorium. In the session hall
was a portrait of the king under a velvet canopy, and a table round
which the Cabildo, or municipal council, sat, on chairs upholstered in
red velvet. At the other end of the room from the king's canopy was
the curtained entrance to the royal chapel. Above the doorway was a
crucifix flanked by images of St. Andrew, patron of Manila, and St.
Augustine. It seems that by the 18th century Manila had already
·forgotten its original patroness, St. Potenciana.
The February 1, tm earthquake destroyed the churches of San
Miguel and Ermita, the convents of the Recollets and Franciscans, and
so many of the lntramuros houses that the flight from there became an
exodus. But City Hall was spared - and would survive for nine
decades more.
The 18th century is usually scorned as a backward time when
obsession with the Galleon Trade led to the n~glect of agriculture. But
prehispanic farming, .when ours was a subsistence culture, hardly
produced enough food even for local consumption, as Legazpi discov-
ered in the Visayas. By the 18th century, however, we were producing
- and in trade quantities - not only rice but also com, wheat, coffee,
tobacco, indigo, cotton, pepper, sugar, copra, hemp, etc. We were
self-sufficient in flour, it is said, because we were growing all the
wheat we needed. Only when cheap wheat from California was
dumped on the Philippines in the 19th century did our own wheat
industry decline.
Moreover, our aboriginal economy demanded the involvement of
the entire community in food production. But by the 18th century, our
mastery of such tools as wheel, plow and draft animal had made it
possible for food to be pl!oduced by only a few. The rest of the
community were thus relettsed for the specialized tasks that mean
civilization, like the arts and sciences. In the 1760s Governor Jose Raon
was implementing the royal order of a school and a teacher in every
village.
What's often cited against the 18th century are grisly happenings
like the killing of Governor Fernanc,lo Manuel Bus~te - happen-
ings that seem to indicate a priest-ridden society still groping about in
the Dark Ages.
Bustamante was a reform governor (1717-19) with good intentions
but a ~ ~ - He d8e4lhe militia to tfflel'be:lhe ~ - He
4Ued the jails to over$,wing but his. ptisonets were not all govem-
menf crooks he had caught SOQle Wete people who inere1y disagreed
with him~ When he jailed the archbishop of Manila, it provoked a
demo. ,
Ang,:y mobs marched to the palace waving banners and -crucifixes
and yelling: "Church, religion, and king!" They were met on the
palace stairway by Bustamante, who wielded a gun in one hand, a
sword in the other. When his order_tQ halt was not heeded, he fired
into the crowd. ''Death to the tyrant!" shouted his visitors, rqshing up
the stairs. The governor plunged his sword into the first body to
approach him .and then could not pull out the sword fast enough to
drive back those who were surrounding him. He was cut down with
dagger and spear. A son of his who came to his rescue was likewise
stabbed to death.
The mob then stormed Fort SanJjago and released the imprisoned
archbishop. The prela~ would assume the governorship, as interim
head of state. He decreed a pension of a thousand pesos for the family
of Bustamante but the widow reje<:ted it. The bloody demo occurred
.on October 11, 1719.
The happa,ing is ugly but what caused it can be equated with the
system of checks and balances, a beautiful feature of democracy.
Because of the distartce of Manila from Madtid, the Spanish kings
were persuaded to gratJ,t their Phili},pinf: toyal govemOIS almost
ab$ohite pewers. It\ eftiect, the executi-¥e was- also the legislative-and
the judiciary. He headed anny and navy. Ah.dhe w.as answerable only
to the king.
Against this potentate, the-only-checks and balaftc,1e8 were provided
t,y-the O:turch, princlpally the friars, who served as 1he oppPSition.
lie opposition was sometimes "holy/' as in the friars' campaign
aAin5t the-abuses of the encomenderos, and 9'mletimes "unholy," as
ilt this killing ot Bustamante - though we should remember that,
before the fatal demo, the governor had oiled out and sicked his
vigilantes on the public.
Anyway, the point belle ii not i n ~ berwMn Church and
5-e, but the<-11atutal fewl bettAwn~t Uld bpp<>Sition. It's ./
like tb.e daa.h ~ ~ B Qf. ~~Archbishop
8'cket, witlt ~ --dift- - 1~ .i n ~ C i S e ltwa.: lGng
~MO;~ . ..
 OMINOUS was the arrival in Manila in 1765 of the ship Buen Consejo,
only a couple of months after it sailed from Spain. It had gone by way
of the Cape of Good Hope and the Indian Ocean, a route monopolized
by the Portuguese when it led to what they claimed was their half of
the world.
Since the Borgia pope, Alejandro Sexto, divided the ·globe between
Spain and Portugal, the Spanish were barred from using this eastward
route around Africa to the Orient. So, an opposite "passage to India"
had to be found.
The Philippines could ~ claimed for Spain's half of the globe
because Magellan reached it by sailing west. Which is why eatlf
documents refer to the Philippines as "the Isles of the West." Altd
Manila had to ship its goods across the Pacific to Mexico (though those,
goods were actually intended for Europe) because the direct route to
Spain via the Indian Ocean was taboo to the Manila Galleon.
But now here was the Buen Consejo as harbinger of - what? It had'
used the quicker direct route and J'lO one had barred it. (Portugal was a
waning empire, its half of the world rent apart by the Dutch and the
British.) The merchartts in Manila got gooseflesh wondering i f ~
Buen Consejo had brought ruin to the Galleon Trade.
The voyage to Acapulco took as long as five months and was
moreover very costly and risky. Would the example of the Buen Consejo
start a move to abolish the Manila-Acapulco galleons in favor of a.-
direct Manila-Seville trade? Unwilling to lose their galleon monopo--
lies, the Manila merchants campaigned for the retention of the ACll.-
pulco market. They did not know it but what they won was but ,a
reprieve. The Manila Galleon was doomed.
The Manila-Seville trade via the Cape of G_pod Hope was already in
the works, bringing Europe closer to Manila. By the reform spirit of
two organizations founded in Manila in the 1780s was the breath of
Europe brought more quickly to our city.
The Economic Society of Friends of the Country (1781) was a project
of the very progressive Governor Jose Basco. He wanted the Philip-
~ deve!Qped so fully as to become self-supporting.
,;;?.;;;~-~l.\'iOI ~ track,, on themaer hand, was the concern
the ~ O:unpany of tl),t ~ (1785'),. whieh. Wlll\tedJbe
~ - . n t ~ f r o m ~~
Capitalized at eight i:nillion peS()I (of which a million w a s ~
by'the king of Spain), the Royal C ~ y had the exclusive privilege
of receiving in Manila, not only Chinese and Indian goods, but, more
importantly, Philippine products.
Another privilege was using the direct route to Europe in shipping
its exports to Spain. Manila exempted these exports from duties. At
the other end, the Spanish port of Seville waived import tariffs on all
Philippine goods brought in by the Royal Company. .
So, in the twilight decades of the 18th century, the Philippines was
in direct contact with Europe and was selling it more of Philippine
produce than the Manila Galleon over carried. The Royal Company
was pledged to devote 40% of its net profits to agricultural research,
technological innovation, and community development.
Concentrating on agricultural reforms, the Economic Society of
Friends of the Country had its ups and downs but could at last point to
a steady progression. It trained dyers, imported rice hulling machines,
subsidized a business newspaper and Father Blanco' s Flora Filipina,
gave the abaca industry a steam hemp-making machine, helped estab-
lish a poppy culture and opium industry, distributed plows, spades
and other tools to needy farmers, awarded prizes to mod.el farms and
industries, issued manuals on indigo manufacture, sugar cane culture,
the usable clays in the Manila area, etc., and pressed for the opening
-of the lloilo, Sual and 2.amboanga ports to international commerce.
llie art school established by the society educated during its lifetime a
4total of 5,485 students, among them Juan Luna.
Neither the Royal Company not the Economic Society quite fulfilled
lhe hopes they raised but both helped open up the Philippines to the
('modem" world emerging at the tum of the century - the "dawn"
~ e d by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars. In fact,
1lti tum of the century saw the opening o f ~ and the other native
.,-ts to foreign shipping - and the advent of foreign fir.ins whose
wht- $8hibs were actually allowed to reside in Manila and Cebu and
]loilo. These white-suited .gentlemen were ~ banks-, financing
~ aq, miracles, alxwe all the augar boom.
.an. way, we were ~ f f l O t h e r "invQion'' by the whites.
at the ~ time we, ~ iftto..white len'ain. The
w ...~ ~;Joui;::~~·Maddcl•
 . .
the Indio secular priest and the white .
The same Governor Raon that saw the Buen Gmsejo d
saw another ship arriving in 1768 with equally epochal n
of Spain was ordering the expulsion of the Jesuits frpqt
and all his other dominions.
One charge against the Jesuits was- treason: "The · · ·.
tion of their provincial with tne English commander
ish) occupatiOit of Manila." But what really riled the king
the other absolute monarchs of Europe, -especially the
the way the Jesuits upheld the supremacy of papal pow
The story is that, when Governor Raon received the 011
sion, he decided fo make a profit on it. He is said to have con.taaeci.,1
Jesuits secretly and, in exchange for a large sum of
shown them the king's order.
At that time the Jesuits had two schools (Colegio de
Colegio de San Ignacio) in Manila; another college in Ca
and seminary in San Pedro Makati; and 130 missions in
Their motherhouse in lntramuros stood beside the Pue
Instead of raiding this motherhouse at once, Raon
days, thus giving the Jesuits,ample time to spirit away th
and bum their papers. The king's order was carried out
1768 and two months later Raon was writing the king that
batch of Jesuit deportees, 64 of them, was being shipped 1)Ut
San Carlos Borromeo. '
The governor's duplicity was however so noised about tlta
end of his term he was subjected to a probe, during which
The expulsion of the Jesuits led to a church crisis, beca
were not enough priests to take over the parishes left
~ of Manila then was Basilio Santa Justa y Sancho,
saw a chance to push bi's favorite project: the creation
clergy to replace the friars in regions already fuB
· were.JUpposed to work as missionaries
.
 ':of
~ ~ ~ , ~::li'ia.tli'lftS;, .i.oth,
drimkeim- and other vices. But not iill the jokes and gripes about
:them could stop the rise of a native detgy. In 1773 the See of Manila
:opened a new seminuy for Rative boys aspiring to the cloth. The
Seminario de San Carlos occupied the splendid hall in Intramuros that
nad been the Jesuit residence.
The emergence from the Indio of the Filipino can be explained by
Philippine progress during the latter half of the 18th century. As
already noted, the mastering of new tools freed the greater mass of the
people from food production and made possible intellectual and
artistic pursuits. Direct contact with Europe brought over the 'ideas of
the Enlightenment (the libertarian propaganda by European ilustra-
dos) and of the French Revolution (1789). Most influential of all was
the libertarian movement right here in Manila of an ilustrado group
that may be called the First Propaganda.
These ilustrados were Creole: meaning theywere Spanish but born
in the Philippines. The Creole were the first to style themselves - and
to be referred to - as "Filipinos." As early as the 16th century, it had
been noted that Spaniards who came to the Philippines generally died
young - they were defeated by the climate - and left little family.
Conquistador Intramuros registered a very low birth rate.
The Creole was thus a weak strain much disdained by the Peninsu-
lar. But in the last decade (,f the 18th century there was a sudden
ftoW'ering of the Philippint! Creole. This was exemplified by such
lW.ritets as Manuel Zumalde, 08e Javier de Tones, Pedro Pelaez and
1-uts Rodriguez Varela. All th$e were influenced by the Enlighten-
Jll'trtt they advocated not revolt but reform. But the reforms they
~rqu1,ded were revolutionary: Filipinization of the parishes; ouster of
'the friars; representation in the Cortes (the Spanish parliament); and
\he founding of a representative government.
Luis Rodriguez Varela e pecially, who styled himself "EL Conde
· • o" (or the Count of the Philippines), can most truly be called the
~W'l4M of Philippine nationalism. Rodriguez Varela was the first to
himself a Filipino - and in print yet! - and the first to use that
in a nationalistic spirit.
;.a'heresult of all thi& was-a n e w ~ i n the Manilepo. Foreign,ers
aqe to the dty at ~e biffl-of, the:cemury ~ that. Manila
could pride itself in a style - strutted by both dress and manner -
that was not European, n,,or Mexican, nor Chinese, nor even Indio. It
was quite simply Filipino. ~ ·
The Filipino began a-homing when the Creole pronounced himself
the equal of the Peninsular. But the Manilefto had Icing assumed that
partiicular status. Because the Portuguese, the Moros, the Elizabethan
pirates, the Hollanders and the imperial British were stopped in
.
Manila Bay, Manila could meet the 19th century with - aplomb?
-

, • I

..)
 PART THREE
ERA OF REVOLUTION

Chapter 1: OPENINGS &: CLOSINGS

LAST of the Manila Galleons sailed for Acapulco in 1811. Four years
later Manila welcomed with feast and frolic the last galleon returning
from America. Thus ended the three gaudy centuries of the G ~
Trade.
In 1821 came another closing that could have been an opening for
us. Mexico declared its independence . .Smee we were then a part of
Mexico, we too should have been considered as h'berated from Span-
ish rule. And indeed the Mexicans bade us join them in breaking free.
If the top Philippine officials of Church and State had opted to follow
Mexico out of the empire, the Philippines would have been a sove-
reign state in 1821.
Unfortunately, our head of state at that time was Mariano Fernan-
dez de Folgueras, twice an interim governor, and a fervent loyalist. He
was definitely for keeping the Philippines within the empire- and his
will prevailed, although it can be assumed that the Philippine Creoles,
insurgent since the 1790&, would have opted for independence. But
they staged their uprisings only afterwards.
To do them justice, it should be admitted that the start of the 19th
century tantalized by seeming to offer openings, reforms, even free-
dom, without recourse to revolt. The Philippines was granted re-
present41tion in the Spanish Cortes, or parliament, and the Creoles
felt exalted because inevitably it was they who were tapped to repre-
sent th~ Philippines in Madrid. But a sudden swerve in politics and
our seats in the Cortes evaporated.
We were proclaimed an autonomous sta~, one of the united states
of Spain, and we rejoiced. We th~t it meant no longer having to
pay tribute or do forced labor. But another political swerve and we
found we were still just a colony, still bound to tribute and forced
labor. .
 Shifts like these were cauaecl by ffie tug-.of-war in Madrid between
.reformists and reactionaries. Jf the litieraJs were-in power there, we got
reformers here. If the conservativ~ overpowered the Madrid govern-
ment, the Manila government was overpowered by the clerical party.
Suffering most keenly from those shifts were the Philippine Creoles.
Barred from agriculture and the proletarian occupations, they had
open before them only the civil service, the Church, and military
service. Military service was their most pru:ed sinecure - and· now
they found that office being taken away from them. Perhaps the fact
that Creo~ engineered the revolutions in America had taught Madrid
a lesson: the Philippine Creoles too could be a danger and thei:efore
should not be trusted; they should not continue to control the military.
MaFid ruled that an officer commissioned in Spain outranked officers
of equal rank (or even higher) who were commissioned in the Philip-
pines.
In short, the Creole, meaning the Philippine-born, was inferior to
the Peninsular, or Spanish-born.
This insult was to make the first half of the 19th century as revolu-
tionary as the 1890s. The Philippine Creoles were in revolt. They were
fighting a war of independence. They wanted the Peninsulars out.
They wanted themselves in power: as heads of state; as commanders
of the armed forces; as heads of the Church in the Philippines. It was
mostly a cold war that the Creoles waged. They lost it becau&e the
leaders they produced - Vatela the Conde Filipino, Pelaez the
-almost-an-archbishop, the Pardo de Taveras and the z.obels and the
:Regi.dors, and even Burgos - were of divided loyalties. They could
nQt decide. if they were Filipino or Spanish. The Conde Filipino
recanted his nationalist ideas when he fell into the hands of-the law.
In October 1822, the arrival of a new governor, Juan Antonio
Martinez, electrified Manila because with him came a coq,s of military
of6cers, all Peninsulars, who were to replace the Creoles in the iU'll\y. .
When the Creole officers protested, Govetnor Martinez had their
lingleaders arrested (Varela the Conde Filipino was among them) and
exiled.
The mutinous movement was not quelled. A new rebel leader arose:
C.~ Andres Novale&, a Philippine Cn!ole with Mexicart blood~To
rid of him, the army sett.t him to ~ the pirates in Mindanao.
Novales sneibd to Manila in JJme 1823, assembled 800 makon-
tems, raised the of revolt, a n d ~ hinuielf ''&nperor efthe
Phltippines." Manila was joltell awake at r a i ~ by cries of "Vim
independencia!" an'd "Viva el Empdqdor Mniiles!"
The.rebels seized the cathedral, the infantry barracks, and Gty Halt
where they locked up the military offlcers they had captured. At the
governor's palace was no governor: Juan Antonio Martinez had g<>J\4!
to the countryside for some cool air. But the rebels came upon Mariano
Folgueras, the former interim governor, and they killed him. It iWIS-
Folgueras who had urged Madrid to replace the Creole officers in tlteicl
Philippines with Peninsulars.
At dawn Novales marched on Fort Santiago, where his l>rothft'
Antonio was in command. But Antonio Novales refused to open tt.
fort to his "emperor'' brother. When Governor Martinez learned that
the fort was holding out, he rushed troops into Intramuros to comer
the rebels, who quickly dispersed. Novales was found hiding under
the drawbridge of the Puerta Real.
Incredibly, the governor ordered the immediate execution not only
of Novales but also of his brother Antonio, whose loyalty had saved
the government. At the last minute, however, the governor was
forced by public fury to snatch Antonio from the firing squad an&
release him. Poor Antonio went mad from the ordeal.
Of Andres Novales it is said that he was proclaimed emperor
midnight and was executed the following afternoon as a traitor. But
that long day could have been the last of the empire in the Philippinesi
if Fort Santiago had only yielded. It-was noticed during the uprising
that the public cheered and waved from windows as the rebel troop!t
marched past.
Madrid played deaf and blind to this growing ~ n in the'
colony, whjch worsened in 1828 when not only the military com-
mands but also the provincial governorships were removed from the
Creoles and given over to the Peninsulars. The result was another
Creole plot to seize the government.
This plot, which became known as the Palmero Conspiracy, in•
volved personages from both the military and the civil service as welJ
as the Palmero brothers, scions of a Philippine clan whose most
eminent descendant was Marcelo Azcarraga, prime minister of ~
in the 1890s. (Old Manila's Calle Azcarraga was named after him.)
eminent, in fact, were the Palmeros and their fellow consp,ators
the ~ t , when it discovered the cabal, tit wiser not to
publicize it; lest 11\e word .1111'1'1;11!11.l· that the ~ - ., ~ weae
 out()f::the
form..,(tlaimade the AttmeroConspitacy one o f W ~ In
..- annals. The masterminds weie exiled to the Peninsula.
Jf mpre and more Filipinos were being exiled to Spain, more and
more Spaniards, also disaffected of temper, were being exiled t9 the
Philippines and circulating here their radical ideas. And those ideas
were not picked up by the Creoles alone.
Our historians today tend to dismiss the Creole insurrection of the
first half of the 19th century as merely a war between two kinds of
,Spaniard. Actually it was a na,tionallst struggle. In fact, the rallying cry
of the Creoles - "Sons of the Country!" - was to be picked up by the
katipunan and translated as "Anak ng Dayan."
With their nationalist cry, the Creoles wshed the idea that natives
o.f the country should hav~ prior claims to it and not foreigners. "Hijos
del Pais"meant ''Filipino First." Of course the Creoles were thinking
only of themselves - but by enunciating the idea, they made it
universal.
Th~t enunciation IJlade the "Indio" see himself as Filipino.
Creole insurgency was the necessary preface to the Philippine
Revolution.
DURING the 1820s, foreign firms established ~ndes in Manila. Jn,
1829, foreign merchants were allowed to reside in the dty. That same
year, France opened the first consulate in the capital.
Shortly after appeared the first Philippine banks, of which the
three were founded by: (1) Damaso Gorricho, a Paris-educated .
(2) Francisco Rodriguez, a Filipino educated in India, whose bank
under the patronage of the British consul in Manila; and (3) •
Tuason, the second "Indio" to go into banking.
In 1834 the port of Manila was formally opened to intema
commerce. Actually the dty had for decades been welcoming met•
chant ships from all over.
~ foreign trade introduced Manilefios to Paris luxury goods like
perfumes, _cosmetics, couture fabrics, French brandies and wines, arid
fancy chairs and mirrors. (Rizal thought imported upholstered chah$
unhealthy.) The British coasters brought in cutlery, hardware, Swe-
dish iron, tar, and cheap cottons. The Yankee clippers came hith~
with modernities like spinnmg machines and· sailed back to ~
England loaded with Manila hemp and cigars.
The foreigners caused a boom in Philippine crops, especially sugar,
which in Negros became the major Creole enterprise. In that respect,
their being shut off from the military and civil service was good for the
Creoles, because it forced them at last to the soil. Before, they were in
the land but not of it, It might belong to them, they did not belong to
it. But when they started working the land they became truly Philip-
pine at last: Filipino.
Sugar shipments, exported at the rate of 30,000 piculs in the 1789s,
rose to 146,.661 piculs in the 1840s, had quadrupled by mid-century. A
French businessman, by subsidizing a group of planters, got them to
increase production fro~ 15,000 piculs to 40,000 in a single year.
But the sudden crowd of white foreigners in Manila could not buf
arouse wonder and apprehension. This fear surfaced in October 1820,
when a cholera epidemic erupted in the capital. The rumor spread thal
the f~ers were poisoning the city's waters. At that time theN!
were two Americans, one British, and several French ships on the ba~.
One of the srtamers had broufht a French nat¥1alist assigned by .his
~-~ 1-tlbeel\
his bottles mf!Sling about-in the etteros. Whea t h e ~ broke O\Jt,
popular fury mliltiplied that Frenchman into a score of Europeans
poisoning Manila's wells and streams.
Towards noon of October 9, 1820, a mob of some 3,000 men armed
with pikes and bludgeons invaded the square of Binondo, where lived
most of the foreign businessmen, and broke into the houses of these
foreigners, killing every alien they came upon. Slain were 39 E~
peans, 85 Chinese, and 11 English sailors. The ships on the bay (they
had gallantly sent their medics ashore to treat the epidemic patients)
were so- terrified they wjthdrew out to sea.
The government sent out troops, but these could not control the
riotous mob so wantonly killing and looting. Not till the Church sent
out a procession of priests bearing the Eucharist did the rioters desist.
Because none of the Spanish were touched, they were suspected of
having instigated the riot, who envied the success in business of the
newcomers. In a way, however, the charge that the foreigners caused
the epidemic was correct. The British ship on the bay, having just
come from Bengal, India, where the cholera then raged, was undoubt-
edly the culprit that brought the deadly plague to Manila.
In 1828 Govenwr Mariano Ricafort issued an edict forbidding
foreigners to engage in the retail trade or to do business in the
provinces. They were restricted to Manila.
An Englishman who was in the islands during the period 1819-22
o):,served that classic Spanish colonial policy ("Unable herself to profit
:from her colonies, she obstinately refuses to allow others to de so")
was being relaxed in the Philippines. But: ''The foreign merchant or
adventurer, however smiled upon and caressed, has still to contend
with a rooted and long-cherished jealousy of all that is not Spanish."
This Englishman found Manila not worth attention. The farther you
traveled away from it, the more neatness and comfort you noted in the
villages beyond.
The capital of "the Kingdom of the Philippines" was, whether
~ or outside the walls, rather a mess. The ramparts of Manila
could be breached by an enemy in ten minutes flat, "with perfect
,afety." Fort Santiago was "clumsy'( ~ "okf.fashioned." The
~ was handsome insidH'ut withollt ynunetry outside. The
i>.lacio,#Gobemaclw~•bem•warehowie. The Oty Hall
Wat "-'Y ·a.uillClilllllllt··t lw -cathtry uy prellellil!~ to sym-
~ , .-eta
 In the suburbs the houses. were 1-ige but ill-built, painted in
"tawdry colors." The "Calzada," or public paseo (what's now Burgos
Drive), ran from the Puerta Parian along the banks of the moat to the
aea. A good drive, tree-lined, but insufferably dusty. On the road to
Santa Ana was the Paco y~etery, w_orth a glance as a "novelty."
For a life styl~ that our English aitic found languid and indolent, the
hours that Manila kept were rather long.
Gentlemen rose at six or seven o'clock, took chocolate, then lounged
about in deshabille until njne, when they dressed, dictated a letter or
two Jthey rarely wrote anything themselves) and had breakfast.
At ten o'clock they went out in their carriages to transact business
downtown. "1\t noon or one o'clock they dined, after which they
retired for the siesta. They rose af four o'clock for merienda.
At five o'clock they went but for a drive along the seaside or into the
country. From seven o'clock on, they were at home, receiving visitors.
At ten or eleven o'clock a hot supper was ·served. A last cigar at
midnight, and so to bed.
Our English visitor found the ~rtulias, or evening parties, lively and
pleasant, but notes that at most of them gambling was carried on with
great avidity. Both ladies and gentlemen smoked. There was little
drinking of wine or liquor; what was handed around in large glasses
with sweetmeats was water.
Society in Manila was low rather than high. Manners were coarse
and morals, especially among the ladies, were loose. How shocking
was the custom of "promiscuous bathing." Entire families - father,
mother,' childrt?n, young and old, plus their guests - bathed in
bamboo outhouses built on riverbanks. The women wore only che-
mises; the men, only a thin pair of drawers. This was thought "shame-
fully indecent'' by our English observer.
He also noticed the. speed with which the ideas of Voltaire, Ro111r
seau and Tom Paine were circulating, along with pop songs about
liberty and equality. A common shrug was: "The country belongs to
the Indios." Aware that a takeover was "fast verging," the Spaniards
were sending their money out of the country.
Unafraid of a future_that was to belong to the Indios were the
foreign newcomers beginning to do business in the co\H\try. A Portu-
guese entrepreneur, Don Jose Huet, set up a paper factory in 1825. .A
Frenchman opened a QUTiagit factory-in SaI1 Miguel that built "prettf.
~ ~ ,~ l!f#l~ wi~ ps, upholstered to
taste." An American, Robert Hood, opened the first establishment of
coaches-for-hire, "on a scale never before seen in this country."
Indeed, Philippine progress could ·be gauged by the swell of traffic
in Manila. One old-timer said that when he first arrived in the city it
had only one barouche. (A barouche was an open fol,tr-wheeled
~ g e usually drawn by a pair of horses.)· By the 19th century it had
become usual fem a family to keep a fleet of vehicles: a carriage for daily
use; a coach for special occasions; a jitney for countty excursions; an
elegant barouche with heavy silver trim for the Sunday paseo. Every
Manileiio not actually starving had to have wheels, even if just a
one-horse rig.
The result was a Manila flooded with vehicles "rushing like a torrent
everywhere.".The city's traffic jams can be-traced back to, and blamed
on, Mr. Robert Hood, who first made us wheel-mad with his mass
manufacture of cars of all kinds. Incidentally, it was he too who
invented the funeral car.
Chapter 3: STUDENT.&: PEO~E POWEil

PRIME figure of the Fnst Propaganda Movement in Manila as the

1860s opened was Father Pedro Pelaez, the brainy Creole who had
distinguished himself as a theologian at the University of Santo
Tomas. Ordained a priest, he taught philosophy at the Colegio de San
Jose; then became a canon of the Manila Cathedral. He was one of the
,foUJ!ders of the Sociedad Economica de Amigos d~ Pais, along with
Luis Rodriguez Varela, the nationalist Conde Filipino. This should
indicate the trend of the canon's politics.
On the death of Archbishop Jose Arenguareu, Pelaez was elected
ecclesiastical vicar and thus held episcopal powers during the first
years of the 1860s. In effect, he was head of the Philippine Church.
Nationalist pressure could have made him the next archbishop of
Manila. He was the idol of the native clergy because-, although a
Creole, he openly championed the Indio priesthood. Not the Spanish
friar but the Indio priest, said Pelaez, had the right to administer the
Philippine parishes, because church law ruled that friars could work
only in missions, not in parishes. ·
Despue the black propaganda against them, the Indio priests had
made inroads on friar posts. In the Manila metro area, for example, the
native secular clergy had won about 50% of the parishes. Moreover,
Pelaez had ensured the continuation of the nationalist movement by
inspiring worthy disciples, among them the redQubtable activist Jose
Burgos. ·
1 Simply by their intell~al vigor, both Pelaez and Burgos disproved
the friars' contention that the native clergy was inept. The defense of
the Filipino conducted by these two clerics gets their time rated high,
very high, as an era of liberalism and militancy.
The noon of that era was the administration of Governor-General
Carlos de la Torre (1869-71) when the liberals were in such high gear
they seem to have launched their own religious persecution of clerical
diehards.
Demonstrations became the thing in Manila during both the liberal
regime of Carlos de la Torre and the reactionary period that followed
under Rafael Izquierdo.
On the arrival of Carlos de la Torre in Manila, Joaquin Pardo de
Tavera and Father Burgos Jed a demo at the Plaza ~e Santa Potenciana
• idled Oty:mut was on July J2, 1869. And the cry raised at that
demo 'Was: "Vitra Filip!nl,s. para 1os Fifq,inos!" Among.the demonstrators
were such illustrious Creoles ~ JQSe Icaz.a of the Real Audiencia,
Jacobo Z.Obel of the yuntamiento, Andres Nieto ofthe landed gentry,
and businessmen Ignacio Rocha, Manuel Genato and Maximo Paterno.
Another demo by the liberals had for stage no less thalf the Palace of .
Malacaiiang; and what most shocked the friars and conservatives,
already so erµ-aged that Governor de la Torre should surround himself
with "filibusteros," was the sash worn by a colonel's wife, a sash that •
bore the inscription "Long Live the Sovereign People/"
But what recllly stunned the ~onaries was the demo that
occurred when the remains of Governor Anda, which had rested for a
century in the cathedral, were transferred to the chapel of the Francis-
can tertiaries because the cathedral had collapsed in the 1863 earth-
quake. . •
Anda was a hero to Filipinos because he fought friar power and
established what was practically an irtdependent Philippine govern-
ment during the British invasion. When he died, abandoned and
execrated by the Spaniards, he had only natives, "who loved him," to
keep watch at his deathbed and to dose his eyes. _,
On the day of the transfer of his remains, a multitude, as if by secret
agreement, assembled along the route of the procession, dressed in
mourning, and showered the bier with perfumes and flowers. During
the ceiemonies at San Agustin (which was serving as provisional
dlthedral) a young Filipino priest emerged &om his group, and, to
~ astonishment, approached the catafalque and laid on the bier a
laurel wreath dedicated thus: "The Secular Oergy of the Philippines to
Don Sbnon de Anda y Salazar." He was followed to the catafalque by a
young Filipino student who lilcewise offel-ed.a aown of flowers to the
mortal remains of Don Simon. And then came a aowd oJ gobemador-
dllos, or town mayors, to pay homage to the bier.
Since none of these salutations was on the program. they must have
been part of a secretly prepared d ~ t i o n ; and there was a search
for its organizer. Nobody wou1c:i blab, but rwnor pointed to rather
~ - the mastenpind.

-
·•···lhedeano was a to t h e ~ O l d e r ~ the drcula-
in Manila «.-.........~ .51--lill!iJl----• ~
Filipinoc;lelv
 Burgos was also suspetted of fomenting campus UNeSt
University of Santo Tomu. A ~ movement in Novembtt 1
was denounced as a motin, or riot, though all the stucfents.did w..
form a committee to demand reforms in the curriciila and in the school
itself. As though that were not bold enough, the students' conunit1iee-
also identified itself with the cause of assimilation- that is, autonomy
for the Philippines as no longer a colony but a province of Spain.
Ori the committee, which was hea4ed by Felipe Buencamino, Wei'e::'
Paciano Mercado (Rizal's elder brother) and such names as 5an..
ciangco, Mapa, Soriano, Tison and Alejandrina. This campus detno
perhaps the first in our history, led to the arrest of Buencamino
the persecution of provincial families who had sons enrolled ht
university.
What the students were emulating was the Committee of Refor..
mers, which was then campaigning for more liberal laws a n ~
composed of two sections: laymen and clerics. In the lay group,
headed by Joaquin Pardo de Tavera, such figures as the ~
brothers, Ambrosio Rianz.ares Bautista (who was to -write the Kawit
declaration of independence), Jose Roxas, Manuel Genato, Jose Maria
, Basa, Maximo Patemo, Angel Garchitorena and Mamerto Natividad
represented not only all phases of Philippine life, from agriculture aad
industry to scholarship and the professions, but also the 8fOWQ11.
solidarity among the native-born, whether Creole, Chinese or Indio.
The cleric section, headed by Burgos and including Fathers Gomez
and Zamora, spoke of "restoring" the rights of the native clergy and
the liberties of Filipinos in general.
This reform committee, "wishing to extend its doctrines to all the-
social classes, penetrated the University of Santo Tomas" (in the
words ·of historian Manuel Artiga&) with the result that a stud.en~
power group, the Juventud Escolar Liberal, or Uberal Student Youth,
was formed there, the group that manned the campus "riot" of 1810.
What has to be stressed in any account of these student-power and
people-power movements is that they were pushed by the native
bourgeoisie, both Creole and Indio, and at great damage to their lives
and property. The stressing is necessary because modem revisionists.
of history would annul the activism o f ~ ~ middle class in
lie 19th century. Bltt.l?elaez Bw;-gm both belonpt to the gen~.
wdlaell!llllla ~ - ~ d o n ,
Awt;,Q111tf:J_ __ ..,n{(Jlt>
 a
to be- full of water.
o~y halfway down. Below was a room,
,ecret door. 1bit :was tM office and conference roomof
· of Refonners. The cistern was on the grounds of the ·
native priest, Father Mariano, in Santa ~
the SOdety was Jose Maria Bua. Amcmg ~ members were
Paterno, Ambrosio Rian7.ares Bautista, and Father
a, parish piest of Santa Cruz. The society's main
· g a journal in Madrid, F.co de Filipinlls, which exposed
A.Qtnalies_in the islands and pesse4 for reforms. Smuggled copies of
· in Ma'nila, to the fuzy ef the friars, who could not
C:disCOV!er where the F.co was get;ting its information.
uld have thought that the material for the F.co was being
;}_pi..,alsed atthe bottom ola diten\ beJonging' to a reverend fathu?
rate, long before Lti Solidaritl,id, Philippine insurgency al-
a voice abroad,. emanating from Manila. And the voice was
THOSE gentry activists moved in a city whose lilceness we know#
because an able artist sketched this mid-century Manila in a series
watercolors. The artist was probably German, a relative of the
and he was in Manila circa 1860. But the Manila he saw was not
Manila of living memOJY.
All of us who saw it in prewar days have the same general ldat
what is meant by "the old Manila, the Spanish Manila." We ·
see the sagging balconies of Calle Real, the gothic spires of
Domingo, the silver romanesque dome of the cathedral. But,
with the Zobel watercolors, we feel like the archeologist who, seaill:J(♦,
ing for the "real" Troy, found seven different Troys, one beneath
other. And we realize how many, many Manilas have come and
unknown to us.
The Manila that pe,ished in the 1945 Battle of Liberation was not
really old Spanish Manila (its rebuilt skyline wasn't even a cen
old). It was only the most recent in a ~ of cities, each
from the others. Repeatedly destroyed, flus tough city was
recreated in its own image. It was a most chameleon aw.
In the Manila of the Zobel watercolors, nothing is fainiliar, eY.4ff.'.•
thing seems "wrong.'' Santo Domingo is not gothic, nor the ca
romanesque. The cathedral square has an iron fence running
it. A palace stands on a lot we remember as immemorially vacant.
Agustin has two towers. And the Escolta, with its white-waahed
one-story shops, looks like ,the JIU!in street of a minor A n ~
village. . .
We who remember another, very different Manila can only gasp and
wonder: What did the other, the ,even earlier Manilas look like? We
will never know now. But the Manila of mid-19th century was fortu-
nate: a sensitive artist saw it and seems to have fallen in love with it
And he has arrested its face forever in the mirror of his art.
While he was qoing· that, another German was observing the d,ty,
but wtth a far more critical eye. Mr. F. Jagor visited Manila in 1 ~
and found cause for complaint before he had stepJH!d off the ~
~•~ ~•aastm1$~il\Manllawuasvexa
thenultisnctw" hlml~J'
 ;JJe l;hought the allecl'City ditary and bot, ~ man, forN:CUrily
than for beauty." Life in that government center was "vanity, envy,
~leomania, and racial strife." the suburbs were picturesque, but
the water was bad, the streets were dusty, and the clogged rivers and
canals repulsive. Moreover, everything was too expensive, more ex-
pensive than in Singapore and Batavia. J\nd the natives showed no
awe of Europeans; Jagor blamed this on the low· type of most Spanish
immigrants to the Philippines and on the absence here of "that high
wall reared by disdainful British am>gance" to separate the Europeans
&om the natives.
The city was poor in entertainment. ''During my stay, there were no
performances in any of the Spanish theaters. In the Tagalog theaters,
th.ere were representations of Ql'illllUlS -and comedies, most of them
translations." There were no t clubs; one could find no books to
read; and the newspapers ere atrocious. A typical issue of El Com-
mercio, a four-page · , carried on its front page, as news from
Europe, two articles reprinted from old books.
The botanical ga{dens were in a sad state, the few plants withering.
Fashion decreed as a diversion, in spite of the dust, an evening ride
along the bay. A few minutes from town, the countryside was green
and fresh, but it was not quite the thing to go there. "One went riding
to 1Show off one's clothes, not to enjoy the contemplation of nature."
He went to a cockpit and was nauseated: ''IndiOJ sweating in every
~ of their bodi;es; their faces expressing the evil passions that
enslaved thell\."
Nothing, in fact, impressed Mr. Jagor about Manila except "the
beauty of the women who animate its streets." In this, "Manila
.surpasses all the cities of India, II
If Mr. Jagor did not enjoy his visit to Manila, another visitor of the
time certainly did. Sir John Bowing, a former governor of Hong Kong,
vacationed in Manila toward the end of 1860, as a guest of Governor-
General Fernando de Norzagaray.
'1 have heard it said," wrote Sir John afterward, "that life in Manila
ls extJ;eme1y monotonous; but, durJng my stay, it seemed to me full of
~ animation."
He w a s ~ the DlOllient he landed. A "brilliant native band,"
·ass11ubled~ ~ ~-.on~t, was playmrGod Sm1e ~
~ fie Wlll,.-- ~ ~- l n ~ t ~
 Sir John of the parks in London - "with the difference that this patk
in Manila is adorned with the lovely vegetation of the tropics, whose-
leaves offer a great variety inJ:Olor, from the most intense yellow to the
_ darkest green, and whose flowers are notable for their splendor and
beauty."
Every day, in the afternoon, he explored the fascinating city. And:
"Every day, a new surprise." Each arrabal of Manila seemed to have
its own "c)laracteristic distin(tion." ·
Malate was full of clerks ~ seamstresses; Sampaloc, of printers
and laundresses. Ermita was famed for its embroidery; Pasay, for its
betel nuts. In Santa Ana were the summer villas of the rich-Tondo
supplied the city with milk, cheese and lard. (Actually Tondo was
merely the distributor of products coming from Mariquina and La-
guna.) Binondo was "the tnost important and opulent town of the
Philippines and its true commercial capital." On Arroceros he watched
the fleets of rice-laden bancas and saw a great procession of cigar girls
from a nearby factory. Entering the factory, he noticed that the work-
rooms of the women resounded :with merry chatter while complete
silence reigned in the workrooms of the men.
He also visited the governor's summer house on the Pasig,
Malacaftang, which had "a pretty garden, a convenient bath that could
be lowered into the river, a birdhouse, and a small zoo, in whicp I saw
a chimpanzee that later died of pnemonia."
Even for-the Pasig, which so revolted Jagor, Sir John has a nice
word: ''The aspect of the river is delicious; and no little would be the
merit of the artist who could transfer to canvas, with its proper hues,
so lovely a picture."
In the evenings he joined the paseo on the Calzada. At night there
was usually a tertulia or a reception at the palace. He rather regretted ·
that -the Spanish ladies in Manila had abandoned their native dress,
along with high comb and mantilla. The city's fashionable world had
adopted Parisian style~ and manners.
During the fiesta in Sampaloc, which he attended with some British
ensigns, he was enchanted by the vivacity of the native girls. ''The
styles of Paris had not yet invaded those places; but the native
decorations had taste-'and variety, and there was as much fun and
flirtatiousneN as in the most sophisti&:ated gatherings. Our young
~igns wei-e among the gayest in the crowd and, although unable to
SJMU..the ~ ~ - 1 1 U i a ~ widenlood by tbe
charming girls. l'he feast lasted until the small hours of the morning."
Like Jagor, he noticed the absence~ racial barriers. '1 have seen, at
the same table, Spaniards, mestizos and Indios, priests and soldiers.
To the.eyes of one who has observed the repugnance and misunder-
standings caused by race in various parts of the Orient and who .
knows that race is the great divider of society, the contrast and
exception presented by so mixed a population as that of the Philip-
pines is admirable." At that year's ceremony in honor of the Immacu-
late Conception, which was attended by the entire city, from the
governor-general down, the principal address was delivered by a
native priest.
· Other details mentioned by Sir John are tantalizing. He speaks of a
Chinese cemetery in downtown Santa Cruz and of a bridge with seven
arches, the Puente Grande, on the present site of Jones.
·The city seems different in more important respects too. It then had
a population oflS0,000 and had had only one convietion for murder in
fi,ve· years. (The provinces had the same low crime~rate - "with the
exception of the island of Negros, where, of 44 criminal convictions, 28
were for assassination.") But peopl~ - especially the Chinese - were
already complaining of too many lawyers: there were some 80 of them
practising in Manila at that time.
At some time in their peregrinations around Manilil, our three
travelers of 1860 must have brushed against each other. One imagines
them being caught up in a nasty traffic tangle on, say, Santo Cristo,
among the screaming pigtailed Chinese, the ~bao carts, the black-
shrouded beatas, and the laughing bare-shouldered ladies in crino-
lines, driving past in swank victorias.
The angry Mr. Jagor would be stomping along, fuming ov~ the
stinks and the dust: Sir John would be leaning out eagerly from his
carriage, cooing over the quaintness of it all. And the mysterious Zobel
artist would be standing on the pavement, leaning against a wall and
smiling pensively as he studfed the effect of light on the scene and the
relations of the colors.
None of them knew it, of course, but our three travelers were
looking at a doomed city - a city that was very soon and very
suddenly to disappear, leaving only a few wracks behind.
At seven o'clock on the night of June 3, 1863, after a day of intense
heat, the ground shook suddenly and vehemently. The temblor lasted
only half a minute, but in that split instant the entire city aumbled
Enr af:Rdolulion
into ruins, burying hundreds alive in the wreckage. Among them was
Father Pedro Pelaez, entombed in the ruins of thi cathedral.
It was the eve of the great feast of Corpus Christi.
· The lone survivor was, as usual, the church of the Augustinians,
which merely lost a belltower. Their palace reduced to rubble, the
governors-general transferred U!_ Malacatiang, which became their
official residence.
From the ruins of that other Manila - that unfamiliar city immortal-
ized in the Zobel watercolors - arose the Manila we remember, the
familiar city where Santo Domingo is gothic and the cathedral is
romanesque and every nook reeks of "la Manila de mis amores": the
last great creation of Spain in the Philippines.
Cbaptei' 5: 1118 '4MOTIN" OP '72

ONE of Manila's most popu1ar celebrations, the feast of the Virgin of ·

Carmel at San Sebastian, kept on January 29, originated an old Manila
saying: "The cold will endure unlil after the Del Carmen. 11 Manileitos
had noticed how that fiesta was followed by a decline in the chilly
winds from Siberia. ··
The festivities at San Sebastian actually began on January 20, the day
of St. Sebastian the martyr, titular patron of that Recollet church in
Quiapo's Bilibid Viejo. On January 20 San Sebastian celebrated with
pilgrimages and processions, a high mass a toda orquesta, band concerts
on the Plaza del Carmen in the evening and, of course, fireworks. · .
The fiesta fireworks on the night of January "-20, 1872 were to
occasion a signal event in Philippine history. But of course the
Manilefio strolling on the Plaza del Carmen that evening, enjoying the
feria, the band music, the last of the' cool weather, and the fireworks,
had no idea that history was being made.
Next day, however, the en~ city was in upheaval. People were
being arrested right and left. The talk was that martial law had been
imposed because there had been an uprising at the Cavite navy yard
the ni~t before and a coup d'etat mercifully aborted right in Manila.
A terrible conspiracy had been unearthed. The plotters in ~
liad told their fellow conspirators in Cavite to be ready for a coup on
the night of January 20. The .government in Manila would be seized.
Then rockets would be fired in the air as a signal for the rebels in
Cavite to capture Fort San F~pe. Troops would be rushed from
Manila to assist the Caviteli.os.
Cavite mistook for coup signal the San Sebastian fireworks. The
marines at Fort San Felipe rose in mutiny, killed eleven of their
Spanish officers, and waited for the promised reinforcements from
Manila. What arrived were loyalist troops, to which the rebels at once
surrendered. Three or four score of them were slibt. The rest were
taken prisoner. It transpired that they had joined the conspiracy
because they resented the peninsular takeover and the removal of
privileges long enjoyed by Creole officers and the troops they com-
manded.

~----of~.~~
The follo-wfng night, Jan~ '21, Burgos was arrestea, along·with
Fathex Mariano Gomez lt.lteri
de Tavera, Antonio Regidor, Enrique ~ , Pio and Jose
Maximo Paterno, Crisanto Reyes, Ramon Maurente and the ~
priest of Santa Crµz. In the next few days more laymen and detiQI
were to be taken to Fort Santiago. .
In the Noli, Rizal, recreates the panic of those days, when even the
markets closed, native soldiers were diaarmed Jnd replaced by Spait:,
ish troops, and French, English, American and Italian. w:
gathered on Manila Bay, like wltures awaiting the filial • ~
this the government was to blame, with its hysterical claim that
mutiny was part of an extensive well-planned conspiracy.
But the conspiracy may have been on the part of the friars, -,d
designed to destroy Burgos.
Fmncisco Saldua, the mutineer turned state witness, pointed to'
Burgos as the mastermind of the mutiny. Saldua testified at the trial
that, as a member of the conspiracy, he had three times. deliveied
messages to Father Jacinto Zamora, who had then hurried to Burgc:,t!~
lodgings. Saldua declared that he had been· told by one of the Bua
brothers that "the government of Father Burgos" would bring in tije
fleet of the United States to assist a revolution which RaJDP(l
Maurente, slated to become its field marshall, was financing with
50,000 pesos. The conspirators, according to Saldua, met at the
of a certain Lorenzana.
Other captured mutineers may have been simply repeating at the
trial what they were told before the mutiny. One corporal said he wa&
told that, oh the success of the uprising, the president of the republic
would 1:>e the parish priest of St. Peter, whose ~ e he did not know.
(Burgos was a canon of the Manila cathedral which, as parish, was
known as St. Peter's. The actual parish priest of St. Peter's was Jacinto
Zamora.)
The mailman of the marines related how, in Manila, he had met
with a sergeant and two corporals from Cavite, who had told him that
many sergeants, both of the marines and the army, had joined the
plot; and that the aiin of the revolt w~ to proclaim a republic with
Burgos as president.
Another marine was quoted as saying that the insurrection intended
to kill all Spaniard$ and then "set up-an Indio king, and thJs would be--
i:.ther ~ - "
•vew:~ trial (defense was given only 'I houn to file
• . ~ :fiemi-,;. - ~
 detgy. . that
of their jilt Nd bc!eri offered at their trial to
their un&ocking. In fa(f, subversive pamphWts attributed to
had been printed, it blmed out, in an orphanage supervised by
.
il\the "mutiny," then, a plot not by Burgos but against him?
Frarttisco Saldua, though he turned state witness, was never-
eless executed leads to the suspic;ion that he had to be silenced. The
· es in Cavite were restive because the age-old exemption from
te enjoyed by the marine corps had been revoked. Just before the
utiny, a friar moved among the marines, urging them not to pay the
'bute but to defy the government. The mutiny broke out the day
ore the tribute was to be collected.
Two friars captured by Aguinaldo's troops in Cavite in 1897 are said
have revealed the facts behind the 1872 Motin de Cavite.
The heads of the friar orders had held a conferen~ on how to get rid
f Burgos and other leaders of the native clergy, and had dedded to
plicate them in a seditious plot. To this end, a Franciscan friar
guised as a secular priest was sent, with a lot of money, to Cavite,
ere he pretend~ to be Father Burgos. He fomented a mutiny, then
tiated with Saldua to denounce Burgos as ~ instigator of the
· · g. Afterwards, the friars used alarge bribe - "un(l fuerte suma
dinero" - to convinte ·the governor-general that Burgos should be
ted and condemned.
use the execution of Burgos the Creole was not only his birth as
but the full emergence of the idea of the Filipino, his enemies
ated themselves in their very hour of triumph. -
there is a date we can d ~ t e as the beginning of a nationalist ·
·ousness, it is February 17, 1872, when the people-country folk
city folk, peon and ihistrado, Creole and Indio - spontaneously
led en masse at Bagumbayan for the execution of the three
ts. So ominous was that multitude that the Spaniards fted in
behind the walls of .Jntramuroe. 1t was already a nation that
the ..three priests Q ''out .''
.en,ctwith
 When his twa came at die .p m)le, ~ cJiuibed Y.P .
word, sat down and, not owin.g w~t was b a ~ , aid not
when he was killed. Gomez had ~ e d him; an4 Q,ins,
before all this,. had alread'y kriown the fullness of disillusion,
no chaplain to bid him be resigned. His last words may b e ~
in the prayer: ''Thy will be done."
But Burgos was clllglY y ~ ~ to the last, aying out
injustice. He protested his innocence until the very last
when the executioner knelt )?efore him to ask his forgiveness. '
son," said a quieter Burgos, '1 forgive you. Do your duty."
At that moment the multitudes on the Luneta fell to their~
in chorus intoned the litany for the dying, which takes longer than
minute a garrote needs to break a man's neck.
The posy-mutiny executions and deportations crippled the PJ;lilip--.
pine middle class at the very moment when it had become danger-:
ously united, by removing from the scene the stalwarts (Burgos, ti.
Basas, the Regidors, etc.) who were providing protestant leadership.
But the interruption was brief. A generation was alrea.dy growing Y'f
(Rizal was ten years old) who would dub themselves "the Sons of '72.
Burgos stands between the Creole insurgency that generated na-:-
tionalist consciousness and the Revolution that was the result of ~
consciousness. H Burgos is linked to the first through the figures i)f
Gomez and Pelaez, he is linked to the second through such disdples-o!
his as Paciano Rizal, Ambrosio Rianzares, Gregorio Sanciangco and
Marcelo H. del Pilar.
The Katipunan explicitly recognized this continuity by ensluinirtg
Gom.;Bur-Za and turning the Creoles' prime fighting words, Hijos tW
Pais, into its own militant Anak ng Bayan. ·
From the secret meetings at the bottom of a cistern in Santa~
the fatal fiesta fireworks of San Sebastian, to the grim ending on a
Bagumbayan scaffold, the real stage for the cataclysm of '72 was, not
Cavite, but Manila.
 the Phjlippines in 18.59tthe. Jesuits acquired three new
dresses in Manila. Their motherhouse wat now on Calle Arzobispo,
right smack beside the archbishop's pa]ace. Their school was now the
A ~ Municipal, on the same street as, but separated by an alley
from;. San Ignacio. And they had a house outside the walls, a weather
Gbservatory, in Ermi~, not far from their original Manila address in
the misery village of Lagyo.
To the Jesuits' Ateneo came, in June of 1872, an eleven-year-old
Laguna boy, very small for his age, and frail-looking. The surname he.
gave the Ateneo was not the surname his family used. The Mercados
of Calamba had decided that their son Jose was to ·use the surname
Rizal. His elder brother, Padano Mercado, had been involved with the
aotorious Father Burgos. So his parents wanted the little Jose freed
from the perils associated with the name Mercado.
The Manila of the young Jose Rizal was already the Manila "de mis
amores": a glamorous city rebuilt from the ruins of the mighty 1863
temblor. lntramuros was the elegance of gothic (Santo Domingo), of
arthquake baroque (the Recollet motherhouse), of California mission
style (the two churches on the patio of the Franciscans), and of
Renaissance splendor (the marble halls of the Ayuntamiento). Bi-
:nondo was the swank of any urban downtown: hotels, theaters,
mtaurants, luxury shops and business offices. Tondo was still the
del of the native aristocracy, as attested by the mansions on Calle
Antoague and the magnificence of the Santo Niiio's temple. Santa
was arrogance and jewels. Quiapo was silversmiths and rusti-
,.,.;,..:..a... Santa Ana and San Miguel were developing into Quality Street
,Jllld Vanity Fair. San Pedro Makati was another countryside and
~erside where Maniledos were building summer villas. Art, bohemia
~ theater, not to mention poetry, thrived in Pandacan. There was a
J,ulhing in Paco but aficionados disdained it because they knew the
Beata Brava there was not suave nor serious.
Lilce many a provinciano, J~ Rmtl came to know the city.as well
as, or 1;,etter than, a n y ~ - He bew'whae t h e ~ folk went
~ Jlitd ~ at UJi-Uli, the dved,ank ~ off
Mlila-1~ H e ~ -.. . . ;the ~ua.,.. • • tallllated
knew what served the masses u bath, sewer, laundry, ~
transportation, and even drink: the esteros of Manila.
Binondo was espedally familiar to Riw because he lived there
during his first Ateneo year, at a boarding _house where the lodgers,
young boys like himself but mestizo, were mostly friars' b a ~
schooling in the city. With them he daily walked from Binondo -to
Intramuros, crossing the Pasig on the Puente de Barcas. This was a-
pontoon bridge composed of rafts roped together. The old Puente
Grande had collapsed during the 1863 earthquake. A new bridge. was
under construction during the early 1870s, to connect lntramW'OS'with
Binondo. · r
On his third year at the Ateneo Rizal was finally enrolled there as an
intemo, or boarding -student. ..
"I started at the dorm on June 16, 1875, welcomed by my fellow
boarders. The brother warder showed me to an alcove located in a
comer of the dorm, looking out on the sea and·the Malecon, My alcove
measured about six feet square, with an iron bed, a table with basin, a
chair and a hanger. We retired to our alcoves only twice a day: during
the siesta to tidy ourselves; and at night to sleep. On holidays we
dressed up and sallied forth in the afternoon for a paseo. Our time was
passed in the study room, the playground, the classroom, the dining
room and the chapel."
Though-he would later speak of it slightingly, Intramuros was dear
to Rizal as the scene of his student days and the great romance of his
youth. No. 7 Calle Postigo was where, as a Santo Tomas undergradu-
ate, he boarded - and fell in love with his landlady's daughter,
13-year-old Leonor Rivera. The idyll lasted barely three years. SMwas,
15, he was 20, when they parted, in 1882. Actually, there wasn' e-1
a parting. He did not say goodbye to her when he secretly le
Europe. He could only sigh for the "Leonors, Doloreses, Urs~
Felipas, Vicentas, Margaritas and other girls" he was leaving behind in
Manila, who would soon "forget the traveler."
Five years had passed when he saw Manila again, in 1887. We can
see that Manila of his homecoming through the eyes of his hero Ibarra.
"The carriage was. passing through the busiest district of Manila:
animation everywhere; rigs at full speeq; Europeans, Chinese, natives
in their respective costumes; fruit vendors, money changers, naked
porters, groceries, lunch stands, restaurants and shops; the carts
drawn by the im~ve indifferent carabao; all this noise and co~
 ,~ sun iteelf, t h e ~ and motley -colors,
~ke ii), the mincta ~ of ~ g recollections."
lbarri was riding down Call1! Rosario towards the Escolta. ·
"No longer existed the Puente de lkcas.... rising and falling at
the whim of the Pasig and at last destroyed by it. The almond trees on.
the Plaza San Gabriel were still in the same feeble stunted condition.
The 'Escolta appeared less beautiful,.despite an imposing building with
caryatids in front now occupying the old row of shops. The new
Bridge of Spain caught his attention. Where the Escolta ends and the
ls41 de Romero begins, roofs and treetops and bamboo thickets re-
minfed him of the cool mornings when he rode a boat there to the
baths of Uli-Uli."
The Puente de Espana inaugurated on New Year's Day 1876, was
approximately where Jones Bridge is now. · Plaza San Gabriel, now
Plaza Cervantes, was in early Spanish ~es a dense Chinese barrio
. where the Dominicans ran a hospital. From the 19th century through
American times, Pla7,il.. Cervantes and Calle Rosario were the business
hub of the nation, our Rialto and Wall Street. It was heinous of the
municipal board to abolish the historic name Calle Rosario.
The edifice of the caryatids (posts in human form, usually female
figures) was still in existence in American times. Previously, on that
Escolta block, was a row of one-story Chinese shops called camari.nes.
- What was Plaza Goiti and is now Plaza Lacson used to be an island
extending to where the FEATI now stands. It was.evidently a heavily
wooded isle, with a duster of huts amid the woodland. When the
- ~ separating the isle from the rest of Santa Cruz were filled in,
~ Romero became the street that emerged. Another nearby estero
~ abolished is now the s~ called Estero Cegado. On what's
the eastern foot of MacArthur Bridge was a small pier where
4dtkt!d bancas available .for transport up the Pasig. -..
To-continue our trip with Ibarra, who is now on the other side of the
river:
''The horses broke into a trot on the Paseo de la Sabana. To the left,
the Arroceros Fabrica de Tabaco resounded with the noise of the
*
dgarmakers pounding ~e tobacco leaves, and their lively talk and
repartee. The Botanical Garden dispersed those agreeable recollec-
tions. He gazed towards the old Manila surrounded still by its walls
afid moats, like a sickly girl. in the garments of her grandmother's
better days. On seeing the amail .JDQ!lll<1 on the fi,RI o f ~
beside the Paseo .de la L\Uleta, b,e turned pellliye. ~ pve little heeil
to La Ermita, the phoenix of nipa truit had risen &oin i~ahes as
blue-and-white houses with re.I roofs. Nor was his attention caQSht 1"
Malate, with its cavalry barracks and its pyramidal nipa huts hiding ·
banana groves and behind areca palms."
The Paseo de la Sabana is now Burgos Drive. The tobacco factory
stood on the present site of the GSIS. The Jardin Botanico was built in
1858 as training ground for aggie students. The barracks in Mal.ate
housed a squadron of lancers, in the compounds now occupied bf the
Fiesta Filipina and the Magsaysay Foundation.
The small mound on Bagwiwayan was the site of executions. It is
said that Rizal always became melancholy on the Luneta. Once, while
strolling there, he said to a companion: "Here will I die." His ''last
mile" was &om Fort Santiago down the Malecon to the Luneta, on the
morning of December 30, 1896. The Ma}econ, or embankment, was his
daily paseo when he was an Ateneo interno.
And what did the students look like in the Manila of his time? Here
they are crossing the Pasig on the Puente de Espana:
"On the bridge of Spain, a bridge Spanish only in name since even
its ,metals come from foreign lands, is a large concourse of young
people bound for Intramuros and their respective schools. Some are
dressed in the European manner and move rapidly, loaded with books
and notebooks, looking worried, thinking of lessons and composi- _
tions: these are the students of the Ateneo. The Letranistas cant-.be
readily distinguished because ahnost all of them are dressed
Philippine and they are more numerous and less loaded with
Those of the University of Santo Tomas dress with more cait'
style; they move with ease; and instead of books they carry a cane.
academic young of the Philippines are not riotous or turbulent"
move as if preoccupied. To look at them you would think that before
their eyes shines no hope, no happy future. From time to time the
~ncourse is enlivened by the charming figures and rich colors of the
girls of the Escuela Municipal, ribbon on shoulder, books in hand,
their maids following behind. But otherwise hardly: any laughter;
hardly any jesting; nothing of singing; nothing of witticisms. At the
most, horseplay and brawlings among the small fry. Their seniors
almost always appear serious and composed, like German students."
 who Propaganda
s · . And. it is they too who will man the
tion that the Propaganda ~ ·

J
Chapter 7: BONIPkCIO'S MANILA

TUTUBAN used to be a teeming nipa village on the banks of the

de la Reina, with a capilla of its own in honor of St. Monica. In tW,:
Tondo barrio Ari~ Bonifacio was born in 1863, the ye11 of ffie ~
temblor. The Bonifacios were Spanish mestizos.
The dividing line between Tutuban and Binondo was a street~
Paseo de Felipe ll. Around 1871 this street was widened intp.
boulevard, lengthened beyond Divisoria to the seashore, and reildllUCF~
Calle Azcarraga. It's now Recto Boulevard.
In mid-year of 1887 the village of St. Monica was cleared away,
leaving a swath of land sweeping northward to I<alookan. Bol;lilado
was then in his early 20s and he must have been there :wben the ~
cleared space that had been his native barrio wa!. decorated •
palms, bunting and banners for the inauguration of an epoch.
On July 31 the governor-general of the Philippines, Don EmiJi9
Terrero y Perinat, came to the erstwhile nipa village and, in the
presence of the elite of society and a cheering multitude, laid the
cornerstone of the first railroad station in the land.
The country had entered the modem age, towards which it hact
been hurrying during the 1870s.
In 1870 the first steam ship arrived in Manila direct from Barcelona
via the newly opened Suez Canal. Manila was now but a month a ~
from Spain. In the following years, ocean cables put the colony i n ~
touch with Europe. Manila was outpost no more, nor cloister. Adess
the city's river now arched the ultra-modem Puente Espana ana ~
amazing Puente Colgante, suspended in the air, like a salute to the a:p
of science and engineering. Telegraph and telephone would soon
follow, plus gaslight, street lights, and horse-drawn streetcats.
But, now, here was Govemor-General Terrero breaking ground for
a railroad. The -era of steel, steam and speed had definitely reached
Manila.
Progress was vaunted by the 1895 Philippine Exposition, inaup
rated by Governor-General Ramon Blanco on January 23, to the cheen
~ t h crowd. The governor said that a great future ~
fbr the arqupe

-
hddy fields between Maate
 • ·ty had come ~ Manna in 1893-, when the Luneta, the
~~ and •t
the harbor (then the il\outh of the river) wete illumi-
l\ated-elecbically. The Luneta lights have a place in our history.
At the outbreak of revolt, Bdnifado told the provincial leaders that
he would attack Manila on August 29 and that as soon as he had
seized the city he would have the Luneta lights tumed off, as a signal
Jo the provincial troops to rise in arms. SQ, on the night of.August 29,
1896, the young Emilio Aglpnaldo, then the municipal captain of
1<a1tit, and his policemen ~ vigil at the I<awit briage, from where
the L~ta was clearly visible. They watched all night but at da~ the
lights of the Luneta were still on. Realizing that Bo'nifacio's uprising
had failed, Aguinaldo resolved to start his own revolt. By then, 1896,
the Manila railroad had been running some four ye~ already.
To build the Manila-Dagupan-railway, the government contracted
an Englishman, Horace L. Higgins, w h o ~ the_Manila.Railway
Company Ltd. that constructed the line running through I<alookan,
Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac and into Dagupan - almost 200 kilome-
ters of a railway costing some-eight million pesos. _
Construction took over four years. Holiday banners and bunting
again rustled in the air on November 24, 1892, when the railroad was
-4edared open and a steam locomotive began to chug-chug and toot-
out of Tutllban on its way to Dagupan.
History was on the way. The Revolution would ride the train to
lo&. And the Philippine-American War would be fought princi-
along the tracks,. every majOr battle being at every tnajor train
1892 is ~ for another event, or series of events. On
bf that year Rizal returned to the ~ - On July 3 he
~:bed the Liga Filipina- at a p,tbering of p ~ t s in Tondo.
he was arrested and tuen:t() Fort Santiago. On July 7 it was
that Govenor-cea.l Eulogio 'Oespu.jol was d ~
· • of that day, a gro-qp of ilustrados
~ in Binondo.
Elcano, which is properly~ the arrabal of Binond6. So 1he
common allegation tltat the ~ was born in Tondo is-false.
In one of the four apartments on the ground floor - No. 72- lived
1'\deodato Arellano, brother-in-law of Marcelo H. del Pilar, who had
been .urging the Propagandists in Manila to organize a society more
rebel in temper than La Solidaridad. It was surely Arellano who
secretly assembled that small group in his house and proposed the
formation of the Katipunan, a society committed to violent rebelliop.
So another common belief- that Bonih\cio founded the Katipunan-
is not true. He was one of those summoned by Arellano to o ~
the society, and who elected Arena. the first Supremo of the KKK.
A business agent, or what's called a commercial traveler ~dly a
proletarian occupation), Bonifacio had become deeply involved in the
cabals of the ilustrados. He was also present at the founding of the
Liga Filipina and was elected its treasurer.
Among the oth~ summoned by Arellano were Valentin Diaz,
Teodoro Plata, Ladislao Diwa and Jose Dizon. These were the found-
ing fathers and they were all associated with the Plopaganda, th~
bourgeois reformist movement, engined by the ihrtr fw So, again,
it's not quite accurate to say that the .Katipunan a proletarian
movement. It did not start thus, anyway. It was an offshoot of the
Propaganda, organized by gentlemen who now wanted to go beyond
gentle propaganda. Of them, perhaps ·only Bonifacio can be called
low~ - but only by ignoring his Spanish blood.
However, even after the founding of the Katipunan, Bonifacio still
sought to continue the Llga Filipina, with the help of Apolinario
Mabini, though .this Liga of theirs was more frankly reformist ~
Rizal's "vigilante" league. The rules Rizal wrote for his Liga stipulated
that members were pledged "to render mutual protection, to provide
defense against violence and injustice, and to observe secrecy regard-
ing any order issu~." Rizal's intention is obvious: to fuse the upper
classes and the masses into a compact national community capable of
mass action. In short: Pegple Power. And with members pledged JO,
"provide defense against violence and injustice," the Liga could have
developed into vigilante troops powerful enough to scare the friar&

ur
and the Guardia Civil.
The that Bonifacio and Mabini carried on eventually split inlt!
tiit6¥a ind mdicals, with Mabil\i ~ off with the sefloles, anci
.._,..faelo ~ - - 1 o -,, w n ~ KiD~~
.. No. 12 AzGarrag'a was the ~ ~ the ~ :w~
~ t o Ai'eJlano was its leader; ·'l'iien! the 8GCiety stayed for a year ·
and a half, until late in 1893, when the headquarters were moved to
Emilio Jacinto's house on Oroquieta. Oroquieta was then (and
throughout American times as well) a gentry neighborhood of fine
houses on large grounds. Jacinto, a college student, would have.been
gentry himself. . .
Under Bonifacio, _w ho was not proclaimed Supremo until the I<ati-
punan became geared to actual revolt, the I<I<I< published an under-
ground newspaper, adopted a flag, prepared a war plan, and sought
the support of the eminent. (But Rizal scoffed at it.) Apparently the
war plan deaeed a massacre of ag. Spaniards at the outbreak of revolt.
This item would lead to the betrayal of the I<atipunan.
One I<atipunero, Teodoro Patino, became so fearful for his sister's
safety (she was boarding in a convent of Spanish nuns) that he told her
why he wanted her out of that convent. The revelation reached the
ears of the Augustinian pa(ish priest of Tondo, to whom Patino was
forced to show proof. A raid on the newspaper office where he said
the I<atipµnan literature was printed yielded proof indeed of a conspi-
-racy.
And. orders went out for the. instant arrest of, as an American
chronicler grimaces, "the richest and most prominent men in the
Colony - the cream of Manila s,x:iety"!
Don Pedro Roxas, for instance, bad just been a houseguest at
Malacaiiang when he learned he wu "wanted" by the police. Among
those arrested were Telesforo Olidian, Mariano Limjap, Jacobo Z.Obel,
Luis Yangco, Rosario Villaruel (our first woman Mason), Antonio,
Juan and Jose Luna, Felipe Zamora and Francisco Roxas.
It cost Don Pedro Roxas a fortune to be aJlowec;l to leave the country,
sailing-out on the same boat with Ra.al. Wiser than Rizal, Don Pedro
dropped off at Singapore and thus escaped with his life.
Not so lucky was shipping magnate Francisco Roxas, among the
first to be arrested, accused of smuggling.arms for the rebellion. He
wuececu.ted on the Luneta along with such ilustrados as Numeriano
Adriano, the mentor of Mabini. Not plebeian alone but patrician too .
was the first blood shed in the Revvlution. The dimax of the blood
bath was of course the Ri1A1 lilartyldom. .
When the katipunan W M ~ OJ\ ~ ~ 8 9 6 , Bonifacio
alei1edaBthe~tioJlfle;S O ~ - - oa~.M
in the vUlage there called 8altntawak. Chedq,olnts had been set upalt
over the metro area bat the Katipuneros managed to get to Kalookaft
by saying they were on M way to Malabon for the fiesta- of San
BartQlome - the Apostle garbed in red and wielding a bolo whose
feastday is August -24. ManileAos wore crimspn as pilgrims of St.
Bartholomew that August of '96. And it was under his auspices that
we uttered "the Cry of Balintawak."
Bonifacio arrived in Kalookan in the small hours of August 23. IJy
afteJ;noon· of that day several hundred KatipJU\eros were gathered ia
Balintawak. Deliberately fanning their fufy to make them choose.
violent revolt, the Supremo ~ them so stirred up that when he
raises a fist, they raise their fists; when he tears up his ~ula (or I.D.)
they tear up their cedulas; and when he aies defiance, they ay
defiance. The die is cast, this is the point of no mum. .Bonifacio ha
committed the brotherhood to revolution.
From rustic Balintawak swells the cry of '96: "Maulury 1111g filipinllfl
Mlzbuhay ong IWip#non!"
Since that moment Balintawak has been one of the most hallowed
place-names of Philippine culbue and history, exalted by poets like
R«to and JWmori and Bernabe, and glorified in song and legend.
The aeators of Quezon City butdtered.Balintaw.ak, chopping it of
from its original ma~: Kalookan. Piety to ~ history demands a
Balintawak that's in Ka1ookan. Splitting that hallowed ground wu a
barbarous act. .
Chapter s: uvotundNt
PANIC gripped the city as the rumor spread that the I<atipuneros
were assembling in Kalookan for an attack on Manila and the massacre
of all Spaniards. One daily, the Diario de Manila, came out on August
23 with a hysterical call to arms, alleging that the life of every Spanish
man, woman and child was in danger.
. Terrified, the Spanish closed their shops and offices and marched on
Malacafiang to demand protection. Governor-General Ramon Blanco
snubbed the demonstrators and slapped a 500-peso fine on the Diario
de Manila for causing a riot. Nor di':i Blanco h:eed the clergy s demand
for martial law. The important thing was to keep calm. ·
Spanish troops in Manila numbered only 700. In the rest of the
country were barely 800 more Spanish troops. But Madrid had been
asked for reinforcements. And the mayor of Manila, Manuel Luengo,
organized a Battalion of Manila Volunteers composed of Peninsulars
and Creoles. Other Spanish citizens formed a Volunteer Cavalry
Corps and two guerrilla units. The citizen soldiers patrolled the metro
a:rea day and night, from Tondo to Malate, and manned the walls of
Manila.
· But not all the·I<astila proved to be that patriotic. When word came
that fightiJ,.g had begun between the rebels and the Guardia Qvil, on
August 26, in I<al0<;>kan, many Spanish families evacuated to Hong
Kong. _
"The next morning," reported. historian John Foreman, who was
then in Manila, "I watched the troopers cross over the Puente de
Espana. There was mud up to the ponies' bellies, for they had scoured
the district all around. The hubbub was tremendous among the _h abit-
ual saunterers on the Escolta. For the next few days every Spaniard
one met had some startling news .t o tell."
Most startling of all was the news on August 29 that the I<atipuneros
were marching on ·Manila! But next day _b rought the report that the
rebels had been stopped in San Juan del Monte, where they tried to
seize . the powder magazine but were repulsed by the detachment
there. The I<atipuneros left eighty dead on the field. They fled in
disorder to the banks of the Pasig River, where a second battle
developed. Gunboats sent u.pstreain to cut off their tetreat-fired on the
insurgents, who were driven back from the bank& and into the line:of
 fire of the pursuing troopers. In the hand-tolhand fighting that fol-
lowed, fifty more of the insurrectos.fell. .
At three o'clock that afternoon, martial law was declared in Manila ·
and seven Tagalog and Pampango provinces; They are now the eight
rays in the sun of the national flag.
After the Battle of Pinaglabanan, Bonifacio disappeared. His name
faded from the news as another insurgent name grew big. Manila was ·
still sighing with relief that the Bonifacio uprising had flopped when it
heard that another insurrection had started in Cavite, led by the mayor
of Kawit, Emilio Aguinaldo. This uprising spread with a_stonishing
speed. In barelytwo months, Aguinaldo had taken all Cavite and was
advancing into Las Piftas and Parafiaque. Because of his success, the
revolutionaries disheartened by the Bonifacio fiasco were now heartily
up in arms in Batangas, Laguna, Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac and
Nueva Ecija. But Manila stayed the "Bver Loyal" and offered in
defense of the government native volunteer troops from Cagayan, the
Ilocos, Bicolandia, the Visayas and Pampanga (the Macabebes).
On October 1, 1896, the mail ship Cataluiia arrived in Manila with a
battalion of Spanish marines. Next day, another steamer, the Montser-
rat, brought more expeditionary forces from Spain. Reinforcements_
kept arriving - received by Manila with parades and banquets and a
.feeling of relief - until there were some 5,000 fr~h Spanish troops to
throw against the insurrection. These are the troops that have passed
into local legend as the Cazadores, a beloved enemy, so many of
whom stayed behind, married Filipino girls and established a new
criollerio. Many a triumphant revolutionary town fumed to see its
young ladies stealing out in the dead of the night to srieak delicious
food to .captured Cazadores in the town jail. .
The keep-cool policy of Governor-General Blanco did not sit well
with the Spanish population and the clergy. His replacement in
Malacaftang - or, rather, in Intnimuros, since the Revolution had
forced a transfer of the governor-general's office to an address on
Santa Potenciana - was the ruthless Camilo Polavieja, who had Rizal
executed. But during the five months of the Polavieja governorship;
Cavite was reconquered and Aguinaldo was sent fleeing into the wilds
of Biak-na-Bato. '
A magnifico of a Manilefio had a hand in ending the first phase of
the Revolution. Pedro Paterno, a "Son of '72," had known the new
governor-general, Fernando Primo de Rivera, in Madrid, where
 121
P......-,,bad iN,Wed afitout -' a.--...._.,rith I COlklHnlll that pro-
dauned him of the Fl1ipno nobillJy:kMagihoo. Now back in Manila,
Don Pedro th_9ught he might pill a noble title (duke or marquise or
10mething) from the government o( Madrid if he succe.eded in writing
finis to the Philippine insunection.
So-, .armed with permits signed by his old friend, Primo de Rivera,
Don Pedro Paterno is borne by hammock to the wilds of Biak-na-Bato,
where he persuades Aguinaldo and company to go into exile.
Offidally, the Philippine Revolution ended on Chrisbnas Eve 1897,
when Aguinaldo and company left Biak-na-Bato for the Pangasinan
port of Sual, where they took ship for Hong Kong on December 27.
Governor-General Primo de Rivera ordered a three;&y celebration
(January 30, 31, and February 1) of the ''Peace of Biak-na-Bato." In
Manila there were boat races, horse races, bicycle races, fluvial para-
des, thealer, fireworks and dinner-balls at Malacanang, the Ayunta-
miento and the Casino Espai\ol.
. Lilce an omen was the conflagration that climaxed the festivities,
razing downtown Binondo and six million pesos' worth of property on
February 1.
People who felt that all the feasting of "peace" was premature were
justified when, the following year, on April 24, 1898, Spain declared
war on .the United States. A month later, Manila heard that Aguinaldo
was back in Cavite - to resume .the Revolution.
When the Spanish-American War broke out, the new govemor-
general, Basilio Augusti y Davila, had been only 14 days in office. ·He
seemed earnest in instituting reforms. His policy of attraction resulted
in the forming of militia units composed of amnestied insurgents, on
whom military ranks were conferred. He organized a Philippine Con- _
sultative Assembly of 20 representatives of all the social classes,
including former msurrectos. . ~
Such was Augusti' s suCce&ll in reuniting the country that when war
with the United States erupted, wlunteer Filipino groups, already
drilled into troops by their Own officers, offered themselves to the
- government. The provinces outdid each other in donations of funds
.and horses to the war cause. And even such redoubtable figures of the
1896 uprising as Ricane, Pio cle1 Nar, Mariano Trias and Emiliano
Riego de Dias declared h:meelYes - the side of the govemment.
Governor-Genera Augu$ti • - .t kealony. that tt.Cod-of \lido-
• - - OD the . . . o(:8Dii
~ 1811111"~•· - IP
States would be "short and 4kisive." Only the latter statement
proved correct. · • '
,Upon word that a huge American squadron was on its way to
invade Manila Bay, there was a frantic exodus from the city. The rich
fled to Hong Kong, paying four times the normal rate for a steamship
ticket. The Chinese were leaving by the hundreds, whichever way
they could. The Manila native bourgeois evacuated up the river to the
lake towns. The 25 American families and the other whites in the city
were given refuge in various foreign ships on the bay. One American
who refused to budge was a Mr. Johnson, because .ms wife was in
childbed. Because of this, we learn that the cinema had already arrived
among us in 1898. Mr. Johnson's busin:ess, which took him all over the
islands, was screening movies.
The original plan of defense was to intercept the enemy outside
Manila Bay and engage it at Subic. So towards the end of April, the-
Spanish commander, Admiral Patricio Montojo, moved his fleet to
Subic _Bay. But he found it without mines and, worse, without the
guns that should have been mounted all along the coastline. Dis-
gusted, Montojo returned the fleet to Manila Bay on the very day the
American squadron under Commodore George Dewey left Hong
Kong for Manila.
Dewey reached Philippine waters on April 30, 1898, checked out
Subic Bay and found it empty, then proceeded to Manila Bay. His
squadron, all lights put out, entered the bay af three o'clock dawn,
May 1, and passed Corregidor unnoticed by the watch there.
Manj.la awoke that Sunday morning to find the two fleets in con-
frontation off Cavite . port. The Spaniard guns spoke first and .were
allowed 20 minutes of free firing at the invaclers. Then at 5:40 a.m.,
Commodore Dewey addressed his executive officer-aboard the U.S.S.
Olympia: "You may~ when you are ready, Gridley." Five hours later
the Spanish warships were all aflame and sinking. In the middle of the
battle the flagship Olympia 1:Vas observed withdrawing and when the
other American ships asked why, they were told not to worry: Dewey
had merely passed to eat breakfast. Actually the Olympia had run out
of ammunition.
Eight Americans were wounded during the battle, none of them
seriously, and a ship's e n ~ died of a heart attack from the
exdfement. The Spanish lost all their sbips and an estimated 500 men.
Upio..the 1930s, ~~l'S on Malate ~ could see-the ruined hulls of
 ... • out of.=-pay.
t fateful Mil:, ,l,l.elqifwduld tamk: Abattle in a harbor.
'I(

fiose name.was ~ to 0"1' average citizen ma4e us a world

wer - with a resuftant impetus to the national imagination."
Cavite and Corregidor were occupied by the Americans. Manila
could have been boml,arded and. forced to surrender that May 1.
Dewey hesitated because he had no land troops. However, there was
already a scenario for the situation: bring in Aguinaldo and make him .
fight the Spanish ~til the Gringo could land an army in Manila.
In daily dread of being invaded by the North Americans, Manila had
~ a city of men without women: all the women and children had
been stowed away iit the provinoes. A delegation of priests and mms
was sent to Dewey in Cavite to implore "mercy for the vanquished."
Isolated from the-world (Dewey had cut the cable line) Manila con-
tinued to be emptied. Foreigners were fleeing to Cavite, to place
themselves under Dewey's protection. The rich were still escaping
abroad on what steamers could pass the American blockade. But army
volunteers, both Spanish and Filipino, were ardently protesting their
loyalty and assuring Govern.or-General Augusti that "tlle enemy shall
not land in Manila without?saing over our dead bodies."
The last week of that unmerry Maytime brought the news that
Emilio Aguinaldo was back in Cavite to continue the insurrection
"against Spain. And all the ers,twhQ!t ~ who had lately been
pledging allegiance to Spain were piesently troopiJlg to Cavite to
rejoin Aguinaldo and the Revolution.
 Chapter 9: THE nnKD PM.I.

,, BLITZ pure and simple was·the Aguinaldo dash froin Cavite 16,
metro area. With scant · help from the Americans, he pushed the
resumed revolt to _the point of victory, victory here meaning (as it must
41 every Philippine war) the taking of Manila.
Momentous here is not the June 12 ~wit declaration of indepen-
dence but -the transfer in July of Aguinaldo's headquarters to Bacoor,
within sight-of Manila. In a month he had sped down the old Ca.mh\O •
Real ·from, Cavite port to the very gates of the capital city. A-J119e l?'
wire from Dewey_notified Washington that Agt$\aldo already Md
Manila encircled and was punishing it without cease.
Aguinaldo's lines extended all around the metro area, from where
the Camino Real entered Malate in front of Fort San Antonio Abad,
through Singalong and Santa Mesa, and up to Tondo, which troops
under Colonel Honorio Lopez had wrested from the Spanish and were
triumphantly occupying. For this feat Colonel Lopez, a Santa Cruz
boy, was acclaimed as "the Hero of Manila." · _
An American soldier _9bserved that by mid-July Aguinaldo was
within eight miles of the city and had ''his coils drawn tightly about
. it."
Aguinaldo had done all this on his own. Dewey kept to the bay and
wouldn't have lent his "ally'' even a nail. American land bbops didn't
arrive till late June, didn't form a complete army till late July, and were
inactive till August because they were not allowed any ,positions
except several hundred yards from the insurgents' frontlinls. ·
The Americans assured themselves ·t hat Aguinaldo wouldn't dare
take ~nila by himself without a.rtillery. But the entire Cavite cam-
paign, and especially the Battle of Binakayan, had already proved that
Aguinaldo could win without artillery. I .
And yet, with "his coils drawn tightly about it" from mid-June to
mid-July, Aguinaldo refrained from the final squeeze that might have
given him the nation's capital city before the Americans could march
an army on Philippine soil. ·
Why, why, why did he delay!
He would say later that he did not move because Dewey h a d ~
him not to attack Manila until American troops had arrived, so that the
.two armies-could share fue.victoty4ild ~ into Manila together. He
126
did not ..U.that Dewey was~ ~ • h e wouldn't acl
while the Ameriam troops were Pll the way. The moment the Ameri-
cans had a complete am,.y on Philippine soil, Agumaldo became
expendable.
He was only eight short miles &om victory. But because he hesi-
tated, and allowed himself tQ be stalled, it was the Americans who
snatched those eight short miles for themselves, with an audacious
trick. • .
The Americans meant to advance into Manila along the coast, so
they could be protected by the guns of their fleet on the bay. But they
were shut off from all approaches to the dty by Aguinaldo's frontlines
- and the insurgents would not budge from their trenches. If there
was to be any advance into the dty, they would do the advancing who
had kept the dty-under si~ge for two months.
The American problem was how to displace the insurgents on the
Camino Real without having to battle them.
What the Americans did was have a talk with th~ young Filipino
. officer, General Mariano Noriel, in charge of the frontlines ·along the
bay, from Baclaran and Pasay to the· Malate border. The strongest
Spanish position on the Camino Real was Fort San Antonio Abad.
Opposite it were·the Filipino trenches. And there, said General Francis
Greene of the U.S. forces, where artillery was a must, the Filipinos had
only an obsolete ship's cannon. Noriel-agreed that his position could
use heavier guns. ·
Idle in Cavite, said Greene, were five batteries of modern guns that
could be installed at that point - if the Filipinos allowed the Ameri-
cans to occupy the left side of that particular position. Noriel said
Aguinaldo would have to be consulted. A messenger sent to Bacoor
came back at two in the morning with Aguinaldo's answer: General
Greene should make a formal request in writing for the trenches. But
to do so would be to recognize Aguinaldo as an ally - and the
American officers were now ~ warned against acknowledging in
any way that the Filipinos were commdes and partners in the taking of
Manila.
So Greene turned to outright dishonesty. He promised to submit the
formal written request. as eoan as the Pilipmol had vacated the
trenches and the ~ J U l d moftd in. Incredibly enough, Agai- ·
~consented!
moved 1m ~. . .- -
ladarm and Puay. Then fargot aD about the lonrtat writWA
request. All's fair in Jove and war-but we were not suppoaed tobe at
war with thl! Gringo. How they crowed that Greene had dealt very
cleverly "with the natives in accordance with their own methoclt('
Having duped and robbed us, the Americans now added insult to
injwy by calling us deceitful.
General Noriel burst into tears upon seeing the American flag
hoisted over what had been a Filipino advance position. But his troop,
had rlo ~ now to reclaim what s1lould never have been relin-
quished. -
That was the turning point of the Battle of Manila.
From then on, it would be- the Amedmns advancing, and only the
Americans. Aguinaldo had been dialodged, outflanked, double-
aossed, bypassed, left behind, kicked out of the Camino Real.
The Camino Real that audacity caidcl have made the.Revohttion's
highway to victory, nai~ tamed into a dead end.
It was the Gringo who man:bed up the Camino Real into Manila, on
August 13, 1898, aftef a token resistance by the Spanish. The Ameri-
cans were careful not to blow up lntramuros, where Church and State-
were, or Binondo, where money and buliness were.
Much has been made of the iea'et pact hetween the Spanish and the
Americans that gave Manila to the Gringo after a phoney battle. But it
was Agpinaldo that the Spanish had first propositioned, urging an
alliance against the- Americans. He had some 80,(XX) troops. The
Spaniards had 15,(XX) in Manila and 20,000 more in the provinces, plus
the artillery and ammunition taat Aguiftaldo lacked.
An alliance between Aguinaldo and the government before the
Americans could land an army would have bottled up Dewey in
Manila Bay and made his victorious.armada impotent. The combined
insurgent-government forces could have repulsed any attempt to land
the arriving 'American trOops. As reward for Aguinaldo's support, the
Spanish offered autonomy for the Philippines.
Aguinaldo would not even.listen; he threw the government's~
· sary into jail. And this at a time when he was already being cold-
shouldered by the Gringo. .
Rebuffed, the Spanish then ~ ! , > f a last NSOrt.
~alFermin)audene& wu desperatl!. Dewey and U.S.

---·~
·•----,it
Commander Wesley Merritt had deliwnd an ultimatpa: either the
~ ~ aurreJiclemcl would .... - . . .
128
bombanbnent. But the Spanish code of honor forbade a 81.U'l"e!lder
without a fight. Jaudenes knew such a fight would be futile-. The city
could hold out no longer.
Manila, under siege for two months, was starving. The Filipinos
could slip through the lines of their countrymen to fetch food from
outside. But the Spaniards, who had mostly crowded into Intramuros,
quartered. inside churches and schools, had long run out of flour and
rice. Those with money were grateful for what horse meat or carabao
meat they could buy. Those without money were reduced to eating cat
meat, dog meat, and rats. Even bananas were a luxury, at 24 centavos
each ..
Surrender was inevitable and the consensus was that it would be
better to surrender to the Gringo, who might allow the Spanish to save
face, than to the Filipinos, who would surely want old scores paid off.
Jaudenes persuaded. the Belgian consul to act as his go-between
with the Gringo, to arrange a mock-battle that would make it appear
that the Spanish in Manila had not yielded without a fight. On the
aftern~ of August 12 the Belgian consul conferred with Dewey and
Menitt, who were agreeable.
The scenario brought back to Jaudenes detailed a rough enough
hubbub that could be! said Merritt, "accomplished. without the lo~s of
life." At rµne o'clock the.next morning, August 13, Dewey's warships
would position themselves off the Malate shore and start a bombard-
ment. But they were to shell only Fort San Antonio Abad and certain .
bastions of Intramuros, taking care riot to hit anything inside the
Walled Oty or in Binondo. ·After the shelling the flagship Olympia
would steam closer to shore to signal the demand for surrender. Fort
Santiago would hoist the white Bag at eleven o'clock noon. Then
representatives from both ·sides would parley on the shore and ar-
range the American takeover. As the Spanish troops withdrew from
their trenches, these would be instantly occupied. by American troops,
who wouJ,d bar the advance of Filipino troops.
. The sham battle didn't quite go accoming to plan. Fort San Antonio
Abad didn't even pretend to fight. The American troops who as-
saulted it f011J\d the ~ empty, all its cannon gone. From the fort,~to
the strains of a brass balld p)aymg There'll Be11 Hot Time in the Old Town
Tonight and under a steady i:mJ'-Zle, the ~ advanced. towards the
Luneta, perfe¢y happy~ a battle that was without~- But
the U.S. ~~in,~~ gotinto-SQme NI street
 fighting and eeveral dozen Yanb got wounded. The trouble was that-
the troops didn't know the battle was not for real.
At around eleven o'clock the Spanish soldiers were told to ~
fighting: Manila had surrendered. At noon, howeyer, ~ fleet
could see the Spanish flag still flying over Fort Santiago. Had the
Spanish surrendered or not? Two hours Jater the flag still had not been
hauled down - and Dewey could only wonder what the hell had
happened. . . .
On the ground the confusion was worse. When the Americans
started advancing, so did the Filipinos - and nothing could stop
them. In Santa Ana the insurgents ran into Spanish troops and a
ferocious battle ensued. Where the Spanish trenches began, it wa,
Americans and Filipinos that collided and clashed. The_Jilipinos were
driven back. . ·
When the Americans, soaking wet, reached the cold ,;nuddy de-
serted Luneta, they beheld at last the surrender sign. It turned out that
the Spaniards did hoist the white flag at eleven o'clock a.m. _.:. but
they hoisted it not at Fort Santiago but on a bastion facing the Luneta,
off the Puerta Real. However, this li,ttle snafu had not really delayed
the scenario. When General Greene knocked on the Puerta Real, he
learned that envoys of Dewey,illld Merritt were already inside, receiv-
ing the formal capitulation of the dty.
The sham battle had cost the Gringo six dead and SO wounded. The
Spanish lost 49 men. B~t the two prime objectives were achieved: the
Spanish saved face; and Aguinaldo's troops were kept out of the fallen
city. Alone the Gringo entered Manila in triumph, but his was a fake
victory- "one of the most disgraceful farces in history," as Manila
Archbishop Nozaleda called it. Did the shame of that sham ever haunt
the Gringo? The Filipino he duped had done all his fighting for him. ·
Moreover, that victory was annulled by the preliminary peace talks
in Paris between Spain and the United States, which started at 4:25
, p.m., August 12, 1898. At that moment began the armistice that
ordered a stop to all fighting and a freezing of the status quo. So the
August 13 ''battle" of Manila was invalid. Because its cable line had
been cut, Mariila got the news only when the 1 '6-attle" was over and -
the Americans had already occupied the dty. Still, to respect the
armistice, the Yanks should have evacuated Manila and returned to
their pre-armistice position· on the border of Malate, in front of Fort
~ Antonio Abad. The GrinF prefll!l'rf.d to stick to the rule that
 Chapter 10: ANOTHER 16INSURRECI'ION"

TUTUBAN Station was jammed with early travelets on the morning of

September 15, 1898. It seemed as if all Manila had tickets for Malolos,
where the Revolutionary Congress was to be inaugurated at 9:00 a.m.
on that day. · · -
Manila had reason to pride itself on an event happening elsewhere.
News trickling back to the city revealed a Congress dominated by
Manileftos. Pedro Paterno was its president; Benito Legarda, its vice-
, president; Pablo Ocampo, its secretary; a,id foremost in its member-
ship were such grandees of Manila as Leon Maria · Guerrero and
.Trinidad Pardo de Tavera. These led the assemblage of 43 lawyers, 18
physicians, 5 pharmacists, 2 engineers, 7 businessmen, 4 agricultur-
ists, 3 educators, 3 soldiers, 2 painters, and one priest that were to
• write a Constitution - although Mabini was objecting that a Congress
had no power to make a Charter. But Aguinaldo wanted a Constitu-
tion - to prove· to the Peace Conference in Paris that a Philippine
Republic_already existed, complete with flag, charter, government and
army.
On September 29, 1898, all roads again led to Malolos. From break of
day the train station was crowded with city folk making the journey
~ north. On colfiing back, they would gush over the gorgeous decora-
tions in Malolos, now the capital of the Republic. Congress had
ratified the Kawit proclamation of independence /and had declared
September 29 "a public holiday in perpetuity." That night the Fathers
of the Republic had sat down to a .gala dinner of seven aperitifs
(oysters, prawns, buttered radishes, olives, Lyon sausages, sardines
in tomato sauce, and Holland salmon), seven main courses (crab on
the shell, meat pie a la Financiere, chicken giblets a la Tagale, mutton
chops a la Papillote with potatoes, turkey truffles a la Manilloise, filet
of fish a la Chateaubriand with French beans, and cold ham with
asparagus tips), five desserts with assorted fruit and cheeses, and six
wines and liquors (Bordeaux, Sauteme, sherry and champagne and,
with the coffee and tea, Chartreuse and cognac). ·
H F~inos -had their attention focused c;,n ~hat was going on ~
Malolo&, the Apicans had their eyes glued to what was going on in
Paris. The Constitution of the Philippines was finished and approved
unanimously on November 29, 1898 - but much good i~ did us in
 182
tonvindng the peace amfeiertce in Paris that we were already a
~nation.
On December 10, 189&, the Spanish and Amerioln commissions in
Paris signed a treatY._ of peal.'e in Which Spain ceded the Philippines to
the, United States, while the United States undertook to pay Spain 20
million dollars.
· The Malolos Congress inevitably turned into a war council as the ,....--
pros'pect loomed of war with the Americans, should they try to annex
the Philippines. Congress ordered the mobilization for military service
of all males between 18 and 40 years of age. War with the Gringo was
the issue that split the ilustrado ranks in Congress, wiMthe defeatists
like Legarda and Pardo de Tavera (a mere handful they turned out to
be) trekking back to Manila, while the war party growled menacingly
enough to scare poor Mabini. .
It was bourgeois (and ilustrado) figures like Antonio Luna and Jose
Alejandrino who were most militantly for resistanl.'e. In fact-, that
December of '89, Luna amtady wanted war started againstJhe Ameri-
cans.
Thousands ofManilei\os again took the train to Malolos on Jan~·
23, 1899 and they brought back glowing reports of the latest event
there. Congress had proclaimed the Constitution, the government of
the Republic, and the President ol the Philippines: Don Emilio Agui-
naldo. This was our retort to the Treaty of Paris.
Aguinald9 had .ridden to his ·inauguration in a carriage drawn by
four white horses - the significaN:e of which was not lost to the
public. (In Spanish times, a coaclHmd-four was permitted only to the
governor-general and the m:hbishGp of Manila - that is, only to the
chief executives.) Aguinaldo was in &ac; wore white gloves, bowtie
and top hat; and carried a tasseled gold-lcnobbed cane, the traditional
symbol of authority. Not only in Malolos was the day feasted with
parades, fireworks, dinners, concerti, and dances. ·
1bat rapturuous celebration was sheer bravado on our part. War
was only 12 days away.
The shQOting on San Juan Bridge (Pebruary 4, 1899) that is wpposed
to have started the war is etDt a-mJ91erY. The Amerkans dahn that a
three-roan pattol of thetn Saftta; Meta tded to halt four Filipino
lnsuigents who respolUled liy . · - their pl\Sr whereupon the
Alnericanl opeA41Clfia;_~ 1-~J1~ • • an ~MlllrJ Oll:5-n
Juan Bddge ~ -, --1
 encroached more than usual on the Filipino side of the bridge. Wh¢i
this was protested by the Filipinos, the Americans opened fire. Instead
of answering _the fire, the Filipinos retreated from the bridge and
~£rained from giving battle, chiefly \,ecause their top officers were not
around, being in Malolos · conferring with Aguinaldo - a fact the
Americans were surely aware of, and which should explain why they
might want to provoke hostilities that.night.
Anyway, General Arthur MacArthur immediately ordered that "a
programme prearranged for such an emergency" should be "put on
the firing line." In other words, the Gringo had everything "prear-
ranged."
The Americans had an advance outpost near the Balic-Balic ceme-
tery. This outpost sent up rockets to dazzle the skies on the night of
that February 4. The signal brought 2,000 American troops streamin8'
out of their quarters in San Miguel, Quiapo and Sampaloc, and
heading for Balic-Balic. However, the Battle of Balic-Balic, ~t engage-
ment of the Philippine-American War, was not fought until the fob_
lowing morning-.
At 7:45 a.m., February 5, the Americans ordered an advance on the
Philippine positions, from ·Balic-Ba& to the San Juan Bridge. These
positions were part of the blockade, or "noose," so carefully wrought
_ by Aguinaldo to,encircle Manila- from the Camino Real in Malate,
through San Juan and Santa Mesa, to the reb redoubt of Tondo.
•,. When the Americans in Balic-Balic attacked, the Philippine barri-
cades in Santa Mesa and San Juan aumbled. ''By 9:30 a.m.,"..reported.
the American general in -~ of the operations, "we were in possu-
sion of the entire insurgent line, from Balic-Balic to San- Juan, a
distance of two miles." In short, the Americans had shattered open
two miles of the Filipino front. That was the gaping wound of which
the Republic died. Two Bloody miles . .
Once the Americans had rushed through that gap, one could predict
disaster and nothing but disaster: the unending retreat of the Republic
- to Tarlac, to Pangasinan, to the Cordilleras, to land's end.
Repelled by th~ "Cavitismo" of Aguinaldo and his cronies, Antonio
L11na would deptmd more and more on the officers of the old Creole
army he had attracted to •the cause of the Republic. Captain Ramon
._Spiwm. wQUld distinguish himleJf in the Battle of Mayptjo Bridge,
,where.the lfring was-so intense their guns scorched the bands of the
defenders. ColonelQ_ueti wottl4~ duel of staff and would haj.d
134
in volunteers from Matwa. Torres Bugalkm would fall·lightlngm the
iatt\e of 'La -Loma. A,nd a -commando unit under Rosendo Simon de
Pajarillo would penetrate American-held Manila and battle the enemy
to the ~st bullet on Call.~ Azcarraga, in front of the BiJibid.
When KalOQkan fell, the counterattack that Luna ordered was in line
with the tactics he had had in mind from the start: delay the American
advance and make it as costly as possible.
Since Kalookan was the,gateway to the north, what the Americans
had burst open, the Republic had to ram shut again. Luna's counterat-
. tack would have the troops of Generals Llarena, Garcia and Hizon
converging on the town from three points when the American forces
would be divided because, at the same time, Manila would be attacked
by Luna's troops from the north, by General Licerio Geronimo from
the east, and by Genepus Pio del Pilar and Miguel Malvar from the
south.
When the counterattack was· underway, Luna, .to relieve the ex-
hausted Pampango troops, ordered into La Loma the Kawit troops
under Captain Janolino, known as Pedrong Kastila. Janolino refused
to obey, declaring that he had been instructed to take orders only from
Aguinaldo. Because of this "Cavitismo," La Loma :was not retaken and
the whole counterattack collapsed.
Thus did Luna's fears come true: that conflict with the Gringo might
have to be fought all along the railroad, with the Republic fleeing and
the Gringo in hot pursuit. The rest of the year brought Manila only
depressing bulletins from the front. The hard-fought battle at ¥arllao
and the retreat to Malolos; die burning of Malolos and the escape to ·
Calumpit; the fighting on the Bagbag River and ,the flight to Tarlac; the
slaying of Antonio Luna in Cabanatuan; the fall of the refugee govern-
ment in Bayambang; the proclamation of guerrilla warfare; the Battle
of Tirad Pass and Aguinaldo's disa~ce into the highlands.
Throughout the year 1900 'Mantia had no idea where the Seftor
Presidente was, 'though rumors abounded concerning his where-
abouts. He was in Cavite; he·was in Pampanga; he had fled to Hong
Kong; he was right here in Manila; he was dead. The-only thing sure
was that he had vanished into thin air. The year ended and a new
century- the 20th- beglln, with no word yet on what had happened
to Aguinaldo.
Then one morning late in ~ 1901, Manila awoke (and, accofd-
ing to one cltronider, "went wikl' with el(dtement") to hear that
 E,.a/~
~ was indeed Jn tile city', • a "pilll'-' ot-:t:i:llt;"1 :J.
MacArthur in ~He:had1'ieea~llfll4in a.
remote east-coast village of Palanan, wla the Sel\or PMlidetik:ftaa
settled after wandering for Bve monthll ta till! wilds of ~-
On April Fool's Day, 1901, Aguina1clo tpok the oath of alleglance to
the United States and called on revolutionaries still in the fieJd to do
likewise.
Ended was the conflict the A.lnc!rica8' called an "insum!dion." But
how could it be an insurrection when the Amerians wete not rufin&
the mass of the population and contlOlled no part of the country
except one bay, one _town (Cavite port) and one dty? Since the. of
the country was controlled by the Aguinaldo government, what the
Ameriams tniscalled an "insunection" was actually a wu between
two sovereign states, the Philippine Republic and the- American
Union, whatever the pronouncements of the Treaty of Paris. 1he
Philippine-American War questioned the justice of handing us over to
someone who had not even conquered us.
On July 4, 1901, American military rule ended when W'dliam Ho-
ward Taft was sworn in as the first civilian governor-general of the
Philippines. He immediately warned his Little Brown ~rothen that
- even just talking on Philippine independence was a punishable crime...
In Manila, the most obvious e«ect of the American ocaipation was
the mushroouung of saloons. There were 224 saloons in the city by
February 1900, serving a scant 5,000 American civilians there. So
aJarmingly did the bars (and tlle brawl, thetein) proliferate that in
April 1901 they were banned as a public nuisance from the bueineM
hub of Binondo. ·
No Manileno would be caught dead inside a Gringo saloon, and an
observation by historian John Penman is to be highly doubted. '"'l'he-:
Filipino," said he, "who formerly drank nothing but water, now
qua«. his iced keg-beer. ot cocktail with great gusto." The genteel
ManileAo of the time ~ IRfflY whet\ he quaffed at an but wal
generally a teetotaller.
 PART FOUR
TIME OF A SECOND COMING

Chapter 1: THE EXTENpED CITY

UPON drafting a new charter for Manila in June 1901, the Americans
made official what had long been tacit: that the City of Manila was not
lntramuros alone but also all its arrabales.
The new city charter proclaimed that Manila was composed of
eleven districts, or wards - presumably Tond6, Binondo, Santa Cruz,
Sampaloc, San Miguel, Pandacan, Santa Ana, Paco, Malate, Ermita
and Intramuros.
In addition to these, the Church recognized five parishes as
Manilefio - namely, Gagalangin, Trozo, Balic-Balic, Santa Mesa and
Singalong. Later times would add two more: Balut and San Andres
Bukid.
Says historian John Foreman:
"Manila was ft>rmerly the capital of the Provincia de Manila, as well
as of the Philippines. Since the American occupation the city and
suburbs form a kind of federal zone; what was once Manila Province is
now Rizal Province, and with it is incorporated that territory formerly
designated Morong District.,,_ .
In place of its previous Cabildo, Manila was given a new govern-
ment:
"The Municipal Board of Manila is composed of five persons;
namely a Filipino mayor, a Filipino member, and three American
members, who are practically all ru;,minees of the Insular Government.
The emolument of the mayor and of each member is $4,500."
The Insular Government was a briefer term for what was more
formally known as "the Government of the United States in the
Philippine Islands. II This government was directly under the u .s. War
Department and was headed by an American chief executive, the
Governor-General, appointed by the U.S. president. The Govemor-
General and the four Amerian .heads of the Departments of the
138
. - - ~ ~ J u s t b ,,·; : d i t ~ foiliw4 along
wttlifour other COIIUidllionen (tlueeof them.Pilipinos)r the legislative
bod~bown as the PhiBP-fiae Commillkm. The laws enacted by the
Commission had to be ratified J,y the U.S. congress. In 190'1 the
CommiMion was replaced by the Philippine Assembly, an all-elective
an-F~legislature,
The original charter of Mani1a provided that, besides the municipal
board, there was to be an "Advisory Board" of eleven members, all
Filipinos, each representing one of the city districts. When 'the charter
was revised in 1916, 'this advisory boatd was abolished. Instead, the
number of municipal board members was inaeased to ten and the
positions were made eJedive. But the mayor remained appointive.
Moreover, the executive and legislative departments of Qty Hall were
made independent of each other: the mayor was no longer the presi-
dent of the municipal council. #

lnddentally, the author of the Manila charter was General George

W. Davis, the provost marshal of Manila in 1901.
One of the earliest and bestmprovements the Americans made in
Manna· was the construction of two breakwaters in the bay. The area
,..,enclosed by _the-breakwaters was dredged and the soil dug up was
used to fill up the foreshore off lntram1'IOS. Thus was created a dpsed
harbor with more ideal port mnditions - for example, new wharves
jutting out &om the rw:laitned •iea with a depth on each side of 30 feet
at low tide, so they could berth even the largest -1ups then afloat. The
Americans also introduced lllOdem machmery for loading and un•
loading cargo. .
Before the construction of this new harbor, big steamers had had to
transfer their cargo to barge$ that delivered the t'ar80 to the mouth of
the Pasig or to the banks of the canal$ that branched off the river. The
process :was long and tedious, o ~ taking weeks.
At the new harbor, as many· as 14,000 tons o f ~ could be
unloaded in a few days, even during storms, aiid shippers said that
Manila was beQ>ming known as "one of the best rather than one of the
worst po.-ts in the Orient."
Another Ameritan 1>leuirig was the improvement of Manila's roads,
twt only by better JJuildJn&ad ~ baitbya rdc,mt of native
wheek. Many localvehida, ~ bullcaifs, used ftitedwbeels of
solid wood~tc)• • il)od: iroa. Speh "blades" could:«aek
the ~ ~,-~,~~ . -
vehicles with fixed wheels, and of wheels with a tire narrower than
two and a half inches.· When the public protested, the prisoners in
Bilibid were· set to building wide-tired carts that could be sold cheap.
Or you could get such a cart free by working on the roads for 30 days.
Curiously enough, the Americans continued a rule that was bitterly
resented in Spanish times. The Spanish government operated on the
principle that public works, especially 1'9ads and bridges, were the
responsibility of the community and that every citizen therefore had
the duty to donate part of his labor to infrastructure. The Americans
apparently didn't think that "forced labor'' on public works was
unjust or undemocratic. One of the first laws passed by the Philippine
Commission required every able-bodied Fpipino to give five days of
labor each year to road construction or maintenance, or to pay a sum
equivalent to the local cost of such labor.
In the construction of bridges, ports, markets, schoolhouses and
other public buildings, the major American innovation was the use of
concrete reinforced with steel, a type of structure generally successful
against the rav~gings of temblor, -fyphoon, humidity and white ants.
The streetcars in Manila at the time the Americans came were
horse-drawn and "very casual in operatioi:i." A franchise was offered
in 1902 for light and power services and for an electric streetcar line.
The American company that wop the franchise had by 1913 covered
the city with 50 miles of street railway. At the same ~e the_Manila-
Dagupan railroad was being extended east to Laguna and Tayabas and
south to Bicola~dia. There w4s a plan to push the northern line all the
way up to Baguio but this project never materialized, even when the
railroad was taken over by the Insular Government in 1915. In this
instance, the Yankee flair for railroads didn't steam.
One would have expected deafening applause in 1909, when Manila
got running water plus sewer and drainage systems, but 'tis said the
Manileftos were less than eager to use the municipal water works. ,
Indeed, worried looks were cast at other American works. The
filling-up of the foreshore off Intramuros had resulted, not only in a
new Port Area, but also in a new Luneta, an extension of Bagumbayan
- and on this ground, originally called Burnham Park, started to rise,
circa 1909, the Elles Oub and the Army&: Navy Oub on one side, and •
the Manila Hotel on the other side. Was Manila to have a Gringo
Luneta? ·
That same year saw construction begin on a seaside boulevard - a
~ llmiles- . ]fflllt':A.MWJQvlfe'~&•~ .in11iii, was the
most ~ . . . it irivu1'ved mtain seaside 1118118ions-in
Jmnita. Like the Manila~ ~ Boulevard failed during /
Gringo times to reach its goal.

miento editorsw'°
One could aver that the temper of the times was that of the Renaci-
lashed out at the Yankees as Aws de Rapilia, or
Birds of Prey. And hadn1: G<,vemor-General Taft lamented that of the
American treasurers he brought to the islands to teach the natives
honesty, 17 had robbed the public treasury and were now serving out
prison terms?
There's also the fact that the 1900s were bedeviled by "the second
wind of the Revolution," chiefly stirred by General Artemio Ricarte,
the veriest godfather of anti-Americanism.
And yet it's just as indubitabJe that during the 1900s the temper of
our people W\derwent a change - m,m a loathing of the Gringo to a
growing liking of him.
And the villain responsible is: the public school.
Oaapter 2: A PIONEER. MANILA MASSTRA

LET us begin this paean to the public school system, not with the
Thomasites, but with a Manila girl named Maria Salome Marquez.
When the Philippine-American War broke out, Maria was 16 and
had just finished a normal teacher's course. She lived in a southern
district of Manila, in a house on the riverbank. Beside the house was a
pottery factozy where her father worked as maquinista. Though the
Americans liad been in Manila some six months, no one in Maria's
barrio had yet seen an Americano.
In January 1899, the folk in the outlying barrios of the city were
bidden to move out by the Revolu~. Relations with the Ameri•
cans had become strained: fighting might start any moment. In those
days, passenger' boats were being operated on the Pasig by Don
Faustino Lichauco, who was a friend of Maria's family. He offered
them transportation to Calamba; the Lichauco steamers plied the
Manila-Laguna route.
To Calamba, therefore, Maria's family evacuated. They found the
town crowded with refugees but as gay as in fiesta time. They were
lodged in a ho11$e not far from the Mercado residence, then occupied
by Rizal's sisters. War with the Americans had begun but for about a
year Calamba was untouched.
One day a ship appeared on the lake flying a white flag. The
townspeople ran out to greet it, thinking it was the shipment of rice
they had long been ~ g . As the ship approached, the white flag
was hauled down and the people saw that the ship was filled with
strange.>Jooking men - huge white inen with great beards and crim-
son faces.
~'The Americanos! The Americanosl"
Screaming, the people rushed to ltteir homes, assembled their
families, snatched up a few belongings, and fled. In less than an hour;
before the Americans could land, Calamba was totally emptied.
Curled along in the wild exody.s were Maria and her family. Day
and night they trudged across mountains without stopping until they
reached Santo Tmpas in Batangas, where they found shelter in the
-convento.
tt,a rwhile', Maria's father returned to Marlila and got a permit from
the Americans to bring his family~ To retu,m to Manila, they had
1~
to make another epic journey by foot: .first a ~ walk to eabuyao;
then a -longer tramp to Bi:Aan, through mountains, ~ . rivers,
and desolate ghost villages. Maria was wearing boots; by the time they
reached Biftan the soles of her boots were gone and her feet were
bruised and swollen.
In Biiian they boarded a sailboat for Manila. The Revolucionarios
had established checkpoints along the Pasig. Maria's mother would
cover her five girls with black shawls while her father told the sentries
that he had no one with him but sickly old women.
As they approached Manila, Maria saw her fust Americana. On the
azotea of a house by the river, a huge .bearded white soldier was
strollirig about, wearing a saya de cola and nonchalantly puffing at a
cigar. Evidently, in the commandeered house, he had rummaged in
some chest and there discovered this gorgeous saya de cola. And for
his private fun he had put on that saya de cola though it was much too
small and short for him.
When they reached their barrio, Maria's family fo1Jnd not a post
standing and couldn't even tell where their house had stood. The next
day they we!!t to live in a relative's house in Binondo.
The Americanos seemed to be everywhere in Binondo. They had
turned the Hotel del Oriente into banacks and the Binondo waterfront
into army docks. All night you heard them roaring and fighting inside
the saloon at the foot of the-Binondo bridge. Maria's relatives had an
American Negro friend who often came to the· house loaded with
presents: apples and candies and hams. He gave Maria a harmonica
and taught her to sing Swed Marie and Stmnee Ricer. •
In 1900, Maria's family returned to their native barrio, where her
father had built a new house. The Americans opened a public school
in the barrio and Maria was appointed grade-school teacher, at P30 a
month. She taught the children, in Spanish, until ~ o'clock in the
morning. Afterwards it was her turn to be taught an American .named
Rigger gave her a crash course in English. •
In six- months she had mastered enough English to be able to
converse with Mr. Rigger and to teach the rudiments of the new
tongue to her grade-school pupils. Mr. Rigger was delighted and had
her assigned to the public school in Santa Ana. She taught in the
mornings; studied under .Ameriam te.chen in the afternoons. s~
was now being paid in:doDars - $35 a month- and got a five-dollar
increase-every year.
 Young Maria was now the iole llnaclwinnerin the family: her
was too old to work; her mother had died of cholera after adding two
more babies to the brood. Maria showed heraeJf fully capable of
supporting a Jarge family, although huely 18. The Maria Clara.-.-
tion was not as limp and frail as we like to believe nowadays.
When the fint intermediate school was opened in Paco, Maria WII
given a class there. She had-a moment of panic on the fint day of her
new assignment. She was used to teaching children but this new due
of hers was composed of grown ~ and women older than henelfl
But she didn't lose her head. She bade"ber students open their books
anti read the furst lesson. With their eyes turned away &om her, she
had time to overcome her dismay. 1hese adults, many of theln buli-
nessmen, had enrolled in intermediate school to learn Engliah.
Maria was presently handling night classes too, for other busy
adults who wanted to 1eam the idiom of the Gringo.
All this time the city was changing around her. Electric light was
replad:ng gas lamps; streetcars and automobiles were appearing on the
streets; the Bsa>lta was sprouting American department stores in
between the old Spanish almacenes de novedades.
Movie theaters had opened in Santa Cruz; one of them advertised
"latest art films from Europe, moving pictures full of dramatic power
- from 4:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. every day." But Manileflos told each
other that theJnOving pictures could never outdraw the zarzuela, then
in glorious flower. ·
In the streets, no longer cobbled but asphalted, and still vivid with
Bame trees, the soldier in khaki and the sailor in white had become
familiar figures- familiar but still strange, nearby.but distant, for not
until his "second coming" in 1945 was the Gringo to heroine an
intimate friend.
Around the·old barracks on Arroceros and in Intramuros, odd new
houses were springing up- houses of a single story, built close to the
ground and ringed arolU}d with verandas, behind whose saeened
windows blonde wom~ nursed blonde babies. The chalet and the
bungalow had entered Philippine ·culture. ·
In the first raptQre over Dewey's victory,.Americans had felt that the
Philippines was to be their India, producing, if not diamonds, at least
an American imperial literature 4 la Kipijng: The dream ne\rer came
trUe: the: romance of the ear!Y soldiers, teachers and missionaries has
been ignored by the American Writer-
 · ~ . on the othel' hand, have alio neglected the richer drama of
the shanty towns around McI<inley, Malcati, Santa Ana and Singa-
long, where still another Philippine tribe was born: the American
mestizaje. For both Americans and Filipinos, the "Empire Days," a
theme worthy of a Kipling or a Maugham, have become merely an
ironic footnote to history.
In 1907, when Maria Salome Marquez stopped teaching to get
married, Americans were no longer cause for astonishment or terror.
The change was symbolized for her by a gift: a little table clock from a
Mrs. Miller, who had been Maria's supervisor in the Santa Ana school,
and a strict one. Mrs. Miller was tall, thin and straight as a rod; she
wore glasses and never seemed to smile. Maria walked in terror of her.
Once, Maria had come very late to class. She came to school by
banca and the banca had capsized that morning; she had had to go
home and change. When she arrived in school she was met by Mrs.
Miller, who looked even taller, thinner, straighter and grimmer than
ever. When Maria tried to explain, Mrs. Miller had cut her short: "I do
not want excuses, Miss Marquez - I want punctuality!"
After Maria was transferred to the intermediate school in Paco, she
had not met Mrs. Miller again, had almost forgotten about her. But,
after all these years, Mrs ..Miller had remembered and had sent that
table clock and an affectionate note to say she remembered.
As she smiled at the unexpected gift, Maria recalled that long-ago
day on the Pasig, when she had been so terrified of meeting America-
nos, and how her terror had changed to delight when she saw the
-huge bearded soldier on the azotea,. cigar in mouth, and nonchalantly
etrolling about in his elegant saya de cola.
The terrifying Mrs. Miller would have been one of the academic
shiploads brought over by U.S. army trans~, the most famous ol
which was the Thomas. Hence the name Thomasites for these-imports
in general. Behind them was a New Englander named Fred W.
Atkinson, the man responsible for the Philippine public school Bys-
tem.
Chapter 3: TO ~ *MA'AM wrDI LOVE

BESIDES the Philippine Commission (five American meJJtbers plus

two Filipinos: Benito Legama and Trinidad Pardo de Tavera) .there
were other "engineers" who in the 1900s tried to restructure Philip-
pine society and remodel the Filipino.
, · Two such "engineers" are unknown to us because they don't figure
in our history books but their effects on us are incalcuJable.
These two culture heroes - or villains- are Fred W. Atkinson and
David Barrows, founders of the Philippine public school system.
By the turn of the century the U.S. army had organized informal
schools where American soldiers taught Filipino children the rudi-
ments of English, writing and arithmetic; and by March 1900 a Depart-
ment of Public Instruction had been established. Nevertheless, the
Philippine Commission, which was the civil government that took
over from the military, was still uncertain about what kind of school
system to set up in the islands.
About the only thing the Commissioners had agreed on was that the
school system- should at the start concentrate on the primary grades
and should therefore be manned by a veteran in juvenile training. The
head of the Commission, William Howard Taft, was pointed to a
Massachusetts high-school principal, Fred W. Atkinson, a Harvard
graduate with a Ph.D. from Leipzig University.
Although Atkinson's experience was entirely in secondary-school
education, he impressed Taft as the man for the Philippine job and in
May 1900 the Commission appointed him General Su~tendent of
Public Instruction in the Philippine Islands. Fred Atkinson was 35, and
six feet high.
By July he was in the Philippines, exploring the field, and in January
1901 he had the draft of an education bill ready. The passage of this bill
is unquestionably one of the most important acts of the Philippine
Commission, and epochal for the Philippines.
Vehement were the objecti,ons of Church and gentry to the school
system set up by Atkinson - the Church, because Atkinson had
decreed that the public schools were to be strictly non-sectarian; the
gentry, because English, not Spanish, was imposed as the language of
inatruc:t1on. Thus opened a breach in our culture.
Atkinson had N1ed out Spulilh beGaw 1'e -.mdits use in
1'6
'hiJi17iw linlled to.•••wtlltL""'--holbea-~ ~ l n
~~in~-;n.==::!t~-.:
(t8riy aoldier-teachets tftat there WU A S-t agemel8 among the
Philippine,.young to leam Bnglish and a great quickness in learnirig it.
In imposing~ on the Philippines, Atkinson was going against
a classic mJe of imperialism: tbatthe colonial masses must never never
be taught the language of their masten.
Another-epochal act of Atkimon's was the importation of American
teachers to nm Philippine schools and train native teachers. Though
his imports have gone down in history as the Thomasites, actually the
first batch to arrive in Manila (48 teachers) came on the army transport
Sheridan, in June 1901. The second batch (about the same number as
the Sheridanites) arrived on the Br,ford. And the largest and most
famous batch disem~ on August 2 , 1901 from the Thomas. There
were 523 of thein, of whom around 380 were male. Most were from
New York, Massachusetts, Michigan and California; and they had
come for a variety of reasons: missionary zeal, wanderlust, the attrac-
tion of a good saia,y. Atkinson had set up a salary range of from $75 to
$125 a;month, considerably higher than stateside school pay then.
According to an .eyewitness, Manila was excited over this "new
army of invasion" and the I.Qcal papers teemed with jokes about pretty
schoolma'ams and susceptl"ble exiles. The-Thonias docked at the mouth
of the Pasig and the tutors lartded,..in a heavy downpour, near the
Mlda monument on die Malecon Drive. There waited a long line of
anny -ambuJances and Doherty wagons to transport the d!enched
newcomers to. their qu4'rters.
For the gentlemen, billets were •~of nipa barracks once occupied
by the artillery, on Wallace Field (which is ~ the General LUIU)
8eCtion of. Ri7.al Park). The ladies were lodged in the nearby Exposition
Building; the core edifice on the carnival grounds.
Our observer found the Thomasites of a %igh standard" but very
sporting.
"Both

thejNtdor oft h e ~
convention.
--·tlie•.W■
in~----~
men women=
and
COIRJ)laints. Nearly all went
up a cWidendes
•
~
their ~ q1,laden with few
and.seadytodo their best to make
By&veo'dockin the aftentoon
llioked Jibli hc,tellobby during a
_ _,._,:._.,..,. .. one~ hatdly get
.... ,......... we!ii . . . .!l.H
 Evidently, Manila gave ·the ThQmasites quite a welcome. In &
wake of these Sirs and Ma'ams would spring up all over the-city those
handsome concrete buildings roofed in tile, with gardens and interior
patios and names like Washington Elementary, Lincoln Primary, Jef-
ferson Intermediate, etc.
The new school system s ~ out with the four primary grades.
Atkinson had wanted compulsory schooling but was overruled by the
Commission.· The curricula was not much different from.what pre-
vailed in New England, especially since Atkinson: had presaibed the
Baldwin Readers as textbook. But he saw how unfit was this book
about lily-white American kids for dark-skinned Filipino tots who
came barefoot to school; and in 1902 he started orders for a set of
primary readers "prepared expressly for Filipinos." Up to the 1920s,
however, apd even beyond, Manila gradeschoolers were still learning
to read from Gringo primers like the Carter Readers, where Henny
Penny had such a hard time coaxing her barnyard into bayanihan.
Emphasized during the Atkinson era was "industrial education,"
which offered manual training (basic motor skills in the making of
boxes, toy boats, kites, etc.) and vocational trainQlg (carpentry, metal-
work, handicraft, etc.) but the significance of the emphasis was lost on
Filipino parents who sent their children to school precisely to save
them from a life of manual labor.
Despite his energy, Atkinson was not popular with his teachers,
who thought him too much of a gadabout; nor was his regimen
entirely successful. His policies were too town-oriented and simply
ignored the boondocks where the tots were too poor to travel to town.
When dismissed by the Commission in late 1902, Atkinson was
rated a failure, especially as administrator. Nevertheless, and needless
to say, though now a forgotten name, Fred Atkinson looms large in
our history as the first agent of what's indubitably the Gringo's
greatest gift to Philippine culture.
He was briefly succeeded by Elmer Bryan, who sickened after only a
few months as school czar; From a high of 200,000 at the end of the
1902 schoolyear, public-school attendance had dropped to 150,000 at
the start of the 1903 schoolyear. On August 14, 1903 the "floundering"
Bureau of Education was taken over by 30-year-old David Prescott
Barrows.
~ • • set on transforming Philippine education by re-
odentil'tg it to the bani.Qs. He wan~ to~•---1• Qiltured peasanllfl
He~
wild iNistel 1)1\ indu■..}'--- · •- ·dBHJIIIIC)dl'otj ~ only
wanted to keep the ~ peollS. He sjmplifled the auricuJa and
~~ted reading, writing, spelling and phonetics. It was UJlder
Barrows that our small fry started learning to read from "insular
readers" where Juan and Maria ate mangoes, rode carabaos and came
barefoot to school.
In the six years of Barrows, the public schools became universally
popular: the number of native teachers increased threefold and aver.:
1ge1iaily attendance doubled. And the Thomasites were apetheosized
as the very incarnation of American benevolence.
Yet when Barrows resigned in 1909, he, too, was rated a failure.
Through the public schools he bad hoped to P,roduce an intelligent
independent peasantry that would supplant the elite. But despite the
public schools the old elite remained in place, Philippine society
remained unrenovated. Still underdog were the peasants, even if now
they could read and write and ~ speak a bit in English.
 HE was allowed to break the taboo of the cloister and to enter -the
mysterious precincts of Santa Clara Convent, then still in Intramurc,e,
beside Fort Santiago. The nuns' walls; which ha~ kept the world out
for centuries, had been unable to keep out the cholera. One after-
another, the Poor Clares were being stricken and six had died.
So in came this Gringo medico, Victor Heiser, director of the Ame&.
cans' newfangled Bureau of Health, whose agents Manileftos ~
learning to call "sanidad." Dr. Heiser, who entered Santa Clara at the
request of the archbishop of Manila, Msgr. Jeremiah Harty, did 80
with "a sense of dread," conscious that no secular male foot- had
trodden those stones for a hundred years. The Mother S u ~
conducted him down a long hall, which to Heiser was gtjm in •
austerity. •
"At last I entered the dormitory and there, with what meagc
facilities ~ence had to offer, ministered to the desperately sick nuns;"
Afterwards he examined the premises. How had the chol•
sneaked into the cloister? Finally he foun'tl the culprit: an ancient well:
from which the nuns drew their drinking water.
'1 sterilized this death-dealing menace and explained to the nuns.
the simple rules for avoiding cholera. There were no more cases.''
When Victor Heiser took charge of the Bureau of Health in tt05,.
there was a cholera epidemic in Manila. One reason it spread was the
Philippine custom of long wakes for the dead; Every cholera death.
multiplied grief by assembling aow~ in an infected household..
Heiser went to Archbishop Harty and persuaded him to issue a call to
the faithful to bury their dead at once.... and to boil their water. U.-
cholera :was stopped.
After the public school, the "sanidad" is considered the· greatest
blessing the Gringo brought to the Filipino. So, Victor Heiser is a
Philippine culture hero. When he first saw Manila, he couldn't telfthe:
shore from the submarine. - .
"In those days~ looked as though it might sink into the water
A -_vy rain and an inshQfe wind would invariably flood the _..
~,J,~,;;4-:,;,;M•~ ~,A: ~ moat stretcbed -around I n ~ , dte 'bl4
c....:fftlllllll City, ~ • ~ in indolent ~ sew
.
emptied into these 2i acre, of swamp •
~e, and crawling with anakes."
Worse, the moat was breeding place for mosquitoes and the
---
mollles - stagnant, noi-

dia)aria. Heiser's Bureau of Health led the campaign to-have the moat
filled. What was sick black mud became healthy green park, wliich
prewar days knew as the Sunken Gardens.
Heiser noted an inbiguing relationship between crime and disease.
Criminality was most rampant in those dense Casbahs where there
were no streets, only crowded undrained ground rampant with ma-
laria, cholera, smallpox, not to mention mental sickness.
''The criminal rate, highest in the insanitary sections, went down as
soon as health was improved."
It seemed impossible to keep the Philippines insulated from an Asia
teeming with epidemics. Outbreaks of plague, cholera or smallpox in
China or Japan were sure to have a Philippine sequel. To stop that
munemorial history, Dr. Heiser extended the rule of quarantine to the
ports of Cebu, Iloilo, l.amboanga and Jolo. At the port of Manila he
made a bath obligatory for all incoming seamen.
''We applied water, soap and disinfectant rigorously. Whenever
ships came in from Hong Kong or Amoy, the crews, many of whom
had loathsome skin diseases due to filth,. were saubbed, sometimes
forcibly. Later we had an arrangement with Hong Kong so that crews
of ships about to sail for Manila would be bathed there. America was
literally washing up the Orient!"
Incredibly enough, Dr. Heiser was even able to clean up our inter-
island shipping, which he found "indesaibably filthy." Every-thing
from icebox and tableware to toilet and bath was nauseating.
'1 put every boat arriving in Manila in quarantine until it could pass an
inspection for cleanliness. They did not understand the meaning of the
word dirt until its presence had been actually pointed out to them. But in
end~ met our exacting demands and learned how to saub."
He could not be as Prussian with the civilian population, ·who had
come to fear the sanidad with his vaa:inations and sanitary orders. In
;6ofle days the sanidad was as much a bogeyman as the Bombay;
Jing kids hushed instantly on being warned that the sanidad was
~ with his needles.
The charge against Heiser was that he was violating Filipino habits and
tusbn&. ~~- a pat hue and oer, when he:propoaed a sanibuy
axle fotlll~aewas aa:uaed ol l!tnvading ~ o f the heme."
 The code indudied u:h:~ • • that f!JMY
stabJe.:keeper mManila ahoukl i.a-ve·a..-. ~ , which
be emptied daily under the eye& of the lllnidad. This WU 1o emdie
apnst an epidemic of flies. But ffl!II doctors and tKe , - . jmal
decrying the Heiser code as un-Filipino (or even anti-Filipino) uml hy
saw its miraculous iesu1ts ....J far instance: a Manila devoid of ftilll
"When this miracle was achieved, the people became alive-lo
fact that they had a sanitary department. I would not have been able to
carry them with me in greater things if they had not been able to -,,
'Manila is the demest dty in the Orient.' We always had to bear
mind that we had to have public opinion on our side."
Yes, there was a time, within 1iving memory, -when Manila was a wq
dean, if not the cleanest, city of Asia - because of a zealous
Health and such devoted directors of it as Vlclor Heiser. Was
Bureau•
deanlinels only a "colonial mentality" with us?-00 we need the
sanidad back?
When Heiser first arrived in Manila in the 1900s, almost every face N!
saw, young or old, was pitted with the scars of. smallpox. WalJdtlC
through the streets of Manila in the 19208, he exulted to note that only
the. very old faces were scarred; the fac:es of the latest generations wae;
''dean.''
"One of the most satisfying successes of the Bureau of Health in
Philippines is the almost complete ~literation of smallpOJc. It is the
satisfying because it need never be feared again. Forty thousand
most of them children, are alive at the end of each year who, IR
past, would have been dead. And thousands upon thdusands
saved from blindness and disfigurement.'' .
Such successes are all the more wondrous becaUs,! acnieved in
teeth of public resistance. When artesian wells were introdu
public feared them as sinister and insisted on oon'tinuing with
polluted wells. And when Heiser installed a ;new sewerage
Manila, the city folk showed it such apathy that poor Heiser
the U.S. supreme court to enforce sewer--oonnections in ·
When the Philippine Legislature cut-in half the appiopria
Bureau of Health, Heiser had to face a hostile House ·
implore it to restore the badly needed funds.
"AB on that committee had ~ mind previously made .
whale day I talked to them, tillg out the
health bureau had d the PhlllJJllifliii.
no in\plelidon. they IIIMi!lv listened.~ - I had onty one
recoune left."
He :wamed the PilipinQ ll1ions that, sl:na! the Boleau of Health a,uld
QQ.;longet afford to maintain the lunatics in i t s ~ , those maniacs
would have to be released. For the sake of safety, each would wear a
placard that said: ~'Dangerous Lunatic. Likely lo Kill. At 1arge because
the Phjlippine Legislature refuses to provide for my care.''
''Dr. Heiser!" cried the committee in alarm. ''You wouldn't teaily do
-such a thing, would you?''
"Certainly I would! And what's more, the same holds true for Culion.
the lepers there will have to be turned loose."
The committee gasped- and the health bureau got its full appropria-
tion.
Our importable nurses of today don't know it, but their godfather is
Heiser. He it was who persuaded the Normal School to include a
-- UM:·in nursing; and he it was who .worked to make that course not
merely theoretical but actual practice, although his first student nurses
rebelled against it, crying: ''This is servants' world" But an original
nursing class of five had increased to thirty the following year and was
presently enrolling two hundred.
At the start of his Philippine adventure, Heiser set as his goal the
saving of 50,000 lives a year. The islands were a "huge laboratory''
where he worked out a national health prognun and e\'.'entually achieved
"the DlOSt complete set of sanitary laws and as good an enforcement as _
any~ ever had.'' Looking back on those years of service, he felt
he point with pride. .
''In the course of those years we met the chief enemies of man in the
tropics, and fought and conquered many of them by simple prophylaxis.
~ goal of suing 50,000 lives a year was so soon attained that I reali7.ed
it should have been set at 100,000.''
Cllapter S: THE FIRE FIGHTER$

AMONG the earliest city services established by the Americans was the
Manila Fire Department. This was a big innovation: Manila had pzevi-
ously ~d no professional firemen. Fire-fighting was supposed to be a
community duty, or bayanihan.
People who liked to cllase fires could be sure of not missing any in
Spanish times. They always knew when to start running, and where
to. A fire that broke out anywhere in Manila was announced throual}-
out the city by a special tolling of church bells. Seven strokes mM
that the fire was in Quiapo; ten strokes, in Tondo; five strokes, in
Binondo - and so forth.
All the menfolk were supposed to hurry to the scene and help put
the fire. The city had no regular ~en; the street sweepers UStiallF
assumed the role. It was their job to drag the city's antiquated and o
fire wagon to the scene of the fire and to draft enougi1. volunteers to help
in handling the hose, pumping the water, and rescuing trapped victims.
A curious tradition required the presence at ~ of the Spanish
governor-general and the archbishop 'of Manila. Fire fans of those days
followed, not screaming fire engines, but the fast coaches of the sei\or
capitan-general and the senor arzobispo, racing each other to the am-
flagration.
For fires in big strong buildings, the artillery would be called out, to
blast down the stone walls with their cannon.
In the 1890s, Capitan Luis Yangco (father of Don Teodoro) impc>rted
a motor fire engine, the first in the islands, which_ he sent forth,
manned by his own dock laborers, whenever a fire broke out in the
city. The engine was equipped with a hose so large it fitted none of the
city's hydrants and had to draw its water from river or canal.
At about the same time, the city's European merchants, most of
them Britishers,. organized themselves into a fire brigade, with head-
quarters on the present Juan Luna Street. The brigade acquired a
steam engine of its own; the members were bound to assist in fighting
any fire within the city's business area, then Binondo and Santa Cruz.
When fire-fighting, the members donned splendid uniforms: white,
helmets and bright red coa~.
What with aD those red coats and the' presence of the government,
the church, and the anny, big fires in the old days must have been, for
 the sklewaJk audience anyway, GOlorful and even festive afaln.
Manila has tieen plagued by fire from its foundation. In 158.1, a
newly built Intnmuros wu wfl,ed out by a fire that slarted during the
~ r a l rites for Governor Roaqui)lo. Hardly had the dty been rebuilt
when, in 1603, it was put to the ~ by rioting Chinese on the feast
day of St. Francis of Assisi, who, because he wu said to have been
seen weeping over the burning town, was appointed by Manilei\os to
be their "seraphic protector'' against fire and other caJamities.
A fire that razed Binondo in the 1860s led the authorites to ban any
but stone buildings in the then commerdal hub of the dty - which
eflains the massive look of ante-bellwn Binondo. The last great
Manila fire of Spanish times, in 1898, was indirectly caused by the
1tevolution, which had been ruining business in the dty, impelling a
merchant to set fire to his store on Calle Rosario. Other merchants on
street followed his example, one after another; during the next 24
'tlours- to the consternation of the fire-fighters, who, with the fire in
one store barely under control, found themselves confronted with a
new fire in another store down the street. When both firebugs and
fire-fjghters finally gave up, the entire length of historic Calle Rosario,
from Gandara to th~ Binondo plaza, had been totally gutted.
· When the Americans occupied Manila, they established a fire bri-
gade, which was to become, in 1902, a regular fire force, composed
mostly of American ex-soldiers and heeded by Fire _Chief Hugh Bon-
rules and regulations laid down by Chief Bonner for Manila's
firemen - as well as SQch American introductions as the
pole and the raincoat uniform - _are still kept by the Manila ,
Fire_Department. ·
The department started with horse-drawn fire-wagons that used big
trained .horses of terrific speed, three to a wagon. The might and
endurance of these. horses and the passionate care lavished on them
~ their American masters became legendary among the Manileftos of
the 1900s, who would troop to the fire stations ·of San Nicolas and
Santa Cruz in the morning to watm, in awed silence, the Yankees
taking their blanket-wrapped horses for a -waqc around the block.
Those horses seemed almost human. Their equipment hung ever
ieidy from the a;Iing of the station; at tlie sound of an alarm, the
horses jnstantly leapt to a position ~neath the equipJIU!lll, the equip-
ment automatically dn>~ clown, and the horses had ptactically
harnessed themselves even before the last fimnan had slid down-the
 pole. It was a swift precise routine that delighted Manilet\ol.
1916, the tractor-type vehicles replaced the old fire ~gons and
wonderful "fire horses" of Manila-disai>peared forever from its streets
Their American masters were beginning to be replaced too at abrout,i
the same time - though there :was much opposition to the ~
from people who feared that the fire department, i_! run by Filipinoit,
might not be as efficient and dependable. Governor-General Harrison
pooh-poohed such fears and continued promoting Filipino firemen in
rank,
The oppositionists then -argu~ that Filipinos, not being used to-
machines, would be unable to handle the big new trucks that w.te
beginning to come in. When Mayor Justo Lukban heard about that, ht
, blew his top. He summoned all the Filipino officers of the fire d
ment and told them: "I want every Filipino on the fire force to prove
that he can run those trucks. li any of them fails to do so, kick him ovtl
He has no business being a fireman/' Also on the side of the FilipinO
firemen in their fight for equal rights, and therefore remembered by
them with gratitude and affection, was Chief Lewis Dingman, fire
head from 1914 to 1919, a man so enormous he required an entire
calesa all to himself, and so tireless a poker addict that, during his
incumbency, firemen jested that their headquarters had been moved
to the Elles Oub, where the Chief did his pokering.
Filipino firemen won their long cold "war of independence" in 1934,
when at last a Filipino - Jacinto Lorenzo - became head fin!.
department. Chief Lorenzo had been fighting Manila fires s►
ish times; and he was a veteran, too, of all the principal fires in city
since then - the spectacular conflagration, lor instance, that ~e-
stroyed the Manila carnival in 1914, a few days before it was scheduled
to open, and the annihilating fires that were to visit Tondo again and
again in the 1920s and '30s.
After the USAFFE evacuated the city late in December 1941, all army
fuel storage dumps were set on fire. The flames spread, enveloping
the entire city in smoke, setting even the rivers ablaze, endangering
the bridges and all buildings on riverbanks. When the Japanese en-
tered the city, the huge fire was still burning. Chief Lorenzo wu
summoned and ordered to quench the fire "within 24 hours." There
was little, however, that the firemen could do against that raging fire
fed by a flood-of oil and gasoline. For one week longer, the "Open
City" blazed - a cloud of smoke by day, a pillar of fire by night. l'he
 1!6
immensity of that 6fe MS iuipliled oniydwfllg 1945 ~
when 'there seemed to be no part of the city that was not in flames .
...•~'!
- ~·ilil lost all but three of its fire stations.
ese station$ had a heroic role in-the city's history. Oldest of them
ie the Santa Cruz Fire Station on Calle Ongpin. But the most famous in
the old days was the fire statiod in San Nicoia.because it had one of
the fust and finest gymnasiums in town. Sportsmen say that the San
Nicolas Fire Station was the "Cradle of Boxing" .in Manila. The Ameri-
can firemen !ftere would gather the neighborhood kids in their gym, .
furnish them with gloves, and make them slug it out - for a purse
collected from all the station's firemen.
Those kiddie prizenghts developed a taste for the ring that would
have its glory days in the 1920s.

.
IT was Uie time y.,hen the moro-moro was fading and the zarzu;la
flowering. The great Yeyeng Fernandez, a Manilefia from Santa Cruz,
had come home in 1902 and was enchanting audiences a'l the Teatto
Rizal and the Teatro Libertad, especially when she sang th.e lead role
in La Viuda Alegre. The old stinking moats still surrounded the walls of
Intramuros but were being protesfed by the Americans.
Osmena and Quezon, in that order, were becoming household-
names. In 1908 Manila celebrated its first carnival fair, with two
reigning queens, an Americana and a Filipina. (The Philippine beau~
would later become one of our first suffragettes: Pura Villanueva
~aw.) The Escolta was a prim street of awnings dominated by two
luxury stores: La Estrella del Norte and La Puerta del Sol. Along th
paseos leading to the Luneta, the flame trees dropped on _passersby a
shower of red blossoms and fat green wortna.
Steamers still entered and docked along the Pasig; which wu
spanned by four bridges: the moldering Puente de Espana, the new
Santa Cruz Bridge, the modernistic Puente Ayala, and, most pictuJf
esque ofall, the pedestrians' Puente Colgante, which was the Rialto or
the lower classes in the daytime and the dormitory of beggars and
tramps at night. The Puente Ayala, which, along with Ayala Ito,..._~
vard, was intended to connect Malctcaftang with the legislative~
in the Walled City, was Manila'.s second salute to the Age of Sleel.
(The first salute was San Sebastian Church.)
Binondo and its moneyed Calle-Rosario was still- the business huh
of the city- and. 'in fact of the nation- but during the Empire Days
the bustle of business would gradually shift to Santa Civz. The biggei,t
event in that arrabafs modem history was the opening of Avenida
Rizal, · which was formed by merging two streets, Dulumbayan ~
Salcedo. The demolition of all the houses that stood between these
streets laid waste the heart of residential Santa Cruz and started the
exodus of its old-time parishioners. The building of Santa Cruz Bridge--
and the coming of the ~lleycars definitely established the city's
center in the area bounded by Avenida.Rizal, Plaza Goiti, the Esoolta
artd Plua Santa Cruz- an area that became known as "downtown.u
~ labor of the Empire Days was the welding of several
..,.. into a &ingl4! ~ ~ fhat beauM f\u\own as Can;
 This on Tondo seaside and terminated on
, when there was still no Mendiola Bridge across the

Plaza Goiti and Plaza Santa Cruz became downtown, Azcar-

rap was already a theater and restaurant center. On what's now the
mouth of Calle Oroquieta was the Teatro Ubertad, one of the most
famous z.arzuela-houses. It later changed jts name to Majestic and
became a cinema. It was pulled down when Oroquieta was given an
outlet to Azcarraga. __
A block away was the Bilibid, then a circular building within a
quadrangle of stone wall, surrounded by open meadows. Opposite
the Bilibid was the Zorilla, the No. 1 zarzuela theater of the 1900s. It,
too, was a circular building with tiers of windows all around. Inside
was a horseshoe of boxes, an upper gallery, and the largest'stage in
the city. It, too, later became a cine, ended up as a bodega.
Next door to the Zorilla was the Oriente cigar factory, standing right
smack on what's now the intersection of Recto and Quezon Boule-
vard. Beside it ran the Estero de Bilibid. Aaoss the estero was an open
field where the circus set up its big tent in October. The field was
),ordered by thick bamboo groves that were said to be haunted by
cafres. The field is now the FEU campus. The estero was buried when
Quezon Boulevard was built, but a foul vile remnant of it is still visible
Bilibid Viejo and on Arlegui.
That part of Azcarraga that's now University Belt was in those days
-a lovely Quality Street shaded by giant acacias and rivaling R. Hidalgo
>n the splendor of its houses. Here stood the mansions of the Carme-
'los, the De los Reyeses, the Padillas and the Arces. At the end of
Azcarraga was the Plaza de Santa Ana, alongside a stream so clear you
could see t:l)e pebbles at the bottom. On a comer of the plaza was the
Oub Carambola, where young blades played billiards in the front
rooms, card games in the back rooms.
Save for the crossroads at Dulumbayan (what's now Rizal Avenue)
the old Azcarraga was a sedate residential street. Even the Bilibid was
so quiet a lot of people grew up in the vicinity without realizing it was
a prison. On Saturday and Sunday nights the street came to life as
carriages full of dressed-up folk converged on the 7.orilla and the
Ubertad and 'the the;ster-restaurants in between. A friskier note was
added when a streetcar line, to San Juan del Monte was opened mi
Azcarraga. On Saturdays nights you eaw the tranvia aowde4 with
 wifd young men on tlleir way to the San Juan cabaret.
The cabams were another phenomenon of the ~
founded by American ex-soldiers to cater to the service tiad'e,
Manila housed a regiment (the 31st Infantiy) in Intramuros ancl
armada (the Asiatic Fleet) on the bay, besides having a ~
reservation (Fort McKinley) in its backyard. However, the dty appa+
rently had a ruling that cabarets, like cockpits, were taboo within city
limits. So the cabarets were all just off urban ground- the Santa Ana
Cabaret (reputedly the biggest dancefloor in the world) at the end 9"
the Paco tranvia line; the Maypajo Cabaret at the end of the Tondo
line; the La Loma Cabaret at the end of the Santa Cruz line; and the
Rainbow Cabaret at the end of the San Juan de[ Monte line.
All these cabarets began with a "color line" separating the 8idlt
where Filipinos could table and dance from the section where only;
white customers could table and dance. Quezon and Gov
General Francis Burton Harrison were so incensed by this "color line''
they pacted to destroy it by going from one cabaret to another'def- i :.·
tQe segregation. They would place their table rig}l.t on the line and
their• dancing from one side to the other. Presently the rest of
Filipino customers were joining them in ignoring taboos.
Don Manuel Quezon had to make the cabarets an honorable plaee
for a patriot Pinoy to be in h$ause he was himself a great ca,bUetelt'04"'c'1
If the cabarets were a favorite assembly for politicos, where did
soberer brethren assemble? The straitlaced gentry gathered to goeeip
on the porticos of the Monte de Piedad on Plaza Goiti, at the ancient
Carriedo bookstores, and in the Azcarraga theater-restaurants. The
• Americans met at Oarlce's on the Escolta and at the Silver Dollar
Sal~ on Plaza Santa Cruz. East and West regarded each other lrom
separate tables at Plaza Lunch and Tom's Dixie Kitchen on Plaza Goiti.
And the twain sort of met on the playing fields of Nozaleda Park,
where Filipinos learned baseball, and in the gym of the .Cuartel de
Espana in Intramuros, where Filipinos learned basketball. By 1913 we
had become so adept in baseball we could dare send an all-Filipino
team to invade the United States. •
By then, the lntramUl'8S moats had been filled up, Manila's streetcar
system had been expanded to cover th'e en~ city, and so many
automobiles were appearing on the streets the newspapers had to
~ r.e on the problems of traffic jams and reckless drivers. Mo-
•~ ¾iitherto classified with freak: shows and .cheap diversions, be,.
came elegant entertairui\entwith the opening of such swanky dnes as
the Ideal aed the Empire. And th'e zarzueJa entered its golden age with
ebut of Atang de la Rama in Dtdtlgrmg Buldd.
War had broken out in Europe but Filipinos were too busy to notice
jt: history was being made in the Philippines too. In 1916 the Jones
Law provided the country with an autonomous government and the
Philippines held its first truly national elections - marred, propheti-
cally, with charges of fraud, terrorism and vote-buying. The price of a
vote then: "two pesos and a glass of vino."
Nevertheless, joy and pride attended the inauguration of the first
Philippine ~lature, with Osmefia as Speaker of the House and
Quezon as Senate president. In the beginning the Legislature was
literally two houses, both in Intr~liros. The Chamber of Representa-
tives &eld sessions at the Ayuntamiento, where Speaker Osmefia kept
ofice:- The Senate met at the Jntendencia, the domain of Quezon -
and even the material office showed Quezon to be second in rank. The
lntendencia, a former customs house, was a squat barn of a building
facing the backsides of Letran, Santo Domingo and Santo Tomas. In ·
amtrast, the Ayuntamiento was a jewel bf a structure, in Renaissance
style, paneled and floored and pillared in lustrous marble (the Ameri-
all\S called it the Marble Hall), and facing the cathedral square, then a
lovely wooded park with fountains.
The Ayuntamiento fittingly stood for the No. 1 politico: Sergio
Osmefia, Speaker of the House, head of the party in power, and leader
of the Fiµpino participation _in government; while the Intendencia only
stood for No. 2. Until 1927, when the Legislature moved to a building
0tjts own on Burgo~ Drive, our -political history was the battle be-
tween these two houses: the Intendencia versus the Ayuntamiento.
Manila, too, got an autonomous government in 1916: a municipal
board all of whose ten members were elective. The mayor, however,
remained an appointive official. The city's mayor during the last of the
1 ~ was Justo Lukball, 8{l active reformer. He abolished Manila's
"zone-of tolerance": the Gardenia District (it was in Sampaloc, along
San Anton); and banished all the whores to the wilds of Mindanao.
But when he tried to abolish the cabarets too, the baiJarinas, a more
spirited group, rose in revolt and man:hed in a mammoth parade of
protest to City Hall.
When the United States dedared war on Germany in 1917, Filipinos
finally became aware o f ~ War L A Pl;Uppine militia wu . .-.,
 MANILA,
MY ·
· · MANILA -,

-A History for the

Young

by -
Nick Joaquin

(I
Republic of the Philippines
City of Manila
1990 '
 TheNilad

The Wanl_May rdllz

" ..• the more I thoupt of it, the IIIOl'e caa'vinced I became that emnewhere tlteft
must be a better explanation, one that would pethaps yield the original words ·
themlelws wzy nila, mmplete with the glottal stop, as Tagalogs pronounce
them ... today ... Finally ••• I found the woid I had been looldng for. I was
chatting . . . with two Indonesian joumalilt8 and.happened to mention the dead
end to which my amateur.research had led me. '1f only," I Mid, "we had a mineral,
animal or vegetable called,_. ", ''But of c:oqnel" They exclaimed, "Nila is indigo."
Ambassador Emilio Aguilar Cruz's
Mani1'I and Otlier' Explorations, pp. 3-S

"The Filipinos had the Malayan custom of naming their towns or barrios after
vegetation that grew abundantly in the area ... 'Manila derived from wzy nila,
Tagalog for "where there is nila." ... which 'plant was the nila? There were two
candidates: the nilad, a sturdy tree that grew six feet tall and had coriaceus leaves,
star-shaped while flowers and drupe-like fruits. The other wu the indigo plant, for
which the Sanskrit woni was nila. Nila, however, refers to the dye, not the plant, for
whtdl the Tagalog woni is tayum ••• the whole ducussion was settled .• ·• when a
·edlolar produced pJate 'Z77 of Fr. Manuel Bianco's Flonl de Filipinf,s, the first locally
puWiahed book on botany (1837) .•• 'Then! was the nilad •. .. The correct scientific
Mme St:yplrip#rora ~ ..• the adtolar quoted page 77 of the book's first
90hime: '11'9 true name is nilad: and Manila f1enoted a plaoe where there are many
of_lheae ~ and &om this great capital Manila hu derived its name.''
In ~ tin'lie of the nilad Manila was swampland and the nilad wu mangrove
powth .. ."
Laning B. Ira and Isagani R. Medina's
Streets of Manila, p. 3

Copyright o 1990 by The Oty of Manila

First printing: Nomnber·1990

,)
 30 October '89

For dear Mayor Mel Lopez:

The best mayor this noble and ever loyal city ever had!
Mabuhay si Hizzoner!
Nick

r
 Foreword ix

PART ONE: SEASON OF ADVENT

Chapter 1 Building a Site
Chapter 2 Our Pilgrim Ancestors
Chapter 3 Thrones & Doiniriations
Chapter4 Soliman Versus the Paleface
Chapter 5 From Santa Potenciana to Pentecost
Chapter 6 'jlamous & Faithful"
Chapter 7 Calamities Galore
Chapter 8 Paladins of the Ooth
Chapter 9 First Global Business
Chapter 10 lnttamuros

PARTTWO:DAYSOFEMPIRE
Chapter 1 Parian of the Celestials
Chapter 2 San Miguel of the Nipponese
Chapter 3 Sangley Insurgent
Chapter 4 Alarums & Excursions
Chapter 5 Halting the Hollanders
Chapter 6 Palacio del Gobemador
, Chapter 7 The City of the Blessed
Chapter 8 Manila Extramuros
Chapter 9 · The Impeiial Sun Dips
Chapter 10 Inf!astructuring
Chapter 11 Tum of the Century

PART THREE: ERA OF REVOLUTION

Chapter 1 Openings and Oosings
Chapter 2 Early 19th
Chapter 3 Student &: People Power
Chapter 4 Mid-Century
er 5 The ''Motin" of '72 '
Ialia'.t Manila
~ '• Manila
 a.pter 8 Revolution! 120
Chapter 9 The Thud Fall 125
Cluq,ter 10 Another "Insurrection" 131
PART FOUR: TIME OF A SECOND COMING 137
Chapter 1 The Extended Qty 137
Chapter 2 A Pioneer Manila Maestra 141
- Chapter 3 To Sir & Ma'am With Love 145
Chapte,4 Sanidad 149
Chapter 5 The rue Fighters 153
Chapter 6 The ''Empire Days" 157
Chapter 7 And All That Jazz 162
Chapter 8 "Peacetime'' 168
Chizpter 9 "Business as Usual" 173
Chapter 10 Zero Hour Monday 177
Chapter 11 The "Open City" 183
PART FIVE: 1HE FREEDOM OF 1HE CITY 187
Chapter 1 The Ungodly Years 187
Chapter 2 Gringo Comes Back 193
Chapter 3 Intramuros Agonistes 197
' 4 Enter the Third Republic 201
5 Into Autonomy 206
'fhe Initial Two 210
From Mod to Demo 214
The Sojourn inJJ.mbo 219
Cli,pter 9 --Monday &t Tuesday 224
~ 10 On Tbe Go 231

237
 JIORIWORD
by
His Honor
MAYOR. GEMIUANO LOPEZ

IN my mind since I became Manila's chief executive has loomed

one particular project: a history of Manila not only readable for
Filipino and foreigner alike (especially tourists) but also usable in
the city's schools. For a study of that history seems to me essential
to the education of Manila's youth.
In this I am not being parochial or chauvinistic. Rather do I
believe that the Manileno brought up on the history of his city will
make a better Filipino, will stand a firmer nationalist. We have to
be conscious of local roots to appreciate the idea of a national field,
In fact, I would ·suggest that every Philippine municipality •
quire of the schools within i jurisdiction a study of its
_particular history. In Aparri as well as in Joto the students
be as primed in the specific post of their localities as in the
past of the Philippines. After all, the word nafion comes
~erence to a specific birthplace: the village or town that wu,
original patria: the turf of one's clan. Patriot means somebody
in ~e hometown of his pater, or father. Citizen meant the
a city long before it came to mean the native of a nation:.
Nationalism is the fusion by history of myriad patriotilani:
· these patriotisms are the basis of the nation, we have tt, sttetnlll
the local to solidify the national.
I would say there was no such need in prewar times, when:
dti7.ens of Manila were kept integrate by age-old traditions. They
danced before the Santo Niflo de Tondo in January and before the
Virgin of the Tatarin in Paco in December. They pllpm.apt:to:St.
Vintlent Ferrer in Binondo on Monda}"S and tQ thf&.!rAor NAI_..
p. W ~ just risen hal
family went to the Tondo end of Azcarraga for bil>iitgq, or to the
Restaurante Refugio in Quiapo for sorbetes and b_arijui)los, or to
the ~terias on Plaza Santa Cruz for a lauriat that ended with
kundol sweets and hot towels. . -
And year ·after year Manilenos affirmed their solidarity by as-
sembling in Intramuros for the Visita Iglesia on Maundy 'IJtursday
and the Corpus Christi procession in Eastertide; and on Malate
beach for a family swim during the summer vacacion grande. Not
to mention the feria that hopped from district to m,trict during the
year, following the schedule of parish fiestas; or the carnival that
had city folk throwing confetti and blowing tin horns in the
Febnwy days before Lent; or the magnificent October celebrations
of La Naval in Intramuros, the Del Pilar in Santa Cruz, and the
Santo Rosario in Binondo. .
Unfortunately, these old traditions have become inviS1ble to
most people now occupying Manila's urban space. To migrants
from Ilocandia and Bicolan4ia and the Visayas and the Muslim
south, Manila is just an address. It's not patria to them; it's not
roots. In a sense they are all sq11atters, becau~ their heart of hearts
doesn't belong to the Noble and Ever Loyal. ·
Such apathy ~ s a rot in civic consciousness. The citizen r,ho
and litters contributes to the "dying'' of his city because
s no particular feeling for it. ·
different from this the blend of pride and affection that the .
of old kept for his city, ever for him "la Manila de mis
"1 But that was because he 1cnew it so intimately, having
up on its chronicles and traditions, its legends and folklore.
can you love what you do not know?
And that'• why 1 feel that the first step towards fostering civic
~ s , civic pride and civic affection is to~ our young to
bow theitManila- So, a history book on Manila was ever foremost
~ my tj!Jtin'al projects. What I wanted was ,not a pedantic
tiut • ",oy' 01;1~ in which the fqcus would be as much on
tyle ~ · ~ adtlu'e as on the march ()f events. Such, I
~ ~ l>ooks, --.ny • •~ - ~ I was
presented with by ~ mayors of the cities I have visited, both in
the West and here in the Orient.
These fine picture books, chiefly aimed at the . tourist trade,
sought to give a profile of their respective cities and to make that
profile as intriguing as possible. I must confess I felt quite em-
barrassed when these cities' mayors reciprocated by visiting Ma-
nila and I could not gift them with a similar book on my city:-
But now, at last, with Nidc Joaquin's ManilJl, My Milnila, we do
have such a book. The thing to say about this profile of the city of
our affections is that it ~ s Manila interesting, as navel and
fascinating as new-found land. And all history- whether it be the
Conquista of 156.5 or the Revolution of the 1890s - is seen stridly
&om the Manila viewpoint. -
The pages that follow constitute a voyage of discovery.

-GEMIUANOLO
Mayor of
Oty Hall
 PART ONE
SEASON OF ADVENT

Chapter 1: BUILDING A sm

MANILA took a long time to make. What is now its ground used to be
sea. The sea reached as far as the present towns of Mandaluyong ("a
place of waves") and Makati ("a place of tides").
It is said that diggers in Makati often find seashells. This could mean
that once upon a qme Makati was seashore or seabed. The line of~
shore may have been along Guadalupe, under the cliffs. So, at that
time, the highway called EDSA would. have been a beach!
All the land north of this, up to whafs now Quezon Oty, was under
water. Then, through hundreds and hundreds of years, this foreshore
began to fill up until a triangle of ground appeared.
This became the site of the Oty of Manila.
·The triangle can be imagined as a fan:. th~ handle is.Pasig town; ~
rim of the fan is the arc between Pasay and North Harbor. ·
No one knows how long it took to tum sea 'into land. But we
know who built a site for Manila.
The builder was the Puig River.
The presel).t Pasig is a stream 23 kilometers long. It rises froin tW'
north side of Laguna de Bai and flo~ westward into Manila Bay. The
mouth of the river was at first ·somewhere near Pasig town,
Into the bay there the river carried its load of mud and sand. Aflet
·hundreds of years these deposits of soil had piled up to fonn ground.
Through this triangle of ground that it had formed, the river forced a
new channel, with many loops, to reach the bay now farther off.
The_ri\fer thus divided the triangle into an upper side and a lower
side, or into north.and south. And the mouth of the river was now
almost exactly in the middle between these two halves.
The ground thus formed at the mouth of a river is ~ a delta.
The~ of the Pasig River is ~tentifeW ~p,.a by the Otyof
~ .:-1n.the ~ this delta was Mt,a ~
Insread it was a jumble of small islands between which ran the rivulets ,
that we call esteros.
It must have been .a long time before anybody inhabited these
islands. Being barely above sea level, they would go under water
during high tide or the monsoon rains. Floods are still a problem in
modern Manila because the land level has not risen much since the
days when the Pasig delta was a jigsaw of tiny isles. ,
The site of Manila was reclaimed from the sea - and the sea is still
trying to get it back! ,
The higher ground beyond the delta was already inhabited. In the
dense forests of what are now Kalookan, Quezon Oty and San Juan
roamed the aboriginal tnbes. Their tools, weapons and other goods
(which are called artifacts) have been unearthed. But no artifacts have
been found in the ground of Manila, a sign that the delta islands began
to be lived in only recently. ., _
Perhaps the first to inhabit the delta isles were the barangay folk
who 1?egan to arriv~ in the Philippines around the tenth century. They
came in the large rowboats called bafangay. _A group of _families
~ted to one another is called a clan; and each barangay expedition
cartied a dan from the nearby Malay world to a new '-home in the
Philippines, then still the virgin wilderness of Aeta and Negrito.
Certain barangay expeditions sailing up from the south and cruising
file western COQt of Luzon came upon an opening in the shoreline.
entrance was partly blocked by an island that rose high like a
. ~ g past this "door," the ~ t s found themselves inside a
and beautiful bay, a l m o s t ~ round and almost totally
....- . Here the water was calm and the breeze was gentle, for this

~--you
was haven shut off from the storminels of the China Sea outside.
~ to the waters of the bay grew the forest primeval, so that
looked you 88.w a world of blue and green.
Witfi~ awe must our forefatheis have gued. on all that purity
~ tllenot and loveliness!
They fiad disan-ered Manila Pay.
One of the world's best natmalllad;ars, the bay is 56 kilometers at
ii$ bJoadest. The e n ~ js about 18 klometen wide '1td is divided

...
~ the tc'oek~ Into two Jl'i'fNP&= a northem and a south-
~
 3
peninsula and saw its deep jungles. H they sailed in through the lower
passage, they beheld the ''hook'' of Cavite and the green hills rising
&om a narrow curving shore. From a distance, .the hills look lib a
Slet!ping Woman.
Ahead, on the east point of the bay, was the fairest marvel of all: .4
cluster of islands sparkling in .the sunshine like emeralds.
Oh, how the hearts of our forefathers must have leapt with joy upon
seeing that mini archipelago tucked so safely deep inside the bay!
Our ancestors must have known they had found the new home they
sought, especially when, sailing into that flowery maze, they founcl
that all these gardens afloat were vacant.
No roof, no trail, interrupted weed and foliage. Water and soil and
light and the very air had the cleanliness of a new aeation. The isJands
were bare of life, except the life of leaf and bough, of bird and insect, of
snake and fish. Everything was morning-fresh because so unseen, so
unbreathed, so unpeopled! .
Oh, what a vision you must have been to my sires when first you
enthralled them in the dew of your dawn: Manila, my Manila!
Having occupied the delta isles, the newcomen gave each island •
name that fitted it. Two islands were what's called• headland, ~
ing a Jarge bulk of ground jutting out to sea. So one of these ·
was called Tondo; and the other Binondo. Both names refer to
Another island that was swampy got called Sapl. When the S
came, they renamed the place ~ta Ana de Sapa.
Also swampy was this very small isle that may have been used
burial place for chieftains and tribal heroes, and was t h ~
to as MaJacal'\ang: ''There are great ones there." That name &u1miii
as the name of a street - and of a palace - on the isle that " "
renamed San Miguel.
A kind of water cabbage called cuyapo was plentiful on the banks iii,
an island that naturally became known as Quiapo.
The island next to it had the more mysterious name of Mayhaligue.
Did this refer to a sacred pillar, or to a great house with mighty posts?
We now know that island as the district of Santa Cfuz.
Where now stand City Hall and the Normal CoJ1ege wa an island
called Dilao, .named after a hel'b that yielded a yellow dye. The 1WDe
~ ~ ~ apt when Dilao ~ • •JIM,&.W of 17:':
tWe1:tA~ .
' At the veiy i,iouth. of the liver, OIi the -..than bank, WD a tongue .
ol land Oil which grew in abundance the plant c:alled nilad. So that isle
wumemd touMay-NW, OI' Maynila, although 101R1epeopleinsist
that the original term was May-Dila (meaning "with a tongue'') and
othe.fs think that the tagalog term for the indigo plant, llnil, a plant
which may also have been abundant ln pagan Manila, may account for
the island's name.
At any n.te, this isle of Maynila, which must have been the very lasf
to be formed by the Pasig (since it • at lhe very mouth of the river),
has given its name to the entire delta.
Extra-delta places like Kalookan, Quezon City, San Juan del Monte,
Mandaluyong, Mabti and Pa~y owe their glory to the fact that they
are beside Manila, the Metropolis of the Philippines.
When the pilgrims &om the south stumbled ·µpon that entrance to
Manila Bay, what came about was the history not just of a city but of a
nation. .
Manila happenings have a nationlll effect'.
When Manila sneezes, the· Philippines catches cold.
 MALAY is our bn!ed. 'n\e bleed ii said to have mme from the south al
· continental Alia. The Malay belongs to the Mongolian race, along with
the Ounese, Japanese, P.sldmo and American Indian. We share with
them brunette featun!s, ·slanting eyes, and a skin color that ran,et
from yellow to tan to red. -
• The Malay began as a nomad. He had an itchy foot. His has been
history of restless wandering. Prom southern Asia he wandeRd down
to the MaJay Peninsula and from there to the archipelagos of theSqufh
Pacific that are now Indonesia, the Martanu and Polynesia.
And from the South Pacific he moved north to the Philippllla',:
which is maybe the last land he reached and occupied.
What's amazing is that these voyages of his were made not on ship,
but on flimsy rowboats. His heart was as bold as his aaft was &ail.
The Malays who came to Manila were part of a twin migration. This
migration was of two tribes who may have l;,een neighbon in the
they came from Oava? Sumatra?) and were thus closely allied. The
Tagalog ("of the river'') was related not only by culture but by bloocl to
the Pampango ("of the riverbank'') and their rulen camelrom a
house that was of Pampango-Tagalog lineage.
So when members of these two tribes decided to emigrate to
Philippines, they did so together. Thus, they were neighbon a

bil-
in the old country.
From' Manila Bay, the Pampango pilgrims sailed up the Paa"!!lill
River to the plain dominated by Mount Arayat. There they
the communities that would make all this realm they oocupied·Ia(i!~
as Pampanga. -
AB for the Tagalog pilgrims, some of them stayed on Manila Bay
built the communities that would become C.vite and Bataan.
COlil'8e -their gre1ttest labor was occupying and developing the
isles at the mouth of the Pasig.
Later Tagalog ardvals would sail up the Pasig to Lapna de ~ on
whose shores would rise their bilili.wicb and coloniea. Their
was the loWll of Bai; ~ so all this lake country:.... and the lab
- became know&. Bai.
~•~- WJIM OdMle traden came ID Manila 8-f,
~ help,. 1he king IQc.tan of
6

upriver'° the communities of Bai artd of bringing doWJ\ what pociucts

the Bai folk wanted to trade with the Chinese. That's how Tondo and
5apa became great ports, by being the trading centers between the
Jake and the bay.
Native trade items were mostly forest products. There was hardly
any commerce in grain or manufadure because each barangay pro-
duced only just enough for its own· needs.
Agriculture was still either slash-and-bum (the kaingin method) or
stick-and-mat: stirring the soil with a stick before planting in it see-
.dlings grown on a mat. Farming was mostly women's work; the job of
the men was hunting and fishing. · '- _ .
Religion was also in the hands of the women. The priest was female,
a
or sometimes a man who dressed and acted like a woman. There
were no permanent places of ~orship. The basic belief was that
everything in this world- a tree, a river, a roof, a room, a season, a
feeling, an industry, etc. -had its own anito, or spirit. This is like the
.cJassic Greek religion, though it produced no dazzling Olympus.
Our ·forefathers believed in a benign God the Father called Bathala
but he and the other "good" deities hardly got any attention. Every-
one was too busy trying to bribe the·"bad" spirits into relaxing their
malice toward oneself. ·
It used to be claimed that, before the coming of the Spanish, the
of Manila was a Muslim culture. The opinion today would be
L. the Manila culture of the 1560s was still pagan Malay. The
i;ldlmalll was Muslim, and so, more or less, were the elite: the datu
and maharlika. But the mass of the population, though they
t drcbmcize and avoid pork, w~ still of the old anito religion.
of them had never even heard of "Mahoma."
Manila (as in Cebu) the prehispanic Filipino was certainly not
ff.1$11au:Uc." }{is. culture stayed Malay and pagan. Culture means the
bi!haw:rr in ~eral of a lK>Ciety. .
~ y culture respected the ri_ghts of private property. In fact, it
. U usually the datu with the'largest land and the richest house who
&cameheadman.
However, barangay society also believed in communal property. In
barangay was a tract of land that was 'OWl\ed in common - that
:, by the (OJJUD\lnity as a whole- and~ member had the right to
a .
 The barangay community WU divic:led into soda1 classes. At the top;
were the datus, or royalty. Next came the mahartika, .>r nobles. Very
much below were the COIIUI\OnerlJ, or freemen. And af the bottom
were the slaves: prisoners of war, or debtors unable to pay their debts,
or wretches who for some reason had to sell themselves into bondage.
Barangays were very small, The usual size would be a community of
30 families. A barangay of a hundred households would beamsidered
very big. _
Espec:ially on the delta isles, where the "streets" were the etterot,
houses were built on rive~. Those early Manilefu>s lived Vfrf:
simply. Their bamboo-and-nlpa huts rose on posts above water«
gr.ound; the interior was a shigle room that served as living room,
dining room, kitchen and dormitory.
The men wore a short shirt over a G-string, or "l1alulg- The sbirt,
without sleeves or collar, was blue or black for commoners; red fot the
upper classes. Women wore a cloth wrapped around the body,.
sarong-style. For dressing up, they wore a blouse over a skirt.
Footwear was unknown but both men and WOJnel.\ wore a lot 4f
jewelry: bead necklaces and shell bracelets and golden anklets. Teeffi
wen! filed and usually blackened. There was much chewing of betij..:
nut, or buyo.
Maniledo warriors carried spear and shield. Tucked into the SIUIUAt;
was a sword. wavy like a kris. Tucked at the waist~ 4asgen
a foot long. The Manilefios had already advanced to artillery. On
ramparts - usually a palisade of logs or mounds of ealth -
their cannon, or u,ntldals, SOJlle of which were 17 leef to.g.
barangay was fortified because of the endless power struggles
thedatus.
Manileflos had a system of writing called the alibato. &qt an eadj
missionary who declared that everybody in Manila could read IUil
write is now believed to have been exaggerating for the sake of
kindness. If there was such a high degree of literacy, it'"s -.nge that
he failed to mention or quote &om any famous literary work: a book of
chronicles, say, or a book of laws.
The truth seems to be that the craft of writing was atlll so new
among us it was used only to keep aca>unts, not yet for titeraty
creation.
 accept it. H you didn't like how your barangay was nm, you were free
. to join another barangay. But around the middle of the 16th century, a
leader had risen in the delta whe might have united all the little
kingdoms there into a staJe strong enough to tum the surrounding
country into its empire.
a.apter 3t 111RONES & DOMINAn0NS

THERE were efforts before to unite the barangay colonies into a larger
whole. One was the effort of the Kingdom of Namayan, which suc-
ceeded in bringing under its rule a large part of the delta.
The Kingdom of Namayan had its royal capital in Sapa, which is
today known as Santa Ana. This may be the oldest inhabited section of
Manila. Ancient graves in Santa Ana have yielded artifacts indicating
that this ground was already inhabited in the 12th century.
From Sapa, the kings of Namayan extended their power until their
dominions included what are now the territories of Quiapo, San
Miguel, Sampaloc, Santa Mesa, Paco, Pandacan, Mandaluyong, San
Juan, Makati, Pasay, P!lteros, Taguig and Para~que.
In other words, the empire of Namayan stretched from Manila Bay
(Pasay) to Laguna de Bai (Taguig). That's quite a lot of turf.
Namayan organized the barangays on its turf into a number of
states. These United States were known as Maylcatmon, Kalant~
Dongas, Dibak, Pinalcawasan, Yamagtogon and Maysapan. The state
of Maysapan was on the lakeside .and included what's now the town
of Taguig. As late as the middle of the 19th century, ·a sitio in Taguig
still bore the ~me Maysapan - a relic of the first Metro Manila: the
Empire of Namayan. .
The high point of Namayan history was the marriage, sometime ·
the 13th century, of a Namayan princess, the Lady Sasaban, to the heir'
of the Madjapahit Empire: the Prince Soledan.
On succeeding to the imperial tn,one, they reigned as the Emperor
Soled.an (or Anka Widyaya) and the Empress Sasaban over the realm
that's now Indonesia. A Manilefia had become an empress!
Among the children of the imperial couple was a son, the Prince
Balagtas. He was born around the year 1300 and to him was destined
as herita.ge his mother's old realm: the Kingdom of Namayan. Since
his future was as a Tagalog king, his education was oriented to the
Philippines. In fact, he was given a Filipino bride: the Lady Banginoan
of the Philippine nobility. Her father was the Lord Lontok, son of the
Archduke Araw. And her mother was the Lady Kalangitan, princess
of Pasig.
~ltetw.een 1335 and 1380, :erince Balagtas migrated to the
~ ad tried to fuse into one e ~ the P ~ o colonies
 yan. .
~ Balaps -coula dare
ti)' \0- unite ampangos
because Pampango bl• ran m his "ttins. ~ house of Na-,
mayan was a Tagalog·P~go family. If he had won in his try, the
Pampango-Tagalog heartland of. Luzon ~ t have become a United
Kingdom, with the
dty on the delta as its royal capital.
Unhappily, Prince Bala~ could not overcome- the tendency of
th the T-agalog .and the Pampango to divide instead of unitmg. Not
e but the Spanish would ,know how to tum the two tn"bes into a
single effective coalition.
Prince Balagtas gave up on his Pampango scheme ;md retired to his
Tagalog heritage. He became king of Namayan who had dreamed of
creating a Pampango-Tagalog empire.
But from the seed of King Balagtas of Namayan sprang such
agalog-Pampango dynastieS as the Soliman, the Lakandola, the Gat-
ton, the Gatchalian, the Gatmaitan, the Gatd• .the Malang and
Kapulong - families in whose veins ran a mbcti:iie of Pampango
d Tagalog blood as in th.eir brawn throbbed the llldtJiage of Tagalog
Pampango power.
descendant of King Balagtas occupied the throne of Sapa in
gained fame as the Lakan Takhan. (Laka1' was the native
king.) Lalcan Tuhan had five .children by 418 wife Buan. He
son named Puay by a $Jae- woman from Borneo. To his
, l.aqn Takhan ~ the seaakle property. now
asayaty. .
was sucteeded on the throne by hit ion Palaba. King
was the Prince Lali,py.1 who ruled after him and was in
his heir: the tdm.-e JCalani;ayin. lt was when l<ala-
of ~ :and had just been blessed with a
· that w ~ strangers &om another world
Bay,
whitesldns' leligion were allowed to
heir, who wu given the Christian
om of Namayan.
of l;,rasJ, silver
palefaces and their war against the Moros.
When the whiteskins arriyed, tfie Kingdom of Namayan was on the
decline. It was being outshone by two other towns on the delta.
The first of these towns was Tondo, which had replaced Namayan
as the chief port of entry on Manila Bay. Tondo was right on the
seaside. This was the advantage it .had over Namayan, which was
upriver inland. So the merchant ships that came into the bay preferred
to unload their goods at the port of Tondo. And it was now the king of
Tondo who was responsible_for sending the merchandise upriver to
the lakeside communities, there to be traded for local products. Tondo
was thus the distributing center, or entrepot, on the delta.
In the 1560s Tondo was ruled by Lakan Dula. He is said to be •
descendant of King Balagtas. Many of the kingdoms along the Puig
River and on the Lake of Bai were ruled by Bornean princes, possibly
the younger sons of marriages between the daughters of Tagalog~
and scions of Bomean royalty. Since the Bomean princes were Mus-
lim, there was an impulse, at least among the Tagal~g upper classes,
to embrace the religion of Islam.
Tondo's Lakan Dula may have been unusual in being neither~
eign nor Mµslim. This is indicated by his use of the native term Lakan
instead of the foreign title Rajah.
Lakan Dula can be presumed to be of native birth and to have
reared in the anito cults. One guess is that he converted to Islam,
changed his mind again and returned to his native faith.
In the time of Lakan Dula, Tondo was at the height of its career:
entrepot, but another town was rising that could gain supremacy
port because it enjoyed an even better location than Tondo.
At the very mouth of the river was the island called Maynila. A$ a
town, it was just becoming well-known. In fact, it may have ~
founded only a couple of generations earlier In the 1520s U •
unknown in-the Visayas (or Magellan would have been told about it)
but by the 1560s the Visayans had already heard of the Kingdom of
Maynila.
On its throne sat a young king: Rajah Soliman, who was Muslim
and Bomean. His~ was Bomean too and so were hie palace guarda,
Soliman was a warrior. The petty kingdoms along tN! river and on the
~ live4 in mortal terror of him. They cried that he was forffer
1hem, to mid and plunder,
~ may have been ~:WU
to do in Pampanga in the 14th century: orgame the buanJay colonies
into a nation. With his raids on the petty kingdoms of mer and Jake,
Soliman may have thought to reduce them into a single common-
wealth: a unit, a union, a unity welded under his government.
If unification was indeed his dream, he would see it fulfilled - but .
not under his government.
0.,- 4: SOUMAN VDSIJS 1HE PALEPACE

AT the tip of the tongue of land that was Maynila, Rajah Soliman had
built a fort facing the mouth of the rivel' and the sea. A palisade of loga..
(the trunks of coconut trees) was meant more to deflect gunfire than to
enclose, since it was easy to pass betw~ the logs, planted in the
ground about a foot ·from each other. The fortification proper consisted
of narrow mud walls mounted with a dozen piece$ of artillery, mosdy
small-cah"ber cannon.
The town itself was a mass of nipa huts huddled around Soliman's
palace. There is ng mention of a mosque. The palace was a big house
with a lot of porcelain and blankets; a number of wooden tanks filled
with water; and rich stores of copper, iron, wax and cotton. Beside the
palace was an arsenal. Nearby was a forge where cannon were made
under the direction of a Portuguese armorer.
. Maynila was considered a great dty because it had a population of
4,000. Government was in the hands of two men. Apparently the
previous king, Rajah Laya, had, because of old age, abdicated in favor
of his nephew Soliman. But the young king kept-his uncle on as
·adviser. So the old Laya held the position of elder statesman and was
known as Rajah Matanda.
· Maynila was not ignorant of white men; the Portuguese were
already active in the Philippines. Still, the summer.sJtat brought the
whites in large numbers to Manila Bay was epochal. With that sum,.,
mer, the history of Manila begins to have dates. We have entered the
calendar of the West.
One day early in June, 1570, Soliman heard that a -ship of the
palefaces had entered the bay ~t sunset and anchored off Kawit. Th
palefaces were I<astila, not Portuguese. An evening conference with
his uncle, Rajah Matanda, would have enlightened Soliman on the
Kastila.
The old king would remember how, some forty years ago, there had
been rumors of these palefaces coming to Cebu and converting the
court there to _their religion. But when their leader was killed on
Mactan, the palefaces had fled in terror.
Recently, word had come &om Cebu that the JCastiJa had reap-
~there.For sure they had returned 1t> avenge thekillmg of their
leader~ But what were they doing so fat away frmnC-0?
 Rajah Matanda would point to the really bad parf of the news. The
Kastila were'said to be accompanied byscoresofBisaya warriors. Now
that was the heart of the problem.. A handful of white men could be
disposed of quite easily. But not if the Bisaya fought on their side.
The Bisaya would fight to the death against anything Muslim (and
in their eyes Maynila was Muslim)· because ages and ages of befng
meat for the slave trade had taught the Bisaya who their mortal enemy
was.
Rajah Matanda would shake his head in anxiety but young Soliman
would beg to disagree. The problem was not the Bisaya. The enemy
was the paleface. "Let us sleep on the matter." Easy to imagine either
the young rajah or the old one closing the conference with that
remark. · ·
Morning brings a letter from the white men. The}' are requesting
. "peace and friendship." Soliman and Rajah Matanda pore over the
missive. They come to a quick decision: no instant answer; let the
white devils wait. So three days pass before a reply is sent to I<awit.
Meanwhile, Soliman coaches an envoy on how to take a high tone
with the whites. Dispatched to I<awit, the envoy tells the foreigners
that his master, a most magnificent lord, is willing to befriend them-
but only if they swear to behave.
When the envoy rows ba4 to Maynila, the alien fleet follows him
and thus learns where Maynila is.
Soliman is riotifted the next morning that the I<astila have landed on
the beach. He sends his uncle, the old rajah, to receive them but
himself waits until noon to make an appearance. The palefaces are
'impressed by his entrance. He warns them that he and his people are ,
not painted savages who will tolerate abuse. Rather will they repay ·
with death any affront to their honor.
Then he is introduced to, and is embraced by, the leader of the
whiteskin expedition: a chap called Martin de Goiti.
Next day, Soliman is visited in his palace by Goiti, who agrees that
no triblite is to be exacted from Maynila. The treaty of peace is sealed
with a blood compact: Soliman and Goiti drinking a few drops of each
. other's blood.
But Soliman has already made a decision and only awaits a good
omen: rain. Wilen the first rain oi the season falls, he will wipe out the
il\vadea.
Alas that~ Wli1iiNI *w
Chapter 5: FROM SANTA POTENCIANA TO PENTECOST

MID-JUNE it was, of the year 1571, when Maynila aghast saw the
foreign sails reappearing on the bay. But this time, not on just one ship
(as when Goiti came) but on three big ones arrived the palefaces. And
eS(:Orting the ships were no fewer than two dozen 9utriggers, or
paraos, loaded with eager Visayan volunteers.
From his fort at the mouth of the river Rajah Soliman could barely
discern The fleet that anchored off I<awit. Thirteen moons had passed
since his defeat in battle and the torching of his town. Shame was still
a bad taste in his mouth; his heart craved revenge.
But spies hurrying back from Kawit had fearful information. The
I<astila numbered over 200 - and uncountable were.the Bisaya they
had enlisted as allies. And who knew if this was still not the total force
of the whites. Perhaps more of their ships were on the way, carrying
more soldiers and guns.
The raging Soliman knew that all morning his people had been
aowding the beach, staring·across the bay, waiting to see what would
happen next. Should he sound the war cry?
Then, at past noon, the fleet of the I<astila began to cross the bay
towards the delta. ·
Panic spread among the watchers on the beach. ,RusJung back to
~ , they set fire to their houses and fled across the river to Ton~o.
-But the invaders halted in mid-bay; no shot was fired. It ·was two
o'clock in the afternoon.
Abandoned by his own people, what could poor Soliman do but
swallow his rage and pride and heed his uncle's warnings? Rajah
Matanda said they must .confer with Lakan Dula of Tondo and per-
suade him to meet with the foreigners and sue for peace.
The following day found . Rajah Matanda and Lakan Dula being
rowed to the-ship of the white commander. Don Miguel Lopez de
Legazpi turned out to be a white-bearded grandfather, rather stem of
eye, but very cordial and courteous. .
No, said he, the Spanish harbored no grudge against Rajah Soliman
for taking up arms against them the past year, and sincerely wished to
meet him as a friend.
Thi& gladdened the two old chiefs, who assured Legazpi that on
their next visit Soliman would be with them~ Before leaving, the two
 1be raiN W e l e ~ tut~. ~wiite . . . . . ~ -
Suddei)ly one ~ SoJbnjn heald ~ He ordeNd' 111$ own
fort to mmmence a ~ A ~ vessel was hit. War had
begun. .
Presently the white men were crossing the moat around the fort on
bancas- comnfandeered from fishermen. As they poured into town
they set it ablaze: Under cover of smoke, Soliman managed to lead his
people out of fallen Maynila. As the battle ended, the &st rain fell -
too late to be of good omen!
Upriver fled Soliman and his peqple. In the forests upriver they hid
until they heard that the white devils had sailed away. Then they came
back to the delta to rebuild their town on the island of Ma,..na.
Such was the first defeat of young King Soliman. Though he re-
sum~ the throne, he had lost face.
Su~ently he would have leamed that the Goiti expedition wu
but a feeler. The main body of the Kastila troops were in P~y. And
their real leader was someone called Dori Miguel Lopez de Lesazpi.
Why had the Kastila wandered north to Maynila.
They had found Cebu a famine spot and had moved to Panay,
which also proved to be starved. But there they: had heatd of the great
dty of Maynila, where the living was "said to be easy. So Martin de
Goiti had been sent north to verify if Maynila was indeed a lal.ld.
flowing with mUk and. honeyr And the Goiti rep01't on ~
favorable. So Legazpi decieed a tniual' of the eatn ~
Panay to Maynila.
That wu what Soliman'• spies would have RpOJted t o ~
what could the young rajah do but receive lt with the slirug~.lcll
The June that would.l>rit&g ~ monsoon would also ~
once more the invasion forces of tbe- 'Wldtes.
Would Maynila, just risen fn,m the ..._, burn, down to,!allliiejl;~
again?
c h i e f s ~ the white c:ommander's plans. None of his people,
said Legazpi, would land in Tondo; they would all disembark in
Mayni1a and occupy that island.
Lakan Dula felt rewarded for not warring on the palefaces. But he
would also have seen that Legazpi was being practical. Burned down
and emptied, Maynila would be easier for the Spanish to occupy than
teeming Tondo. Besides, Maynila would be a better spot to fortify,
because more strategic. ·
Troe to their word, Lakan Dula and Rajah Matanda had the young
Soliman in tow when, the very next day, May 18, they returned to the
flagship of the I<astila.
May 18, 1571 is a fateful date in the history not only of Manila but of
the Philippines. On that day, Rajah Soliman, Lakan Dula and Rajah
Matanda acknowledged the sovereignty of Spain over the islands and
proclaimed themsel~es the vassals of the king of Spain.
On that day, the Maynila of Soliman became the Manila of Legazpi.
Came the following day, May 19, another epochal date, for on May
19 Legazpi landed in Manila and took ceremonial possession of the
place, in the presence of Soliman and the other native chiefs.
In the center of what was to be the central plaza of Manila, a hele
had been dug. To this hole the native chiefs, aided by Legazpi'_s top
officers, carried a section of.tree trunk, which they planted in the hole,
packing the ground close around the tree trunk so that it stood erect•
. Legazpi then approached and drove his sword into the tree trunlt
before addressing the crowd.
Said he: "Gentlemen, soldiers and comrades, and all you who
witness this: behold, here have I fixed gallows and sword. And heie r
establish and locate the City of Manila, which God preserve for IOJ."$
years. And I reserve the right to reestablish it in whatever location may
be found better. And this city have I founded in the name of the King:
in his name will I defend it, maintaining peace · and justice for all
Spaniards, citizens, · and foreigners, and for all the natives, giving
equal protection and justice to the rich and to the poor, to the humble
and to the great, and succoring widows and orphans."
Then, sword in hand, Legazpi yelled in a voice of fury:
"Gentlemen, I have founded the City of Manila in -the name of the
King. If there be any here who would challenge this, let him come
forward and l will measure my sword with his!"
Three times did Legazpi utter this cry and three times did the crowd
 NSpC>ndm cbonis: "The city ii weD lolinMif! ~ Jive the l<klgf'
As Legazp sheathed his sWGld, • piieit came forward ~ a
large cross, which he planted in a mm.er of the deati:ng, the site
selected for a church. An altat1VU improvised at the foot of the cross
and holy mass was said. All through that (\ay the ships on the bay
fired salvo after salvo to salute the dty, which .1'Ulg with "the music of
trumpets and drums."
Thus, on May 19, 1571, did Legazpi aeate the capital of the ''New
Kingdom of Castile," which bu how he first named the mlony.
May 19 is the feast of St. Potenciana, who was therefon proclaimed
the pa~ess of Manila. St. Potendana was an early Roman Christian
who died a virgin. When Legazpi laid out the map of Manila, one of
the s ~ was named after her, a street that still exists.
Another Legazpi proclamation allotted lands to members of the
expedition who wished to settle in Manila. The island wls therefore
subdivided into lots. A new fott was constructed where Soliman's
raD)part used to be: whafs now the site of Fort Santiago. Within the
fort a chapel was built, and a house for Legazpi and his family.
Outside the fort rose some 150 bambQo-and-nipa houses, which
haJd).y filled the city area. So Lvge was the area that the city planners
then believed it would take DM)le than two centuries to cover it fully
,.........m·en edifices. The streets were laid out in a gridiron pattem. Sites were
J'e8e1Ved for the cathed,al and the principal government buildings.
~ traced out, all around this new Manila, were its .boundaries,
~ the city walls were to tile.
~ ~,river, in Tondor as they watched the palefaces bwfding a
~ town, the former Jelidents ex Ma~ sighed tp each other that
~l»Uld not go home again. But neither could they stay as refugees
to T-ondo forever. So what were they to do?
The decision was to buld a new town for themselves.
South 9f the isle-oi MeyQila was vacam wme. This was the place
:11'1 wl1ich the old aidents of-Manila moved. There they built houses
- laid .out fields, orchards and fishing wharves. Their new town,
which beauhe known • BaguQlbayan. occupied what is now the
~H@Ying. ~...__.in~ Lepzpi sent wold to the
. . of the ~ \ o c : u m e a n d tweer allegianoe to

Qne~J----~-~-~di~...
ldngol~u;-g~ ••i::auitDIJlaWdone.
~ with
fwy upon being invited to do so. He called on the chieftains of
Pampanga to join him in driving the foreign dev.ils away.
A fleet of 40 warboats was assembled, each equipped with cannon.
Down the Pampanga River sailed some 2,000 troops, led by La1can
Macabebe himself. On reaching the delta, the Pampango king held a
conference with Rajah Soliman, Rajah Matanda and Lakan Dula. He-
urged them to join the resistance. .
While they were conferring, a Spanish officer arrived, sent by
Legazpi, to ask if the fleet that had arrived in the bay brought chief-
tains desiring peace and friendship with the Spaniards.
Up jumped the king of Macabebe, drawing his sword.
''May the sun split my body in half," cried he, "and may I become
shameful and hateful in the eyes of my women, if ever I befriend .the
Kastila!"
And :brandishing his sword at the Spanish officer, he yelled:
''Tell your master we have come to make war, not peace, and are
challenging him to meet us in battle on the waters of the bay!"
After which, he jumped out the window and fled to his boat.
Lakan Dula refused.to join the coalition, but Soliman did, although
Rajah Matanda begged him not to join. Since it was Martin de Goiti
who headed the flotilla that was to fight the challengers, the Battle of
Bangkusay was a return bout for Soliman and his vanquisher. _
The battle was fought off the port of Tondo, in Bangkusay, at high_
noon. Lakan Macabebe and Soliman made the mistake _of trying~
crowd the Spaniards. Instead of am&ushing them as they entered the
port, the native fleet swarmed out to meet the enemy.
Goiti's troops were on light boats that he had ordered to be fastene4,
together, two by two. This turned the~ into a solid mass seemingly
easy to surround. But once surrounded, the Spanish troops fired all
around - and they might as well have been firing their arquebuses at
set-up targets.
Soliman and Macabebe saw their fleet being scattered with great loss
of life. Among those who died iri action was the king of Macabebe
himself. So~ escaped and managed to reach Pampanga.
Among those taken captive by the Spanish were two nephews of
Lakan Dula and several of his officers, but they claimed they were Otl
theseen, just to watch the battle, not to fight. Legazpi wisely set them
~ ., to show his copfidence in Lakan Dula.
The policY. paid ofl. JI he had been playing a double game before,
J.abnDula nowhs::tme •1191 1'ft•tla'I._Spailh, ltnwylle
h e w h a ~ twfuaiihe,.liClla... ~ - - - -relllnl
good graces oft. . . Wl,en W.,lhat,-r Martirt de Coiti. WU lellt
tolhe
to padfy Punpang;a, Labn Dula 111d Wman were with him, wging
the Pampangos to acxept the rule of Spain.
The Battle of Bangkusay wu fought on J1111e ~ 1571. It was a
SUnday, a great Sunday, in the ieJigiort of the I<astiJa: the Feast of
Pentecost.
For Filipinos, that June 3 is a gzeat day too. On that day fell in battle
the nameless king of Macabebe who defied the invader. Among the
first of us was he to die for freedom. He lhould be listed among our
heroes as Lakan Macabebe.
nm.ER are the 1571 daie# ~-ttart the colonial history of Mm~
On May 19, 1571, Govemor Miguel Lopez de Lega.zpi
Manila in the name of the ~ of Spain.
On the everung of that May 19, said a marine of the S
was wandering along the seashore south of the city when at
time he came upon natives aowded around a pandan bush.
leaves boiled with rice make the rice fragrant.) On the bush
small image the natives were venerating. One look and the
marine knew this was an iu;tage of the Virgin Mary. It may havt
left behind by some Portuguese expedition.
The shrine built were the image was found became known
Ermita, now the name of the locality. For four centuries, Etmlta
been venerating the pandan Virgin as Nuestra Senora de Guia, «
Lady of Guidance. ·
On Jµne 3, 1571, .Legazpi formally gave Manila the title of dtf
proclaimed it the capital of New kingdom of Castile.
And on June 24, 1571, a municipal government was es
Manila.
Recounted Legazpi: "On the feast of St. John the Baptist, a
c;ity was founded in the name of Hill Majesty oa the banks of
with its proper judiciary alld Cabildo, as well as other
Commonwealth, and with the title of Qty of Manila."
The king of Sp~ would honor the new clty with ~
lnsigne y Siemprel.atl, or Famous and Ever Faithful. More
title of Nol,/e y- Siemprt Leal - or Noble and Ever Loyal - that
still wears in oratory and nostalgia. The Spanish motUIJ.'Chs a
such titles to cities that had distinguished themselves with a
victory or some signal ~ to the Crown.

pentlgon, with a perimeter some four kilometers long. The °'

Manila began with a population of 250. The city was shaped

or municipal government, consisted of two mayors, twelve_C!P\i. .

and a secretary. The job of the maym,:i was to impiea:tent the
~ passed by the Coundf, which met twice,a week. AB onllilllill
had to 1,e approved by Gove.mot t,egazpi•
. Jfl~,~ ~ -
~ - . The ...__..
dPJ ofpaper.~ two slipl wem at
on them revealed the winners wHo would sit as fflaY9l'S•
But why two mayors? In effect, that system is the same as our
present one, whidl, at each election, picks two chief executives: a
mayor and a vice-mayor. .
Legazpi der~d that Manila was to be completely open to trade. All
merchants hould enter freely, whether Muslim or alien, but later
practice would bar Europeans from trading orli~g in the colony. The
governor was especially interested in Muslim traders, whom he often
engaged in conversation, to learn more about their world. They were
mostly from Borneo, and the goods they brought to Manila - iron,
copper, tin, white blankets, shells used for money, and slaves-were
mostly bought by Qlinese traders, whose silks and porcelains were in
tum snapped up by the &means. Manila was thus an entrepot for
Chinese-Muslim commerce.
What Legazpi particularly enjoined on the Cabildo was that it
should have special care for the welfare of the natives. Because the
islands were deemed a part of the Indies (''las In:dias,•' as the Spa-
niards called the Spice Islands) the natives of the Philippines were
called Indios, a term that would later be resented though its origin was
correctly - and innocently - geographic_
On the delta, the term Manilefio to denote the urban Indio probably
ught on faster than the term Filipino, especially when all the sur-
ding countryside was organized as La Provincia de Manila.
When Legazpi was building In:tramuros and Lakan Dula still
in Tondo, the most dashmg of the Spanish warriors was
· Juart de Salcedo, grandson of Legazpi. He it was who con-
the hike region of Bai, the mountains of lbalon, the wilds of
bales, and the (oastlands of the llocos while still in his 20s.
Theres a lt!gend that he fell in love with a niece of Lakan Dula, but
t thls love affair between him and the Princess Candarapa was
~ pc:~ by both Lakan Dula and Legazpi. To separate the lovers,
zpi $ellt off his grandson on-one expedition after another. But
ays, QR. his return, the yo~-~ would rush over to Tondo,
ere wait4?d lhe enamowed_.~ • She had had herself bap-
d a ~ but her uncle and'hei lover"s grandfather still-would
etmit .
0.apter 7t -tALAMfflES GALORE

LADEN with Philippine gold and Mexican silver was _this trading junk
captured by Chinese pirates. The traders; Chinese themselves, said
they had come &om Manila; which they described as a rich town
weakly held by a handful of Spaniards. The pirate chief decided he
must conquer Manila.
This chief was the notorious outlaw Limahong. He had been exiled
&om China by the emperor and now roamed the South China Sea on
his pirate fleet.
He swooped down on the Philippines towards the end of November
1574. On his fleet of 62 armed junks were 2,000 sailors, 2,000 marines,
1,500 women, and a host of coolies.
Limahong' s first Philippine raid was on Ilocos Sur. He sent troops
ashore to sack the coastal villages and seize provisions. Then he set
sail for Manila.
Juan de. Salcedo was then in Vigan. Having sent couriers ahead to
a
wam Manila that great corsair fleet was on the way, Salcedo mus-
tered as many troops as he could and led them posthaste to Manila.
The pirates entered Manila Bay on the night of November 29, eve of
the feast of the Apostle Andrew. Limahong dispatched 600 troops
ashore, led by a Japanese lieutenant, Sioco by name, to demand the
turrender of the city. But a storm suddenly arose in the bay, wreaking
tu.voe on Limahong's fleet. Some 200 pirates drowned.
At dawn of November 30, dragging their ships to the beach with
ropes, the invaders landed in ~araftaque amid howling winds. Mean-
while, the vanguard of 600 troops led by Sioco the Jap had reached
Bagumbayan --:- with the city still unaware that it was being invad~d. ·
In a house in Bagumbayan lay the conquistador of Maynila and
Pampanga, Don Martin de Goiti, who was ill with fever. 'The pirates"
stormed the house and slew Goiti and everyone else in there, includ-
ing Goiti's wife, Dona Lucia, who ~d to the attackers: "Go ahead,.
dogs - you will all die today!"
The s11191ie and din of burning Malate and Bagumbayan at last
awalqmed those in&i4ile Intramuros, who sprang up &om bed to find
the invader-.heady Jnside the gates. Ttiere was a mad scramble on
toth ~ides to .to the (ort firit, but it loolred as if the city had already
to the enemy'ahartds. At that 11\0Ji\ent, • few Spanish troops-led
 destroy the romance. To het departing lover, ~ p a sent a mes,.
sage: she vowed to love, to be faithful, and to wait, forever if need be.
She sent him the message hidden in a bouquet of lotus flowers.
Salcedo rode off to the north wearing the flowers under lul shirt.
-Never would he part with them. ·
Long did he ounpaign in the llocos before he could pacify the
region. The letters he wrote to Candarapa fell into the hands of
· Legazpi, who destroyed them. Receiving no word from him, poor
Candarapa worried and wondered but would not heed her uncle'$
urging that she forget the Spaniard and marry the king of Macabebe.
But at last came what seemed an official announcement that Salcedo
·had wedded the daughter of the ~ of Kaog in the Ilocos.
Candarapa spoke no ill of her lover, but her heart broke, she fell ill,
she was dead in three months.
When Salcedo arrived to wed her (for there was no truth to the
rumor of his marriage} the Princess Candarapa had long been in her
grave. He shut himself up in bis house, refusing food and drink.
Then, because there was nothing more to keep him in Manila, he
returned to the Ilocos.
. During an expedition up to the highlands, he was taken with fever
and, coming to a brook, drank to excess of its cold water. He died
three hours later, on March 11, 1576. He was only 27. In his hands
were found the withered relics of the flowers that Candarapa had sen
1'un.
Miguel de Legazpi was governor of New Castile for only a year. He
died on.August 20, 1572 and was buried in the original bam.boo-and-
ni~ church of the Augustinians.
Succeeding him as governor and captain-general wa$ Gqjdo de
Lavezares, the colony's treasurer. Lava.ares was appointed by the
Supreme Court of Mexico, for the Philippines was then under the
government of Mexico.
In the time of Lavezares occurred. the invasion that could have been
fatal for Philippine history. H the Limahong atte,mpt at amquest ~
succeeded, there might have been najurther history of the,Philippines
as an entity. We might ha ~ as mud\ a ~ • China as
Formosa.
Limahon.g could have Qltihort the r!,1le of Spain ·
Buthemight-alsohave..atie~ef~•
 by a sub-lieutenant arrived from sentry duty out&ide. Thinking these
were the advance troops of a large army summoned to save the
capital, Lieutenant Sioco ordered his men to retreat.
In the hand-to-hand fighting that ensued, about a hµndte4 p,irates
perished. Those who escaped included Lieutenant Sioco, ·who had to
make a dismal report to Limahong. The pirate chief ordered his fleet to
retreat to Qtvite.
This first defeat of Limahong occurred on November 30, feast of St.
Andrew the Apostle, and a grateful city would proclaim St. Andrew
its patron saint. Till the end of the Spanish era, the city's officlal
holiday (or, you might say, its first "Araw ng Maynila") was Novem-
ber 30, when with great pomp and splendor the municipal gQvem-
ment celebrated La Funcion Votiva de San Andres, or the Votive
Solemnity of St. Andrew~ an act of thanksgiving for the saving of
Manila from invasion.
The fiasco did not, however, deter Limahong from making another
try. Three days later, on December 3, he ordered another attack on
Manila. The pick of his troops - 1,500 of them, again under the
·c ommand of Sioco the Jap- landed at dawn and quickly succeeded in
penetrating the city as far as the church of San Agustin. But this time
Lavezares. was ready for them.
Th~ governor had ordered palisades built around the fort. His .200
troops had been reinforced by the 80 troops of Salcedo, who arrived in
the nick of time, on the very eve of the l,Jttle. Salcedo would figt(t
"like a lion." The civilians too, even the women,_ were ass~
positions in the defense of the city. And Governor Lavezares himself,
despite old age, helped man the frontlines during the fighting.
Again the battle reached the extremity of hand-to-hand rombat. So
. fierce was the fight the outcome seemed impossible to tell. Limahong
thought to decide it by landing another 500 warriors. Nevertheless,
the defenders at last gained mastery. The pirates were routed and fled
in disorder to the seashore, where Salcedo pursued tltem, cutting
them down by the score. .
Some 600 of the pirates fell in battle, including poGI" Lieutenant
Sioco. Killed were around SO of the defenders. Limahonglost no ~
decamping from the bay. He.sailed to Pangasinan aiV}- ihere tried to.
establish a colony but was driven from there by his aemesis: Juan-d,t
511cledo. Some of his ~en escaped to lgorot CC>Untry, where they
a mestizO breed among the highlanders. ·
 Great damage ~ e to Manila by Limahong. Most of the houses
had been burned. A third of ' the population had bee_n killed or
wounded. Lavezares had to recall the troops in Mindanao to man the
forts of the capital.
But the greatest damage was to Spanish prestige. The native popula-
tion had beheld that the Spanish were not, after all, gods. They could
be attacked, they could be caught unprepared. Limahong had almost
defeated them. The indigenes had simply stood watching ·on the
sidelines as I<astila and Intsik fought each other on Philippine soil. H
they did not, in general, quite welcome the pirates (as the ~anga-
sinenses did), neither did the delta folk make any effort to help the
beleaguered I<astila, In fact, two members of the native principalfa
were accused of giving aid and comfort to the enemy during the
invasion. The two were arrested and executed.
This r,-, enraged the principalfa they launched a general call to arms.
So, with Limahong just driven away, the Spanish found themselves
confronted with anqther war.
The rebel leaders were none other than Soliman and Lakan Dula.
Serious grievances had made them break their peace pact with the
I<astila. Lands that they claimed belonged to them were given as
encomiendas to reward veteran Spanish soldiers.
An enco,mienda was a tract of land where the Spanish encomendero
was entitl1d to collect the tribute, or tax. In return, the ericomendero
committed himself to defending the Philippines from invasion and to
teaching the folk in his encomienda the basic doctrines of the Christian
faith. In effect, an encomienda was an hacienda with an absentee
landlord. The estate "entrusted" to him (for the duration of his
lifetime and that of his heir) had no charm for him except as a source of
income. · ·
From Navotas, where Soliman and Lakan Dula were entrenched,
the word went upriver to Pampanga, and ~priver to Bai, and across
the bay to Cavite, that every Tagalog or Pampango worth his river-
bank was to rise up against the white devils.
On the instant, a fleet of paraos manned by soml! 10,000 warriors
appeared "Qft the bay to blockide Manila. On the roads swarmed
guerrillas Nnt out to am~the hated colonizers. Chun:hes were
raided and the friars in them ~
Yet it's evident there w.u no pneral slaughter of the whites, and no
.-m1--u_prising either. Whkh Is queer. Afftt all, at least a third of the
'Yel'f small white-population ot Manila lladbeeff killed or
during the Limahong invasioJt. 'The survivors coia1c:l have been
wiped out by a determined revolt. What succeeded instead was
determined push by the whites.
Juan de Salcedo and a r e s ~ divine, Fray Geronimo Mat,rin,
sent to hear the complaints of Soliman and Lakan Dula and to pro
them a satisfactory settlement. Incredibly .enough, the rebels
quickly placated. Manila was saved from further turmoil. Yet it
the case was not settled. A generation later, the heirs of Soliman
Lakan Dula were still bewailing ancestral lands usurped by-1he
comienda system. .
La.vezares and his successor as governor, Francisco de Sande,
shared a grandiose dream: the conquest of China. But the
king, Don Felipe II, had a more practical wish: to populate his
most colony, whose name -was now definitely Filipinas, in his
The Spanish there tended to breed scantily and to die early.
could M~ dream of conquest when it was practically empt)t
brawn?
So Don Felipe looked with favor on the project of Gonzalo
quillo, whom he appointed fourth governor of the Philippines.
quillo set forth from Spain in 1579· with 600 colonists destined.
Manila, 400 of them bachelors. ~s, by the time the new
arrived at his post, in 1580, his band of colonists had dwindled lo
The others had either died or deserted.
· GPvernor Ronquillo's dt!clth is as memorable as his three btB.y
in office. He passed away in 1583 and lay in state at San Agustin,
still a wooden church thatched with nipa. The catafalque eredlei:l
the bier reached almost up to the ceiling. On the catafalque
multitude of torches. A fallen torch set fire to the catafalque, w ·
turn ignited the roof, and from there the flames spread to the
boring houses, all of wood, bamboo and nipa. In a few minutes
was a smouldering layer of ashes. Gone up in smoke were
cathedral-in-progress, the bishop's palace, the two hospitals, the
and the official residences there, and the warehouses packed
Chinese merchandise intended for the galleons.
The catastrophe bred the determination to have • Manila
flammable, to rebuild the city in stone. But where find a buildet?
At this moment when Manila badly needed. a culture hero, it Ft ·
the.Tipt one. A culture herp is:.amneone whQ.bdnp to a
 ...
BritthMiJ. . .1n11utPIPl&.1dft..~ Hefolind thedty~and --~·-
and he rebuilt it In bdek aiii1'"1to1te. lwit was who blbught us the
af1Nlsonry and the art o f ~ .
His was the first Philippiile $tone construction: the Jesuit mothet-
ouae in Manila, which was a novelty that folk came &om all over to
al So enchanted by it was the-firstblshop of Manila, Domingo-de
, that he had Father Sedeno construct him a residence also of
Ml!IOftlrv. And Governor Santiago de Vera got the Jesuit e n ~ to
~tiiil~· the dty's inain fort, at the mouth of the river, using the brittle
from the Pasig quarries. It was that Sedeflo construction that
bet.ame known as Fort Santiago. And Antonio Sedei\o it was who
the style in Manila of stone walls and tile roofing.
Yet architecture and engineering were but two of the facets of a
nd mind. Sedefio built the first lime kiln in the islands and
t us how to make cement, brick and tile. He was an artist and he
.t us painting. He was an educator and he opened a school,
the establishmertt of a dty university to teach ~erything from
ABCs to saence and theology. And he was an industrialist who
a local silk cul~ so the silver might stay in Manila and not fly
to China.
J\ntonio Sedei\o,--Philippine culture hero, exemplifies a legion of
that could be called the "Peace Corps" of that time- In boJ:h
¥id the controversial 'iense of that term.
liipoli is what we bow as the friars.
PREMIER &iar order in our history is the Augustinian, the bf
evangelize the Philippines. And the premier A u ~ in~
tory is Andres de Urdaneta, co-leader of the Legazpi ~
Urdaneta had an adventurous youth. He was with the
expedition (1525) that wai, sjipposed to take Cebu but got
Moluccas. It was ten years before Urdaneta got back to
wrote a vivid book on his adventures in the East. In mi
joined the Augustinian Order. He was a friar in a convent in
wheruwnmoned to pilot the Legazpi expedition. With him .....
other Augustinian friars, the first Philippine missionaries.
Urdaneta's greatest achievement (without it, Spain could ttot
colonized the Philippines) was his discovery of the North
Current, the safe route back aaoss the Pacific to America. This
route he followed when he sailed the flagship Stm Ptdro back to
- and it was the route of the Manila Galleort fOI' over 200 ye,n-.
The Augustinians were given a place of honor in ¥ani)a: a
in mid-town., overlooking the bay, where would rise, in 1
church and monastery of St. Paul,.. popularly known as San
Church, taday the oldest edifice in the Philippines.
The first Augustinian missions in the m~tan -area
Tondo, Malate, Navotas, Malabon, Kalookan, t>aaig, l"aft~N
Cainta. The Augustinians established the cult of the &Into
Tondo. They we're great builders and they founded llW\Y of
of Painpanga, Cebu, Batangas, Negros and the llocos.
An outstanding Augustinian of the Conquista w.as Pray Jpiin
Plasencia. The early governors were concerned to preserve'Philil'M'II
folkways. Plasencia was co~oned to make a study of native
traditions, usages and methods of government. The- ~ting
Las Costumbres de los Tagalogs, became, on orders of the Real A.Udl4'mdl
a rule- book for all provincial governors, so that justice ~ t
administered in a manner familiar to Filipinos and they might ~
observing "the satt\e customs they observed in their pa
PJasencia'sbook thqs became "the first dyil code in th4! Phili
'Jbeiett~ , - o r S u ~ Co\ut, wueetab pi
~ : ,:· ig oI the (:hg.icb, which
•:~ to
... •the
 ~m~~ , ~~llliee-~ ~ ~-
Wve .- Real Aildieada: Me>cic:o:, Una and Mimifa.
The ~nd friar order to come ti> the Philippines was the Francis,.
can, formally known as the Order of Friars Minor. The first Francis-
cans arrived in Manila on June 24, 1578 and were assigned a lot on the
nortJteast side of the city. There they built their motherhouse and a
church dedicated to Our Lady of the Angels. Their first missions in the
~ region were Santa Ana, Paco, Sam.paloc, San Juan del Monte,
San Francisco del Monte and Pandacan.
Famous for his charity was a Franciscan lay brother, Fray Juan
Clemente, to whom came the sick, asking for treatment and medicine.
Finally he decided to ·open a hospital for all these indigent patients.
The hospital burned down during the great fire of 1583 but Fray Juan
Oemente rebuilt it. His foundation, now known as San Juan de Dios
Hospital, stood in Intramuros for o'Ver 300 years, near the Parian Gate.
The site is now occupied by the Lyceum.
It was the Franciscans too who opened an asylum for the many
kpers in the metropolitan area. From this leprosarium, started in the
1600s, would develop the San Lazaro Hospital. · ·
The Jesuits, whose order is known as the Society of Jesus, arrived in
Maaila on September 17, 1581 and at first settled in Lagyo, on the
.aeaside south of Ermita. Their first headquarters in Intram~.was
near the Puerto Real, on the east side. Their original missions were
$lpta Cruz, Quiapo, and San Miguel, which began as a Japanese ghetto.
Jta098h their local fame would be as educators, the early Jesuits
involved in industry (they ran a factory in San Pedro Makati) as
as in agriculture: they had farms in the Antipolo hills. Their
~ iaaenc:1a de Mayhaligue in Manila has importance in our history
because it was probably thel'e that plow--and-carabao farming was first
,introduced in the Philippines, and where new crops from the West-
~ , lettuce, com, tomato, potato, etc. - were tried out on
~ ilij)Jrir* lE!. soil.
Fourth friar arrival was the Dominican, the famed Order of Preach-
. O.P. A company of 15 Dominicans landed in Cavite on July 21,
and arrived in Manila four. days later. Because they touched
· p i n e ~ on the of the least of St. MiityMagdaloe, these
~ of the Provlncfl 4el-San._ losario de F ~
m:ttm~a., the~~oftheorderin the
 For almost four centuries, Santo Domingo de Manila stood on ,the
north side of Intramuros, near harbor and customs house. The site,
bought for 800 pesos, was originally so steep a riverbank that the first
Dominicans had to have a land-fill before they could build.
The chief objective of the Preachers in Manila was the large Chinese
colony and so their classic missions were .Binondo and the Parian.
J>arian is a local term for Chinatown.
A Dominican lay brother, Fray Diego de Santa Maria, started a
school for orphan boys that the Dominican ·Order officially adopted in
1652 as the Sts. Peter and Paul School for Orphan Boys. This in time
became the Colegio de San Juan de Letran. Very similar was the
boarding school the Dominicans organized in 1611 for indigent stu-
- dents; from this charity school emerged, on August 15, 1619, the
University of Santo Tomas, which began with three faculties: Ads,
Philosophy, and Theology. ·
Last of the friars to arrive in the Philippines in those days were tl)e
Recollets, who are also sons of St. Augustine, but separately from the
Augustinian Hermits. The first Philippine _!lecollets - ten priests and
four lay brothers - disembarked in Cebu in May of 1606 and arrived
in Manila a month later. Their first residence was in Ba~yan
(what's now the Luneta) where they established a shrine and a school.
When they transferred to Intramuros, their location was beside tt.
eastern walls, where their motherhouse was known as La Iglelia y
• Convento de San Nicolas de Tolentino.
In the Philippines the Recollets specialized in jungle missions.~
had parlor assignments like I<awit but they mostly labored in the
of Zambales, the wilds of Tarlac, the wilds of Mindoro, the wilcls
Palawan, the wilds of Mindanao. But it was also they who helped tuin
the island of Negros into the suave glamour scene of sugar baronies.
Through the religious orders, the Ph,ilippines entered book cu1tilre.
The first Philippine printing press was built in 1593 by a-Dominican,
Fray Domingo de Nieva, and a Chinese Christian, Keng Yong; and
from this press emerged the first Philippine book, Doctrina Cristiana, a
bilingual catechism in Spanish and Tagalog, ~hich also had a Chinese
edition. ·
In 1602, another Spanish-Chinese collaboration created a press of
m"bvable type, "in the European style of printing." The makers w.n
the Dominiam Fray Francisco Blancas and the Chinese convert Juaa
de Vera.j rhis press was in operation at the Don.unbn mission hoUile
 m:a-.iieuntil 1625, when it was installed in the Colegio de Santo
Toma and became known as the Impren,ta de Santo Tomas. There, in
early 17th century, worked Tomas Pinpin, first Filipino printer, and
there was prin~ the book he wrote in Tagalog on how to learn
Spanish. "
The press of the Augustinians, said to have been .i mported from
Japan, published the first books in Pampango. The Jesuits set up a
press in 1639 that had "types and letters of various sizes," and worked
"quite perfectly, as neatly and beautifully as in Spain." In 1692, the
Franciscans established a press at their convent in Sampaloc that was
in operation for some 200 years. During the first half of the 17th
century, 81 books were published by the four presses operated by the
religious. They had a complaint in common against the printing press:
"It entails more expense than profit!"
Until 1581, when it finally got a bishop, the Church in Manila was
governed by the friar orders. The diocese of Manila, created by ·Pope
Gregory XIII in 1578, was under the archbishop of Mexico. So, Do-
mingo de Salazar, first bishop of Manila, was a suffragan (or subordi-
nate) to the head of the Mexican church. On taking possession of the
See 9J Manila in 1581, Salazar immediately started building a cathe-
dral, which was completed in four years. This first Cathedral of Manila
was ruined by the earthquake of 1645.
Pope Oeinent VIlI decreed in 1595 the elevation of Manila to '11
&iKhdiocese with three suffragan Sees: the Diocese of Nueva Segovia
tnd Cagayan), the Diocese of Nueva Caceres (Bikol) and the ·
,~• ~ • of Cebu. The first archbishop of Manila, Ignacio de
,. Franciscan, occupied the episcopal throne in 1598 but
.ip a few months. As archdiocese, Manila had jurisdiction over
~lk:itat:Tarlac, Zambales, Pampan'ga, Bulacan, Cavite, Batangas,
Lagp, dlridoro, Marinduque, and the metropolitan area that's now
1malprovince.
In those days, the cathedral dty that was Manila could boast of
being a global presence. Its: Galleon Tra~e involved two oceans and
three continents. In Spain the silk shawls from China were known as
"mantones de Manila." ·
Chapter 9; FIRST GLOBAL BUSINESS

WHEN Urdaneta returned to Mexico in 1571, his ship carried a cargo

of cinammon bought in the south for the king of Spain. That was the
first hint of Manila's potential as a source of the fabulous goods of the
Orient.
The Galleon Trade between Manila and Acapulco has been ~
scribed as "the first world economy of modem times," because it was,
global in scope. The silks and spices and jewels that Asia sent to
Manila were carried by the galleons across the Pacific to America, and
from there were transported across the Atlantic to Europe.
The Manila Galleon was thus the first medium to reduce the world
to a village. During its time, theory could posit a mandarin's lady in
Peking, a senora in Manila, a gachupina in Mexico, and a fraulein in
Germany all wearing dresses cµt from the same bolt of Chinese silk or
Indian linen. ·
Actually, the first galleons commuted between Manila and Mexico's
Puerto de Navidad, the traditional departing point for the Orient. And
originally Manila also had a galleon trade with Guatemala, Colombia
and Peru - until Spanish businessmen complained that the p>ds.
from Manila were killing exports from Spain, and demanded a stop to
the competition. So the Galleon Trade was confined to the J)Qtl
Acapulco and to a single annual market ship.
The trade got official recognition in 1593, when a government permit
regulated the operations of the ,galleons, which \Yere built and ~
by the state. The permit decreed that each galleoi;t wa to ~
merchandise not exceeding 250,000 pesos in value. Profits tetwlled to
the Philippines were not to exceed 500,000 pesos - which indicate
that merchandise ·snipped to Mexico ordinarily earned lflOre, mudt
more, than 100% profit.
In theory, every citizen of the Philippines had the right to ship
merchandise on the galleons. Royal decree however specified three
groups as having prior rights to a lJoleta. The cargo space of a galleon
was divided into 4,000 units, each of which (except the over a thou-
sand units owned by the government) was represented by a lJoleta, or
ticket. If you held three tickets, you could shlp an amount of merchan-
dise to fill three units of cargo space. That was why the bales
merchandise had to be exactly a certain size, all uniform in shape, »
 the e6JU81 units of cargo space. ·
The three groups with spetjal bolitli privileges were: government
leaders (the governor, the chief justice, the two mayors of Manila),
churcli leaders (the archbishop of Manila, the cathedral chapter), and
the business community (with emphasis on the citizens of Manila).
The church dignitaries had more than a hundred boletas. Moreover,
ch;mtable institutions like the Misericordia, the San Juan de Dios
hospice, and the Franciscan Third Order, also had allotments of
boletas, and these charities were managed by the friars. A veteran's
widow could be given a boleta to help her educate her children. And a ·
new school, a new,parish, a new philanthropy, could be ensured a
start with a boleta for operating expenses.
Despite myriad precautions, however, the boletas could be, and
were, cornered by the top businessmen of Manila, who in time gained
a virtual monopoly of the Galleon Trade. Thus, a trade sponsored by
the goveminent in the hope that it would provide ManilefiQs at least
with an income became the milking cow of a happy few. But only
because the rightful holders of the boletas chose to sell them for
whatever they would fetch. · .
Al'9 in theory could the Manila Galleon carry Philippine products.
But since the deirutnd was for luxury goods, which the Philippines
wasn't producing, what the Manila' Galleon carried to Acapulco .was
mostly Chinese, Indian and Persian exotica. These elegancies were
brought to Manila and bought wholesale by the boleta exporters. So, as
the entrepot between Asia and the West, Manila became the No. 1 city
the ~ t in galleon days.
There are those who argue that, even before the Galleon Trade,
Manila was already a busy trader with China, India, Japan and the
Malay world. U that be true, then the folk of Soliman's Maynila should
have impressed the Spanish with their knowledge of Confucianism, or
Taoism, or Hinduism, or Buddhism, or Shintoism. All that the early
l<astila noticed was that those..Maniledos knew very little even about
Jslam. .
And how believe they had extensive relations with China when
those Maililenos were not eating pancit, or using choJ?Sticks, or wear-
ing .clune)as, or fQl1owing the Chinese calendar? Al\.ac,quaig.tance with
~.~....
• 111 or J a ~ o r ~ culture is hardly indicated by the fact that

· was still widtautwheel o r ~ ~ was alraa4y a wheel and

ifculbue); hid notbear4cf ~.S!piia,.ti.llg<J..,_.wu ~
 paper and paint aalturel;: and lmew nothiAg of masonry (the
Vijayans had already built Borobudur).
If the prehispanic Manileno was really a great traaer, his cul
would surely have shown it-in the many technologies frQm thi
tures he came in conract with. But the ceramics found in Phili
graves only prove how superficial were our relations with the
nese. We bought porcelain but did not belong to porcelain cul~
were not close enough to the Chinese to learn how to make t>Ora:li
Only in the days of the Galleon Trade does Chinese cultut2
enter our life - in such guises as the sari-sari, the candle factoiy,
panciteria, etc. Only with the Galleon Trade do we truly become a
of Asia.
Here's a typical list of galleon cargo:
"Silk brocades from Canton; cottons from the Malabar Coast ani
Bay of Bengal; Philippine blankets from the Ilocos (whence also
the sails of the ships); velvets and kimonos; damasames and
inlaid metal work; camphor and nutmeg from the Moluccas, Java
Ceylon; and the rings, ivories and bracelets of the Orient."
The merchandise, loaded OJ) Chinese junks, anived in Manila
year in March, April and May, and were processed, baled and
aboard ship. Th~m in July the galleon Sidled for Acapulco.
• The day of departure was the holiday of the year. A sol
Deum was sung. The governor and the archbishop presided ovei'
send-off. Bells rang; rockets exploded; brass bands paraded d.u.....,.......,
decorated streets. The governor, escorted by army and nayy
,marched behind a gorgeous standard embossed with an ikon of
Virgin. The archbishop IM a procession of chanting prelates
friars, bearing lighted candles. Be~d them surged a multitu<le ·
ploring safety for the ship on which rested their hopes, their dre
their very lives!
The voyage took five months. On its return, in November or De(!em,
-her, the Manila Galleon would be carrying two or three million pesos
in silver; letters from the king; instructions from the government·
Mexico (of which Manila was a dependency); and offidal passengers:_~
new governor, a new archbishop, a new team of missionaries;.
perhaps 8'M\e grandee fallen from royal favor and banished to
#ige of~ einpire.
{;~ ,A. . . . llolday again was the arrival of the~m Manila
iflinlenfation if what ~ve4 ~ that: the
 a"itft1wt.., ii1r1
a.~.
the ManOa Ca11eori • ~ foiitay u hamg beel'.l ...-e .ruinous
lhan romantic:;: it benefited 9l'df • few, eiuidw,g:Chinese, not Filipino,
indus~. The native economy was corrupted by it.
Th&fact is that Phili~ agticillture, commerce and industry were
:enfidlea and advanced by-the Manila Galleon.
To \l& on the galleons came the squash, the bean, the achuete, the
tomato, the turkey, the sheep, the ipil-ipil, the lily and the rose- not
to mention com, cabbage, tobacco, avocado, pineapple, leeks, sinca-
Jpas, sigadillas and mani.
How can anybody bad-mouth a medium that brought us such
bounty?
An American studying the grass in an area near Manila in 1912
Identified 175 varieties as coming from either Mexico or Brazil.
It was the Manila Galleon that brought the guitar to the kanto-boy,
the caserola to the housewife, hammer and saw to the carpenter, hoe
end spade to the farmer, easel and brush to the artist,_ the compass to
lhe seaman, the clock to the ollice worker, the ledger to the business-
~ h machine to the factory worker, Virgil and Cervantes to the
"tldlolat, and shoes to the man on the street
~ enough was the tralisfer of Western flora al'.ld fauna to the
ftliPPJpi:'nes. Even mme epochal was the transfer here of Westem
, with the galleoni ~ literally, as vessels and media.
· · c:wtum owes the Manila Galleon is incalculable.
that baidge of nationalism, the barong tagalog, lllay ha'Ve come
on those boats. think of anything sup-emely Pinoy - guava or
or lili or sibuyaa verde - and YQU find they were given us by
gabeons.
It was on the MariiJa Galleon that we began to become the Philip-
 ·FIRST to be formally recognized as the colony's chief executive as wJII
•as military commander was Santiago de Vera, governor of the
pines from 1584 to 1590. De Vera ordeffli all construction in Manila
be of stone and he had Fort Santiago rebuilt in P~ limestone.
first stone fort did not last long but it was the start of fortifica
would tum Manila into a Walled City, or lntramuros.
In 1590 Gomez Perez Dasmari:fias became governor and the
of the city walls proceeded in . earnest. By the following
governor could inform the king that work on the walls was
apace although no architects or engineers were available. He iaid
the stone Fort Santiago built by de Vera was already~ eaten 11
the river and sea and would have to be reconstructed.
Chinese labor was used on the walls. Funds were raised by
Chinese stores, galleon shipments, and imported playing cards:
king sent an engineer, Leonard'o lturriano, to supervise the cons
tion. ·
The story goes that, on being •told once again that m
l)eeded to complete the walls of Manila, King Philip Il !OM\
shading his eyes, peered out a window. "Considerh]& How
they're costing," said the king, '1 should be able to see thetof'-gf
walls from here."
Actually, the walls must have been a bargain since th'}'
finished in record tune. Dasmari,t\as governed only three years but
prime project was almost complete when he was murdered by
nous Chinese boatmen. He was succeeded as governor by his
Luis Perez Dasmariflas, who inaugurated the walls in 1594.
project had thus taken only about three years to finish.
The walls of Manila were some two miles of rampart, bastion
battlement, surrounded on all sides by water: either sea, river or
This belated medieval artifact is ranked by an American historian
one of the chief works of the 16th century.
Of the gates in the walls, three (Santa Lucia, Pos~ and Banderl"'
opened onthe.sea;-two (Almacenes and Santiago) opened On the
wre. Pl, ~ts; and two (Real an4 ~ ~ on
tneJ\ inown .. Extm;lf:ii'o&, , . II
 The ongmal httram.uros was described 4s " a ~ ~ built by
a,nateurs.' It was "small but beautiful." It was "very handsome and
distinguish d"; its halls were like palaces. It was "an island formed by
sea, river and moat." One visitor remarked that Manila enjoyed "all
the arts needed in a community," and that the galleons built in Manila
were bigger than the ships on the Mediterranean.
F"ort Santiago dominated the western tip of the city. The fort was
ned by thirty soldiers with their officers and eight artillery men, all
under a commandant who lived in the fort.
Fa_911g the fort was the cathedral, of hewn stone, with three naves.
Between fort and cathedral stretched the Plaza de Armas, around
which rose the royal halls. These were stone buildings of two stories,
with two interior courts, each surrounded by lower and upper galle-
ries, or corridors.
At the Palacio del Gobernador resided the chief executive and his
fan'lily. The Real Audienda had a very large and stately hall for its
offices. Another hall had a throne room for the royal seal. Also on the
&iia de Armas were the royal chapel, the treasury house, the armory,
;and the arsenal, where workmen and convicts ground gunpowder in
thirty tnortars.
Down Calle Real del Palacio was the church of the Augustinians,
ol the most sumptuous in the city, with a large monastery and
y in~rior courts and gardens. Also of stone was the priory of the
· ,-which had a church, a cloister, and accommodations for
friars. Forty likewise were the Franciscans living in the mother-
house of La Provinda de San Gregorio Magno. The Jesuit residence
\ad a church, a seminary, and a boarding school where the students
were go,»'lled in tawny-colored frieze with red facings.
The city had a royal hospital for the Spanish and a general hospital
for the public, where skillful physicians and surgeons and apotheca-
wrought map.y marvelous cures. Santa Potendana was a refuge
widows and orphan girls. The Intramuros houses of the 1590s, _
t 600 of theJJ,., were ~dy developing the Hispuw-Filipino
•iltecture that we now call the Antillan style: a ground stoiy of
e, an u ~ stor.r of woocl, sliding window frames with 01.f!z
P.
Aft ibw.rioi' coqityqlf._·. tQQf ol tile.
~ • two · one .from
 before 11:00 p.m., when the draw-bridges were raised and the ga
were closed until 4:00 a.m.
(This curfew custom_fell into disuse in the 19th century. When the
Revolution broke out, ~e Spanish had a hard time getting the rusty
mechanism of the draw-bridges to work ·again.)
The Maynila of Soliman had been for Asia but "a land fit for snakes
and savages." But the Manila of the conquistador was a power that
awed Asia. Oapan would close its doors to the world for fear al
Manila.) Royal disputes in the Malay sultanates were referred
Manila, which backed its championship of this or that side with~
sent to the site of the conflict.
Orcumstances seemed to be decreeing that Manila was inevitably to
·absorb the territories of Macao, Formosa, the Moluccas and Borneo.
The kings of Cambodia and Siam sent embassies to Manila to sue for
alliances with the imperial city. These embassies arrived with gifts of
elephants that were paraded through the streets of the Walled Citf to
a gaping public. The Oty Hall of Manila sent one of the elephants as.-a
gift to the emperor of JaP,ilJl·
Thus, as one equal to another, behaved the Oty of Manila towards
kings and emperors. And this during a period that certain historians
choose to bewail as a fall or declin~ of Philippine culture.
But it was during these supposed "dark ages" that the PhilliP!~lfi
entered book culture: paper and printing finally reached the-
It was a t ~ time that we acquired masonry culture. This meant
roads and bridges, stone walls and tile roofs, engineering and atchitec-
ture.
We advanced into wheel and plow culture. The carreton and the
harnessed carabao ended our age-old subsistence economy. We were
presently exporting rice to Asia. Growing 9Ul' own wheat, we became
self-sufficient in flour - until cheap wheat from Spanish California
was dumped on our shores.
. Factory culture started in the Philippines with the establishment of
kamaligs for the mass production of bricks, cement, liquor, gunpow-
der, cannon, the silk ~ad, cigars, and export sugar.
The maps that were being made of the Philippines as a unit trained
us to think of ourselves as a unit. The once separate and warring
kingdoms of Manila, Cebu and, yes, Jolo were steadily projected as a
single entity: Las Fili~s. Divide and conquer? The Spanish poliq
seems rather to-have been: ''Keep 'em one! I<eep 'em together!" There
 any number of times when the Spanish could have dropped
Mindanao - or, at least, Sulit-..., from their empire; but (at the cost of
mudt headache) they o ~ to keep Min~o and Sulu Philippine.
As the 16th century waned, Philip Il sent a cedula real confirming
· the status of Manila as the noble and ever loyal capital of the Philip-
pines, and granting it a coat of arms. Manila's escudo ~tured a
sea-lion rampant, with castle and crown.
 PART TWO
DAYS OF EMPIRE

Chapter 1: PARIAN OF THE CELESTIALS

TEN thousand years, according to some scholars, had China and the
Philippines been dealing with each other before the coming of the
West. How strange that in those ten thousand years so little of
Chinese dviliz.ation reached the Philippines.
Our prehispanic culture showed no awareness of Chinese religion
or Chinese technology. We were n~t tea drinkers or lumpia eaters. We
were not building in brick. We were ignorant of silk weaving and
lacquer painting. _
Imagine being in contact for cenh.µies with American culture and
yet be ignorant of hotdogs, hamburgers, cowboys, Levis and
.ball! I

We knew nothing of siopao and Lao-tse because, whatewt

antiquity, our relations with the Chinese were lightweight
low. ·
We were surely not as Chinito in loo~ as we are now. NO(Utof the
early chroniclers who first described us said we looked Chinese.
The Chinito look would come (along with pandt and lugaw) only
after 1565, when the Chinese began to migrate here in droves. In the
~ history of Chinese-Philippine relations, therefore, those ten thousand
of a supposed past together have little or no importance. The impact of
Chinese culture on us begins only in 1565.
When the Spanish came to Manila they found some Chinese - 40,
according to some accounts; 150, according to others - living in
Soliman's kingdom. Only 15 years later there wse to,ooo Chinae
living in Manila! So few of them settled in prehispanic Manila·because
the Chinese go only where there is a strong formal gove;mment.
Migration to the Philippines was spurred by the Galleon Trade. In
the 16th centuzy (and up to the 19th century) the port of Ampy
monopolized the Philippine connectkm. .Jlrom Amoy came the fteets of
42
junks carrying silks and other lUXUIY goods to Manila. On the return
trip the junks would be loaded with Mexican silv~. And their sailors
would spread the word in Amoy that Manila was a rich field of
enter.prise. .
So, into Manila poured Chinese tradesmen and artisans, Chinese
farmers and fishermen. By the 1600s, a town that used to have but
twoscore or so of the Celestials was firtding itself hived by over 20,000
Sangley (meaning trader) folk. "Parian" was the term for their
local hives.
Most of the immigrants embarked in Amoy. This indicates that they
were mostly Fookienese. Amoy is an island city in the Chinese pro-
vince of Fookien. Thus, from the 16th through the 18th century, the
Chinese population of the Philippines was of a single stock: southeast-
ern Chinese, specifically the Fookien tribe. Only in mid-19th century
did the opening of trade with Canton bring to the Philippines another
kiI}d of Sangley: the Cantonese, who becam~ known locally as Macao.
In 1581, Governor Gonzalo Ronquillo, alarmed by the rapid swell of
the Chinese immigrants, decided to restrict them to a ghetto. A ghetto
is an area in a city where a minority group lives separate from the
cmnnunity. The location .picked_for the Chinese was beside the
Do · · priory (because the Dominicans.were in charge of evange-
lhe Chinese) and the village that grew there, on the riverbank,
e own as the Parian.
a
tt exil&N only a couple of years. When it burned down, new site
was dicil\el!d for the Chinese ghetto, in 1583. This second Parian rose
in what's now Liwasang Bonifacio and endured until the end of the
18th century. When the walls of Manila were built, one of the gates
was designed to open to the ghetto and thus became known as Puerto
Parian. Protecting this gate was a bastion mounted with cannon aimed
at the Parian.
In the ghetto one could buy silk and porcelain, order a set of
lacquered fumilUJe, commission a painting or a monument, haye a
jewel mountecl, and hire a carpenter, mason, saibe, accountant or
printer. hi the noodle shops there, pandt and lumpia became part of
Philippine culture. The church of the Parian was dedicated to the
Three Kings of the Orient. But the Chinese of Manila picked for patron
St. Nicolaa of'Tolentino - becatBe of the legensi about the Chinaman
the Pasig who was saved/rom a giant crooodile whell he caJled on
"San NicalllSl1 Stm Nkolasa1" ~ crocodile turned Into stone.
/ One visitot who opined that Manila wu "an emporium for
richest commerce in the world," was especially enchanted hy1
Parian, because of the goods ffiere on display: "so rare artd
that they merit the admiration of the most civilized nations.''
Wrote Bishop Domingo de Salazar to the king in 1590:
''The Parian has so adorned the dty that I do not hesitate tollfftna
your majesty that no other dty in Spain or its territories
anything so well worth seeing as this, for in it can be found tile'
trade of China .... There are also eating houses where the
and .the natives take their meals, and I have been told that these
frequented even by the Spaniards."
The Parian was under the governance of two mayors: one S·~!!!~!!;
the other Chinese. It had its own courts and judges, a notary pub.lkji
and a jail. Like the Muslim south, the Parian enjoyed religious ~
tion. The Chinese were free to practise any faith or none; they-Ob,.
served their own traditions, celebrated their old festivals.
The Spanish had to be broadminded because the Celestials were
useful to the colony. Many scholars have wondered why there was
market in IntramW'OS. The reason is that the Parian served as
market of the Walled Oty. When the'Pu.erta Parian opened af
the residents of Intramuros came aowding out to do their
the hundreds of stores all over the Parian, which was where
rise the Post Office, Plaza Lawton attd the Mehan Garden&.
The Parian was the first "mall" in the Philippines. It
first employment agency of Manila. At the Parian was everyi- ...,..,...
craftsman, ready to do a job for an employer.
Marveled one friar of the Celestials: "It is indicative of-their
ness that, although so few, they have so many different craftsmen."
The Parian burned down seven times: in 1588, 1597, 1603, 1629~ l
and 1642. And how valuable it was to Manila is manifested by
. speed with which, after each conflagration, City Hall rebuilt China·
town. . ·
Besides the mandatory tribute, City Hall collected alL-ldnds of
and taxes from the Chinese. They had to pay to come here; they had
pay to do business here; they had to pay to stay here; ~ had to~
to breathe hme at all!
Soi ~ y tl'ied to escape the in\positions by cortverting t o ~
ltf. Odnese tiOI\Verts were exe~ from tribute for ten years.
c o u l d ~ . ~ ~ ~i •Ji!IIJI! •
DILAO, a village occupying the present location ofOty Hall and
San Marcelino area, included a Japanese quarter on the banks of
F.stero Tripa de Gallina (where Hotel Mirador and the Tabacalera
stand). The site had been a Japanese ghetto llince p ~
When the Spanish took Manila, they found twenty Japanae
there, one of whom was a Christian.
In 1585, eleven Japanese Christians arrived in Manila, sent
the Jesuits in Japan. Two years later, a Japan~ Christian
Gabriel arrived with eight of his countrymen that he had CORY
Christianity while en route from Kyoto to Manila. The converts
baptiz.ed in Manila in a "80lemn ceremony. ·
Immigrants from Japan invariably settled in Dilao and came
the ministry of the Franciscan mars, because J?i)ao was a Fra.n•~
mission.
In 1591, the Jesuits es~blished a mission there specifically for
Japanese. This ensured trouble with the Francisc4ns, especially
Archbishop Benavides decreed in 1(,()3 that mission work
Japanese settlers in the Philippines was to be under the con
Franclscans. At that time the Japanese in Dilao numbered
To avoid discord, the Jesuits decided to separate their mist'11io1J
Dilao. This happened in 1618, when Japanese refugees froia
Taycosama came to Manila and gravitated to the Jesuit missiairi cm
south bank of the Pasig, because the Jesuits preached to them in
own tongue.
Since many of the refugees were samurai, or warriors, it seemed
good idea to set up a parish in honor of a soldier saint, to attract
knights among the migrants. And what heav.enly soldier more
ous than Michael of the flaming sword?
So the new parish became known as San Miguel.
The original San Miguel oc.c:upied the area now ~ e d by Ay
Boulevard, Taft Avenue, UN Avenue and the riverbiilc.
Its first chapel of bamboo and thatch was replaced with a fine
church by no less than Governor Sebastian Hwtado de Corcuera
1637 the pelllOI'. was campaigni_ng in Mindanao when a MOfO
~ His Jesw,t cha -~t-Nin pl'OIQise in
· to.build a chv,di:tQ $ . ,
 it shall lie madever,ildtand W!ff.beautifill.11 1Mi~ of.San
Miguel was built in the later 1630&; when relations between Mam1a
and Japan were deteriorating.
Missionaries from Manila were being martyred in Nagsaki. A few
earlier, in 1632, in sardonic response to complaints about his
.. i,ersec:ution of Christians, the governor of Nagasaki had shipped 130
lepers to Manila. He had expelled those poor creatures not
because they were lepers but because they were Christians. In
the 130 exiles were received "with great pomp and effusion of
·ty," and the government, aided by the religious orders, raised a
fund for the maintenance of the Japanese lepers, who were housed at
Sim Lazaro Hospital.
This may have been the last large influx of Japanese to Manila before
Japan bolted its doors to the world in 1637. Betweel\,.1585, when
there's an initial report of Japanese immigration to Manila, and 1632,
when the leper batch arrived, the Japanese colony in Manila that in
~ly Spanish times numbered only a few hundred, had in the space of
twoscore years increased to over three thousand, to the alarm of the
~s.
file influx was mainly due to the persecutions of the Tokugawa
~ t e , which hounded many Japanese Christians into exile. In
lt1 of more than 300 Christians driven from their homeland, 133
Manila, including many women. A number of these women
a religious community and founded a Japanese nunnery in
Mip], which survived until the 1640s.
The Japanese in Manila were not as concentrated in one place as the
ese were in the Parian. There were Japanese residing in the
· bee of Dilao and Santiago, besi.des the Japanese dwellers in San
• el. Another thing: San Miguel, though it may have begun as a
it,ai,tese ghetto, °i'did not stay that way. By the 1640s it's already
· ed" in character: a COIJUllunity of Japanese and Filipinos.
Indeed th.e'11!!11dfhistorian Pedro Murillo Velarde beheld San Miguel
part of a 1'lbe1 or Pentecost where Taga)og, Pampango, Bicol,
, llocalie, etc., as well as ~ A.fric:an, Malay, Indian,
, G$ek. French,:'Glrman, Portuguese, Dutch, etc., were to be

~
OU~
'1M ,•~,ese
aatd
thete
the walw.
of Smlilit!-, . preached in
reenacted in Manila. For ~ere is no dty in the world where so many
nationalities come together as here."
The Manila Japanese were exemplary in behavior, as Lieutenant-
Governor Antonio de Morga noted: ''The Japanese are all honest and
law-abiding, zealous and unswerving in the faith they have
braced." .
However, no more than the Parian Chinese was the Japanese
always so peaceable, especially given the speed with which its n
bers multiplied. The colony became large enough to supply the
nish army with mercenari~ by the hundreds. When Governor Juan de
Silva started his conquest of the Moluccas in 1615, he engaged S)O
Japanese as soldiers. In 1616 a fleet was sent to Malacca to battle the
Dutch and again 500 Japanese were hired "at high pay" to join the
expedition.
Nevertheless, there were efforts to reduce the Japanese presence.
The Japanese ghetto had come to poise as thick a danger as the
Chinese Parian. The first disturbance was in 1606, when a son of
Nippon was killed by a· Spaniard and the enraged Japanese plotted
revolt - a plot nipped in the bud, but not for good, for there were
further riotings in the four succeeding years.
In 1608 and 1609 occurred the first deportations of Japanese, b.;oat
Manila back to their native land. Manila limited the entry of Ja.pm:• t..·,
ships to four a year. But the following decade would renew the inllow
of Japanese immigrants due to oppressive warlords and relip>us
persecution in Japan. Thus was nurtured the growth of the parish of
San Miguel. _
A rectory was built in San Miguel in 1627, to house the Jesuits
manning the mission. The stone convent that. cost the king of Spain
800 pesos would go down in history as "a seminary for martyrs,"
because many of the Jesuits assigned there would later shed their
blood for the Faith in Japan.
A plague that swept the Manila area in 1628 has bean chronicled
vividly by Father Murillo Velarde:
"At San Miguel, one of those attacked by the pest told his confesldr
that h_ had seen two figu,es in the guise ex ministers of justice who
seized pebple, leaving behind a pestilential odor. Also there were seen
in this subw'b malign spirits, in the guise of horrid phantoms, who
strudc with death those who merely looked at- them."
On St. Andrew's Day - N4Jft1Dber 30, 16G - ~ -Will laid
 waste by the worst earthquake yet since the Spanish advent.
. "Many churches were ruined. Notable among them was the church
in the suburb of San Miguel, administered by the. Fathers of the
Society. Both church and rectory were totally ruined. Father Francisco
de Roa, the provincial, was buried up to his_shoulders in the ruins,
which he was rescued badly injured. Father Juan de Salazar was
,removed, mortally injured, from the ruins and expired shortly after-
L" .
e church that crumbled would be the "very rich and very beauti-
, edifice vowed by Governor Corcuera on a Mindanao battlefield.
1be rectory was the "seminary for martyrs" through which had
pasted so many spiritual athletes destined for the scaffold.
Though the Great Plague of 1628 and the Great Temblor of 1645
loom large in the history of San Miguel, neither was its supreme
ordeal. Still distant in the future was the fateful year of 1762, when the
British occupied Manila - and thus set in motion a chain of events
that would yank San Miguel out of its original site and carry it across
the Pasig River to a new location on the opposite bank.
Chapter 3: SANGLEY INSURGENT·

ONE way to escape paying tribute was to enlist as oarsman or rower in

the navy. Gomez Perez Dasmari:fias had, besides building the wcuq._,,
Manila, started building a navy to fight the numerous pirates -
English, Japanese, Hollander, Muslim and Chinese - that were- - ••:--.
ing on the islands.
Dasmari:fias had had several ships constructed; and of these,
were stationed in Manila Bay. Some 300 Chinese of the Parian ~
been selected to work the oars, though Dasmari:fias found them
and listless as rowers.
In October of 1593 .the governor organized a naval expedition to
reconquer Ternate from the Dutch and annex the Moluccas to the
Philippines. But on the way there, the Chinese oarsmen mutinied
and massacred the Spaniards on board ship, including Governor
Oasmari:fias.
His killing had Manila feeling nervous again about its Chinde
multitudes - a fear first aroused by the Limahong invasio.-i. Sinopho-
bia, or fear of the Chinese, reached fever pitch in 1603, when three
Chinamen appeared in Manila on a fantastic quest. .
The cargo junks from Amoy usually started arriving in Manila iii
March. In 1603 they started arrivi'1,g only in mid-May. So, instead
the usual 30 or more vessels, only 14 made it to Manila before the
monsoon. One of them carried three VIPs who, before landing, sent a
letter to Governor Pedro de Acuna.
The letter said that the emperor of China had heard that, off the port
of Cavite, was an island that was a mountain of gold, and that nobody
was its owner. So the emperor was sending envoys - these three
mandarins, or state officials - to verify the rumor. .
On May 23 the three mandarins landed in grandios';! style, the
insignia of high office borne before them, and splendid retinues to
attend them. There were complaints to the governor that these
foreigners had no right to flaunt authority where they had none, but
Acuna shrugged that the matter was not worth noticing.
Evidently these three mandarins were justices come over to hunt
down fugitives from Chinese law. They mowd about in the Parian
1ii>tne on-Sedan chairs and accompanied ~ a glory of standards and
banners. ·At thllirapproach, the Cbineae .fllld « , if unable to do ~
50

prostrated themselves on the ground.

Word reached the Palace that the mandarins were summoning this
or that Sangley for questioning, and having this one flogged and that
one given the fingernail torture. Told to stop their illegal inquisitions,
the visitors made a pretense of looking for their golden mountain.
Off to Cavite went the trio. They spotted a convenient island, where
the:y: filled several baskets with soil, to show their emperor, said they,
tlfii't the mountain in question was not golden. And back they sailed to
Cathay.
That this absurd incident should have created panic in Manila
reveals how unhealthy was the atmosphere festering in the city since
the expulsion of Limahong and the slaying of Dasmariftas. What else
could the three mandarins be but the vanguard of an invasion, sent
over to spy out the fortifications of Manila and to incite the Manila
Chinese against the Spaniards? ·
The Spanish, convinced that the Patj.an was about to rise in revolt,
started organizing Pampango and even Japanese troops, besides hur-
rying the construction of more bastions for Intramuros.
Hearing of these preparations, the Chinese·became convinced that
Intramuros was about to exterminate them. They rallied round an
insurgent leader: a rich merchant named Eng Kang- Christian name:
juan Bautista de Vera -who was very westernized and close to the
~ d s . He ordered weapons to be made and distributed, and a
secret fort to be built in Tondo. His ·conspiracy drew the Chinese
proletariat but not the rich merchants of his own class. Many of these
magnates--of the Parian committed suicide, driven to desperation by
terror and conflicting loyalties.
Sheer despair, in fact, triggered the first Sangley uprising.
On October 3, 1603 the conspirator Juan Bautista de Vera went to
the Palace, on the pretext of wanting to warn Governor Acuna vf a
Chinese plot. Actually he wanted to spy out the lay of the situation
an4 perhaps cnate a loophole for himself. But the government already
knew of the cabal and that he was the leader of it. The conspiracy had
been exposed to the curate of Quiapo by the native mistress of a
Chinese.
De Vera was seized and executed. His fellow conspirators sounded
fhe call to 8111\S with .a beating of ~ - Then they marched on
Binondo, burning houses and besieging the church. But they failed to
take Binondo. Next day~~ 4 , the Chinese~ attada!d Tondo
llftd ~ , and tried to stofin the walls o f ~ They came
ladders and war-machines on wheels to rush the Puerta Parian
were repulsed.
Leading the defense was Luis Perez Dasmarinas, son of the s
governor, and therefore ~ t e d by a bitter grudge. Of his troop$
Tagalog, Pampango, Japanese and Spa,nish - only a few lived
the tale. At least 4,J)OO of the Chinese rebels were killed in
Curiously enough, within the Walled City as well as ms·
besieged churches of Tondo and Binondo were hundreds of
refugees. These were the loyalists who had refused to join th~
lion and had crossed battle lines to seek shelter with the "enem
Manila would hail St. Francis of Assisi as its protector ag ·
because it was on his day, October 4, the Sangley uprisirfg
crushed. St. Francis was said to have been seen waving a.sword 01\
walls of Manila.
Routed, the rebels fled to Laguna de Bai, where reinforcem
pursued and slew them. About 23,000 of the Sangley perished in
1md hundreds more were taken prisonet.
That carnage _provoked little protesf from the imperial gove
of China, which regarded the Chinese in Manila as worthless •
anyway. The trading fleets from: Amoy arrived on schedule as
Three decades later, the Chinese population Qf Manila was
enormous: no less than 28,000 this time!
To decongest the Parian, hundreds of the Sangley were sent to
on the friar haciendas in the provinces, a labor they loathed
they were mostly urban craftsmen, not peasants, and therefore
to work on the soil. In 1639 these laborers revolted in Laguna a;nd
the province terrorized for a year before they surrendertd- and
massacred.
The Sangley uprisings of 1662 and 1686 were likewise capped by•
mass butchering of the hapless Celestials. And after each pogrom,:
Manila would find itself without masons, coob, badlen, ~
cobblers, tailors, smiths, scribes, printers, cowboys and accountan
The cowboys were necessary to the cattle stock farms the Spanish
set up around Manila as the start of a ranching industry in
Prulippinel and from these farms would come the cattle to
~ i:anche9 inBa~T•~bas, ~ . Nueva Edja.f Pa,:
8114 MCaga,an V.,.y.
M.veof.alata\ov.w•- tbeQ•t•
 quota
. The quota WiS iientorced in 1620 and 1632, and again
when 2,70Q Chinese- we.re ~ out. But in no way did
expulsions succeed in shrinking the Chinese presence in
e Celestials kept arriving: the island of Manila had indeed
be a mountain of gold for them. They arrived young and
; they died old and moneyed.
ole colonial history of the Philippines is a Book of Exodus in
history.
est move in the effort to solve the Chinese problem was
mid-1650s, when Manila heard that the king would be
a mass expulsion of the Chinese from the colony. Those
erchants and artisans that Manila felt it needed were given a
d aaoss the Pasig from Intramuros. There they were asked
on a land-grant that was tax-free and inalienable, and with
· ts-to self-rule. An enclave was thus aeated that would in
of itself as Philippine, not Sangley.
d-grant for a Chinese colony reserved strictly for the Chris-
ese was to become the arrabal of Binondo, which began"'as
a Parian nor as a mission. In fact, when the Parian
uring the 16.W Sangley revolt and Binondo- was
~ - the residents there angrily protested - and
rebuilt on its old site off the Puerta Parian.
1 Sangley - but Binondo was the Chinese mestizaje,
d native, and therefoft siding more and more With the
ncendant of Amoy imlnigrantli, Don Roman Ongpin of
uld help finance both the Propaganda and the ltevolu-
ys '\90re1M barong~ in public to emphasize that
b, nol Odflele. Attd' ttie first PiJipino to be canonmed by
· · Ruiz. of Bbu»ido, a Chineae mestizo..
,.......,,_ kt ab8od, Jnto Pld:Jippme
suq~JSII ': end to the
ROAMING PbiHppine water& in 1588 and ~ - a lot -Of mischief
the young Engijsh pirtlte Thoma& Cavendish. What he duefLy
W411 Spanish. pride.
Cavendish sailed in and out among t)Je islands as he plea
collec.-:ted tnbute from the natives. He boasted of ha~ ca
Manila Gtlleon SantR Ana. He di$p1ayed the silks, brocadea.!"~~- :~,,,.,,
of gold he-had plundered thetein. He raided a shipyard in the
Alter tfueatening Marilla, he sailed away swearing to couif
soon to drive away the Spanish and destroy the dty.
What rankled was that a mere youth of 22 with 40 or 50 com
on a little ship of barely a hundred tons could thumb )us nose
Spanish empj.re and get away with it! A grievous -efid of the
dish tour was the rebellion known as the Tondo Conspiracy.
When Cavendish was threatening to raid Manila, and the GitY,
going wild with panic, a Tondo group saw a chance tQ rise in
With its guns an trained on the bay, the Welled Ci!J_ could be
attacked from behind. A deal could be stnick with the pirate:
assault Manila without fear, fur the native population would
assist him. Such a tuning for an upming did.seem perfect.
Unfortunately no oontact was made with Ca'Vendish.
pirate sailed away, the conspirators were left with a wiflow.edjdot~
having come this far in rebellion, there was no tuminp,acJt any
The plot, redesigned, was wedded,.to another adventurer, this
certain petty king of Bomeor who was urged to send a tleet: to
Manila. .
The Tondo Conspiracy was an enterprise of the datu da6 and'
chief plotters were Agustin de Lepzpi, "one of the chiefs ci
land"; Martin Panga, gobemadotdllo-0f Tondo; and his cuusin Mal-
SalaJ;nat, scion of a Bomean dan. An effort to involve the..PaJltpjl"'
dabiS failed. The Pampangos said they had no ~ with
Spanish. But one Pampango chieftain, Dionisio CapololiAf-.......u~
did~ the~.
w&:n ~~ was -1
the-~._.,.... ..........;.~-t{1-~--i. .
~
t.ojn'v.i&e ~Sultan o f ~
if•lijt~.--on. M,gat
 ~ .._ ,.?Mlitli~·~ ••-tlullm
~ were condemned "tobedragged.aitd1-ilged; ~heads tooe
ail.off and exposed on thi? gibbel h) iron ca~." All their goods were
£0nfiscated and the sites of- theit houses were ,plowed and sown with
salt.
Magat Salamat also drew the death penalty. He appealed to the Real
Audienda, but the governor _ordered that the sentence be executed.
Other -conspirators were sent to exile in Mexico.
The Tondo Conspiracy revealed that the age-old alliance between
Tagalogs and Pampangos had dissolved. The datus of the great plain
turn,ed a deaf ear to the entreaties of Tondo. But in the following
-century, Tagalog and Pampango would be together again in a new
alliance, this time on the side of the empire.
As the 16th century waned, there came more threats to the city on
the bay. In 1591 came word that the shogun, or military governor, of
Japan, Hideyoshi, was demanding that the government in Manila
recognize him as sovereign because the Philippines was part of the
Japanese empire. Manila knew that the Japanese warlord had navies
to send forth more powerful than any Manila could assemble. So
Manila decided to send a peace mission.
The Dominican Fray Juan Cobo was dispatched to Japan to parley
.-ith Hideyoshi. So well did Cobo deal with the warlord that the two
of .them ended up friends. Manila was assured it was in no danger of a
f&lpanese invasion. The mission cost poor Fray Juan Cobo his life~ On
~ to Manila in 1592, he was shipwrecked on the coast of
,onnmia and killed by the natives tMre.
In May of the next year, 1693, a Franciscan, Fray Pedro Bautista, was
nt to Hideyoshi to certify what was more or less a treaty of peace and
ecpre8$ the gratitude of the Manila Government. Fray Pedro Bau-
~ had worked in the Franciscan missions in the Pbilippines and had
-len'ed in San Francisoo del Monte, ca wooded hill outside Manila. He
at 1irst received stC!m1y by Hideyoshi but at length earned the
acbtmation of the JapaJ1ese strongman and even won safe-conducts for
trading ships pgto Japan. But when this climate of tolennce

:MabUa
~~~
to.--
in Japan, Fray Pedro Bautista was amcmg the first to be mar- ·
there, ,on, Pebfuary. 8, '!fl11;. ~ f.9wi y-. aftet he was sent
the- ~.nu.~ &iat was the
1
inseam"ty in the much beleagueJ9(1 city of Manila. The threats were as
fearful from inside (the native re\TOlta, the Chinese uprisings, the Moro
raids) as from outside ~the Japartese imperialists, the Elizabethan
pirates, the Hollanders). That Manila survived 200 years of this (it
faltered only with the British Occupation) indicates that the new
Tagalog-Pampango alliance on the side of empire was working.
Not only Sulu and the fragment of Mindanao that was Muslim but
also Borneo could have been incorporated into the Philippines\veie it
not for still another threat to Manila in the summer of 1663. 1'he
Chinese bucaneer Kexinga had succeeded in wresting Formasa ~
the Durch and was now set on wresting the Philippines from S~.
The rumor of the threat had Manila 'ordering the recall of the MindF
nao garrisons. All available troops had to be concentrated in Manila.
But Kexinga died before he could carry out his.thlieat.
The might-have-been here is:
If circumstances had been different and we had not been stoppe4
from expanding nort:It to Macao and Formosa and south to the Moluc•
cas and Borneo, how many stars wottld there be now in the-Philippine
flag?
The Manila of the f6th century was reduced to ruins by the two
earthquakes - in November and December - of 1645. What arese
from the rubble was 17th century Manila, a metaphysical city qiiite
different from the original city of the (:Ollquistadcn:es, whicn WU
ly medieval.
Septimocento Manila held at bay the foremost naval power of that
time: Holland. And it sent countles!l"spiritual athletes to compete for
the laurels, of martyrdom in the· unsafe mission fields of China and
Japan. But it wasn't all martial spirit and martyl' glory. It also had its
shocldng scandalous side - as illustrated by the case of the governor
who "executed" his wife. A Spanish playwright would dub that
governor a "physician," because he healed his own honor.
Mexico and Peru had a "vice,roy," or proxy of the king. The P ~
pines had a "royal governor," which means a similar proxy, entitled \o
a royal residence and a royal escort. (The cavalry escorts of Philippine
royal governors produced the place-name La Escolta, because that
street was where their stables u.sed to be.) The Royal governors had a
palace on the cathedral square of lntramuros.
June -18, 1611, the galleon Stmt4 A114 broap\t a Philippme royal
~ of ~ding ti~ llaa-AkMIIO.J1~ y Tenza, ~ t of
56
Alcantara, Lord of ~ o . With rum was his wife, Dona Catalina
Maria Sembrano, also of the Spanish nobility. But what a difference
Manila spotted in the couple. Doi\ Alonso was middle-aged and
austere. Dona Catalina, his wife, was young, lovely and vivacious.
Obviously she had not married for love.
The Manila she found was not somber or prudish, despite its walls
and cloisters. It celebrated carnival. It romped at Easter. Exuberantly
did it feast the Manila Galleon with despedidas and bienvenidas. And
it had scores of saints' days that were kept as fiestas. Inside or outside
the walls, almost every day was a holiday.
Best of all, the city had these dressy young cavaliers who just loved
flirting wifu. great ladies like-Dona Catalina. Qothed in silks and
velvets and brocades, wearing plumed hats and a quantity of gold
rings and chains, the dandies capped their costume with dagger and
sword. If they were a peril to the ladies, they were as dangerous to the
gents. Manila rang with their duets and duels.
Rumor pointed out' one youth as the special gallant of Dona Cata-
lina. The swain was Don Juan de la Mesa, who had thrice married
since he was kicked out of the Jesuit Order. He had arrived in Manila
in 1620, ,,commissioned by Mexican merchants to buy them oriental
goods.
The town was soon abuzz with his exploits. Dona Catalina yearned
to know him. They no sooner met than they loved.
As usual the husband was the last to learn. From a page in the
J>ala:ce Governor Fajardo discovered that his wife disguised herself as a
boy to rendezvous with her lover. She was petite enough to fit into the
uniform of a ~page. ..
On May 11, 1621 the governor pretended to leave for Cavite on an
overnight mission. But at dusk he reentered Intramuros through the
side gate called Fostigo. Returning to the palace through a ~ t
passage, he learnea that Dona Catalina had slipped out dressed as a
page. - .
With three of his captains, Fajardo went to the house ofDon Juan de
la Mesa and saw the cavalier and Oona Catalina, disguised indeed as a
boy, arriving in the company of a ship pilot. Were the lovers planning
to elope by sea? The three entered Don Juan's door and the ship pilot
was closing the door when set upon by the governor, who ran lilir
sword through the pilofs shoulder. The three captains finished off the-
pilot as the governor ran up the stain after the fleeing lovers.
 Claapter 5: HALTING THE HOLLANDERS

IMAGINE the Philippines as part of Indon~! That seems inaedible

today- but irs a might-have-been of our history. There was a time in
the 17tl!, century when our fate hung in the balance. Had events gone
the other way, there might have been no Philippines at all.
The Great War in our history was the 50-)l'ear combat with the
Dutch. this was, for us, the decisive battle, more audal even than the
Revolution or the war with the Americans.
In the 1890s we were fighting for nationhood. But during the first
half of the 17th century we were fighting for existence itself. We were
fighting to stay an entity. We were fighting to l@!ep an independent
identity.
That is something w~ did not know then and it's something we still
mostly ignore. Our historians now say that the foreign wars that
Filipinos were made to fight, and for which they hewed timber, built
ships, and gathered provisions, were of no concern to us and therefore
not Philippine history. But if, for the war against the Dutch, we had
not hewed timber, built ships, gathered provisions and fought, there
might have been no Philippine history at all.
If Holland had won that war, we would have become part of the
Dutch East Indies. And we might today be an Indonesian province.
The Hollanders too had been brought to the Orient by the spice
trade. Formerly, like the rest of Europe, they got this merchandise
from'Spain and Portugal, the spice monopolizers. But the 17th century
found Spain and Holland the bitterest of mortal enemies. No more
could the Dutch get spice from the Peninsula. What they did was go to
the very S01,lI'ce of the trade.
. Holland was already a naval power when its ships appeared on
Asian waters. Its objective was the Moluccas, but those treasure
islands could not be won while Manila kept an eye on them. To secure
the Moluccas and control the spice trade, the Dutch would have to
· crush Manila, drive the Spanish away and occupy the Philippines.
Only later, having been thwarted in the Philippines, did the Dutch ·
learn they could get what they wanted by gc;>ing into Java and getting
the native kings there to squabble and invoke Dutch aid.
The Great War began when a Dutch fleet under Admiral Oliver Van
Noert ~~ M8llila ~y ~ ~ - 1~ 1600. 1h! HolW!ders
 Fajardo caught up with the ~ u r in the sala but itruek hhfi m
, vain with the sword (Don Juan was wearing armor under his shirt)
until a higher thrust sank the sword in the caviller's neck. Don Juan
fell down the stairs and was killed off by the three captains.
Fajardo searched the house for Jlis wife. He found her in the attic,
hiding behind a beam of the ceiling. He reached up and three times
thrust his sword into her body. She fell to the floor but before he could
stab her again she begged for a confessor, that she might not die in sin.
A friar was fetched from the nearby Franciscan convent. Lying in
her own blood, Dona Catalina made her last confession. The friar
begged Fajardo to have mercy on the lady but was brusquely told to
leave. Then the governor stabbed his wife to death.
The case was investigated by the Real Audiencia. Fajardo was
absolved from guilt: 17th century Spain recognized the right of a
husband to slay an adulterous wife caught in flagranti.
B~t the governor fell into a ~elancholy, of which he died three years
later. He was buried as he had ordered, beside his wife in her tomb at
the Recollets. · ••
were boarding and plundering~ on the bay w h e n ~
by a naval force commanded by Antonfo de Morga, adviser to the
Philippine governor. Jn: the ba~e that ensued, offMariveles, each side
lost one ship. Morga toQk 25 prisoners and a lot of booty. Killed in
action or drowned were 109 Spaniards and 150 Filipinos.
On April 26, 1610 the Dutch reappeared on Manila Bay and block-
aded its entrance, hoping to bring Manila to its knees. Governor Juan
de- Silva had no nayy with which to meet the enemy: several of
navy's warships had been lost in storms; the rest were elsewhere.
Dutch greed saved Manila. Instead of attacking the helpless dty •
once, the Hollanders dawdled some six months on the bay, waitinglor
the arrival of the Orlnese silk fleets. Those six months enabled Gover-
nor Silva to rush the building and arming of a navy.
On St. Mark's Day - April 25, 1610 - the two forces clashed at
Playa Honda, off the southern Bataan coast. The fierce fight lasted six
hours and ended with the Hollanders completely vanquished, three of
their ships sunk and their commander killed. Those who were cap,,-;
tured escaped execution by converting to Rome. Of the Battle of Playa
Honda, American historian John Foreman remarks that on it "de,-
pended the possession of the Colony."
The following year, 1611, Governor Silva led the navy to the Moluc,,
cas to battle a Dutch invasion force. The Hollanders were routed ~
Gilolo Island.
Another Dutch squadron on its way to Manila iri'1617 was waylaid
off the 2.ambales coast by defending forces, who destroyed three of the
enemy ships.
An invading fleet in July 1620 got no farther than Samar, where the
Hollanders tried to hold up three galleons from Mexico. The treasure
ships managed to escape but only one reached Manila.
Again off the 2.ambales coast was the 1625 battle against the penia,,
tent Dutch, who were sent fleeing. But when the defenders lost one
man, they stopped pursuing the enemy. On their retum to ManiJa,
their commander had to face court-martial.
The island of Formosa (now Taiwan) had become part of the Phili~
pine colony in 1626. So, in line with their war against the Philippines«

.,._&om~
the Hollanders invaded Fonnosa in 16Q. Various obstacles hindered
to the reacue. Se, the rich island of Formosa
..1tljt'Diti.lt'- "'1t ~ held it for 20 Y!!8'I bilore losing it to•
PIJtd\ -11i111M!ll!t
 W9 ..W.hwe·~lll!liillt,j. . .!- rtl ~:' i;
1bat shou1d llh,,w bow ~ were the'liraplicatioila of tie
QeatWar.
Popular history acclaims u t h e ~ 1he triumphal climax, of the
Great War a series of battles fought in 1646 and enshrined. in pious
memory as ''La Naval de Mani1a."
That title is so felicitous because it turns into a single battle what was
ieally a series of five battln. And thus did it fuse as well all the
numberless encounters between Holland and the Philippines during
the 1irst half of the 17th centmy into a single decisive battle that
anawered ·one question: Was the Philippines to become a nation or a
province?
The Dutch invasion attempt of 1646 was clearly an all-out effort. No
fewer than three squadrons were outfitted in Jakarta. One squadron,
with five ships, was to post itself off the J1ocos coast, to cut off any help
that might come &om the north. Another squadron, with six ships,
was to be stationed south of Mindanao, to block help &om Temate or
Macassar. The third, and mightiest, squadron, with seven ships, was
to iqvade Manila Bay and conquer the city.
Against the Noble and Ever Loyal, the Dutch were pitting a total of
eighteen warships and a thousand troops.
Barely convalescent was Manila in 1646, after crumbling to ruins in
the two 1645 earthquakes. When word came that the Hollanders were
~ the city had for navy only two old dec:tepit galleons, the
Jegship EnamulCion art4 the Rosario, and could muster only 400 b'oopS,
which :.a hundred were "the pick of the nobility and youth of
Manila."
The two ships sa1lied forth &om the bay to pursue the first Dutch
9qlladron, the one with five veuels, which was overtaken QI\ the
Pangasman coast. The battle, fought off Bolinao, started after noon
ud Jasted five hours. Duk had fallen when the Hollanders fled from
h scene, their lights covered and two of their vessels limping. This
battle was won on Maich 15, 1646.
the prJndpal Dutch equadroar the one of seven vesaels, entered
l'hilippiate waters in June but was not annered by the Jnamu,cion and
~ u n t i l late JuJj. ~ ~ 9llCOUl\tler Wai on Ju)y 29,
MtllialJIIJ1tonalNIIP'fllllqlllLll~lllM..a~at~inthe
- - ~ - ~•-all-1111111111ili::
fftJln the decb oltheil oppanel\11 ~i'Jieafortlwm ._,.,
longer.
Two days Jater, on July 31, the Dutch squadron was located on tlMf
cout -of. Mindoro. The E110U7111Cion and the RoMrio fell on the enemy
with such vehemence "it inspired fear and astonishment." The day-
long battle was still raging whet\, evening broQ.ght on a strong pie
accompanied by thunder and lightning. Under cover of the storm tlw
Dutch managed to escape, their flagship badly damaged.
Also woefullyJmpaired were the Enamuu:ion and- the Rosario bath-
was not till mid-September that they could return to Cavite for lllUI~
needed repairs. Hardly had they reached the naval yard there w1--:
&antic word came that the Hollanders were outside the entrance of. tbiit
bay and wreaking hav~ on the coastal towns ofBataan.
Of sallied the pair .of galleons again. They did find the sealide
towns on fire and the Dutch at the mouth of the bay. This fouttl\
encounter on September 15, was a running battle, the Hellanden
racing backward, while the Filipinos pressed forward, assaulting,
chasing and battling them all the way. The bloody pursuit ended only
when merciful darkness hid the prey from the hunter.
Because the Enaimacion had been gravely hurt, it tarried at ~
dor while the Rosario hurried on to Cavite. Then three Dutch vessel&
entered Manila Bay and found the wounded flagship alone. nt
Encarnacion was surrounded and so closely fired upon by the ~
that the Filipinos jested it was raining bullets. It looked as if their
flagship would be boarded by the foe. But they rose to the contest in
such manner that presently they were scattering the ships that.
thought to kill them. When one of the Dutch vessels overturned ancl
sank, the other two hastily withdrew. This fifth battle was fought Oil
October 3.
Commemorating these victories is the fiesta of La Naval de Manila,
which, next to the Fund.on Votiva de San Andres, was Old Manila's
principal celebration, attended by the Cabildo and the military com-
manders. The rites were held on the second Sunday of October, at the
Dominicans, because the victories were attributed to the intercession
of the Virgin of the Rosary, a famous image of whi<i,vas enshrinectat

... ...,.
Santo Domingo. La Na'hl de Manila is also an andeitt fiesta \fflOIII
t h e ~ ptjncipally_ in .-ch ~ of Pam.pango culture a,
~
~
tiatitwas clear theyJilcl ~
~ out during the
~--~1'Mktnids
semiid.half pf the 7th century.
One result of the Great War- W8$ the ti8e of the Tagalog and
Pampango as an elite vital to Splllish rule. (That's why l:.a Naval de
Manila is a great Tagalog-Pampango tradition.) The beleaguered spa..
niard had need of some native support while battling a powerful
enemy from without. This support was given by the Pampango and
Tagalog, who got in exthange a share in privilege and authority. Thus
the rise of the principalia, ot elite class, chiefly responsible fo11 such
Pinoy epiphanies as the Dustrado and the Propaganda.
As long as Tagalog and Pampango stood by it, Spanish empire in
the Philippines was secure, though all the other tribes revolt against it.
The moment Painpango and Tagalog declared against it, as in 1896,
the empire was doomed.
Chapter 6: PALAOO .DEL GOBERNADOR

IN the original plan -of Mi\llila made by Legazpi, ·the west side of the
cathedral square was reserved for the governor's palace. Legazpi
himself lived inside the first fort. But when Manila was rebuilt in stone
after the 1583 fire, a royal residence arose on the site assigned to it and
in that palace lived the governors during early _17th century. That's
why the street in front was called Calle Real del Palacio. It's now
General Luna Street. ··
During the governorship of AIQnso Fajardo (161S-24) the palace was
destroyed in an earthquake. Governor Fajardo took up residence in a
building behind the royal hospital - approximately the western
riverside of Calle Aduana.
Two decades and four governors later, a new p~ce rose on the old
site, but this time it was not a royal residence but the 11\ansion of a
"crony." However, though the crony thought he had built himself a
magnificent house, it turned out that he had after all been building a
Palacio del Gobernador.
On August 11, 1644 Diego Fajardo y Chacon (he was a nephew of
the tragic Alonso) assumed the office of governor-general of the
Philippines. His was a busy tenure during which the fortifications of
the city were completed, peace was established with the Muslim realm
of Corralat, and the school of Santo Tomas was created a university by
Pope Innocent X.
Also on August 11, 1644 began the "reign" of Manuel Eustaquio
Venegas, one of the most.infamous "cronies" in Philippine history.
This Venegas was a minor noble from Granada and had come to
Manila as valet, confidant and secretary 5>f Governor Fajardo. He soon
had the city awed with his position as the governor's favorite, a crony
so trusted he was entrusted with affairs of state. Venegas was no mere
power behind the throne: he was the throne itself.
Diego Fajardo was a most austere man, a very mirror of honesty.
When gifted,with a crucifix, he refused to accept it until the gold that
adorned it had been removed.
The trouble with strict persons like Fajardo is that they always have
a blind spot. They can espy dishonesty in everyone except some
particular individual dose to them. For Fajardo this person was Ma-
nuel Venegas, in whom he could see no wrong. ·
 So, anyone who came-to the govemorwtth a-complaint againstthe
favorite was automatjcally e,cpelled as a scandalmonger. Venegas had
convinced the governor that malici<>us gossip was the chief pro<b;ict of
Manila . •
While Venegas operated the gubernatorialthrone, Fajardo felt free
to devote himself to pacifying the Moros, battling the Dutch, protect-
/
ing the Galleon Trade, trying to get back the Moluccas and, most l>f all,
procuring the salvation of his soul. He was an old man fearful of death
and judgment. At last he shut himself up in his residence, to do
penance, leaving government in the hands of his dear crony, the
greedy Venegas.
There were sinister stories about this favorite. People said he was
the devil himself, fishing for the governor's soul. The friars suspected
he had the governor hypnotized. Was he a wizard whose black magic
had put the governor under a spell?
Certainly Venegas could make the governor act contrary to charac-
ter. It was Venegas who persuaded Fajardo to imprison his predeces-
sor, the Heroic Sebastian Hurtado· de Corcuera, who had added
Muslim Mindanao to the map of the Philippines and was thus hailed
as the last conquistador.
But Venegas craved the immense wealth of Corcuera. And much of
this wealth did find its way into the pockets of Venegas _a s soon as
Corcuera was clapped into Fort Santiago. Governor Fajardo was t.oo -
busy saving his soul to worry about the injustice done to Corcuera.
There was something else that Venegas craved. The site reserved on
the cathedral square for the governor's residence had been empty since
the old palace was quashed by a quake. Venegas did not rest until he
had gotten the governor to give him that site reserved for the king.
Once he had got title to the land, Venegas lost no time building a
mansion for himself; Spanish architects drew up the blueprints. Chi-
nese contractors with coolie aews undertook the construction.
Manila gaped to see a ma~cent ·edifice taking shape: mosaic
pavements, marble pillars, endless corridors, landscaped patios, and
wrought-iron balconies &om which one had superb views of city and
suburb, of river and sea.
'l'o finance his palace, Venegas- milked the Chinese and bilked the
Spanish merchants, and even resorted to murder. He had an old
veteran warrior, Sebastian Lopez, poisoned so he coq.14 grab the old
man's estates.
 '
But one victim of Venegas chose to fight back.
A retired Spanish captain was repairing his house on Calle Parian
when notified that Venegas was -commandeering the gravel, sand and
mortar that he, the captain, had purchased to repair his humble
dwelling. When he refused to be commandeered, his materials were
seized and he was thrown into jail. Escaping from jail, he enlisted the
friars in a movement to overthrow the favorite. '
The friars managed to gain an audience with Governor Fajardo and
to convince him that tlieir charges against his crony Venegas was not
just idle gossip. They challenged Fajard9 to visit the jails and see for
himself if they were not packed with the victims of Venegas - victims
accused of the very robberies, killings and sacrileges committed by
Venegas himself. Was the governor to wait until he too became a
victim of Venegas?
A shaken Fajardo realized he had been duped by the person closest
to him. He ordered the arrest of Manuel Venegas and his henchmen.
Bells tolling on the evening of September 16, 1651 announced that the
tyrant had fallen. In the Walled City as well as in the arrabales, people
rushed out to the streets, unafraid now to exercise the right of public
assembly because the monster Venegas had been placed behind bars.
He was sentenced to death on 61 counts. He appealed to Madrid,
which confirmed the sentence - 'but by the time the decree reached
Manila, Venegas was dead- killed by the rigors of prison life.
The dazzling mansion he had built was confiscated. It became the
Palacio del Gobernador. For 200 years its great halls resounded with
the tumult of colonial politics. There, Governor Bustamante · was
murdered by a mob, on the palace staircase. There, the British invad-
ers enthroned themselves during their two years of empire over
Manila.
The last governor to occupy that palace was General Rafael
Echague, during whose tenure the terrible Corpus Christi earthquake
of 1863 leveled all Manila to the ground. The Palacio del Gobemador
also toppled. So, Governor Echague moved his office and residence to
Malacanang, the country house in San Miguel where the governors
Sl,tnUl\ered:
Malacaiiang was supposed to be only a temporary refuge, until the
palace in lntramuros was rebuilt. But when the foundations for a new
palace were being laid there at last, the Revolution bro~e out and work
was stopped again, this time for good.
 erican governors-general made MalacaAatlg ~ official resi-
dence of ·· · chief executive. The abandoned founda-
tions in Intramuros became en famous as a lovers~ lane in
prewar days. On the site now stands the modan Palacio del Gobema-
· dor. , ·
EUROPE in the 17th century was rich in mystical movements among
lay people. Ordinary workers and soldiers and housewives felt the
urge to lead lives of heroic sanctity while remaining in the world. 'Their
world was the usual world of sea and land, tree and beast, tables and
chairs - but it was transfigured by what they felt to be a dued
experience of the divine p~nce. This is what's called mysticism.
A famous product of such a movement is the poetry written in 17th
century England by the group now known as the "metaphysicil
poets," because they were concerned with a reality beyond the physi-
cal world. In this they :were expressing a trend of feeling very strong in
Europe at the time. That's why the 17th century there is called "tije
metaphysical century."
Though only recently converted, Manila was by the 17th century
already part and parcel of Christendom. And one proof is that there
arose in the city a movement very much in the style of and at the same
time as, the European metaphysicals. ~e same climate affecting them
over there affected us over here, because they and we were both of
Christendom. It seems that our conversion was not as superficial as
some people say.
The lay folk drawn to the movement were known locally as "beatoe"
and "beatas" (the term means "ble~sed") and they would form the
first native religious communities. The movement may be said to have
run a hundred years and to have begun with the remarkable peasant
woman known as the Hermana Sebastiana de Santa Marla.
The Hermana Sebastiana was bom in Pasig around 1652. Her pa-
rents were Indio. As a girl she vowed herself to virginity and a
life-long fast. After years of living in ~litude, like a hermit, she felt
called to work in Manila, in a time of plague. The plague victims hailed
her as a miracle worker for she showed what seemed to be healing
powers. Thus she gained fame as a holy woman, a beata. The rich folk
of Manila gave her money to distribute among the needy ..S h e ~
a familiar figure in jails and hospitals, bringing food and clothing;
aoJace and hope.
Blle ~ • v ~ cWrvoyance, or the ability to see into the future.
~other ~ e t camettae. The hjghest blidalsof Church and
~it ~to --~olthii-humlWeunlet-
 'DB~•'llllll:. . wite-.
lfmi~a-&~!@la lied on Much 20, 169"l at 1he age of 40,
-and to hei-funeral cametnelnoblle-Wld.ttle_e_lebeian, the KastiJa and the
Indio, the rich and the poor, to pay homage to a woman ~ ,
even when alive; as a saint. Inexplicably, no move was made for the
canoni7.ation of the Hermana Sebastiana de Santa Maria, thous!! the
Spanish friars themselves d ~ that ''her virtue could compete
with that of the saints of the first magnitude."
What's remarkable is that the Hermana was not an only one. As she
moved about in the city she met others as metaphysical in temper as
herself.
One of these was Antonia Ezguerra, who belonged to one of the
noblest Creole families of Manila and had made a brilliant marriage, to
Captajn Simon de Fuentes. The handsome couple moved in the
jeweled world of fa$hiQn, in a whirl of parties and fiestas.
Then, abruptly, death felled Antonia's dashing young captain and
the girl's eyes were opened. Behind the sweet mouth she had enjoyed,
a slcilll had all the time been grinningJ She dismissed her servants,
locked up her rich clothes and jewels, and lived a recluse in her big
house, groping for enlightenment.
At about this time, another young wklC?W, Francisca Fuentes, had
turned her back on the vanities of the world, to devote herself to work
among the poor and the sick, eiSpedal1y the patients at the hospital of
San Jl.JU\ de Dios, in which enterprise she was joined by many
prominent ladies of the dty.
lt was at this time that Francisca Fuentes met the Hermana Sebas-
1-na and that the two of them began to associate with the reclU1e,
Antonia Ezguerra. The meeting of 6 - three marked the native
t,eginnings of the religious life in community, for-the three beatas were
presendy turning the house of Antonia '.Bzguerra into a ''litt:le
beaterio."
It was a coming togetll« of the Philtppine races. Antonia Ezguem
was Spanish; Frandsca ~ plObably a mestiza; the- Hermana
$eb\latiaM, an India; . . tt.ey werepraendy joined t;y another, older
'Widc)w, Juana de la Tl'ioidil4 and by• liatift woman named Lorenza,
who seems -fo have~ witonia' ~ GJW n6ed to the
- - ot of..-;~ , . {)ana
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