A walk through history

WALKING tours of Intramuros have become quite popular lately not just among foreign tourists but Filipinos as well. Whenever I walk around the ancient walls, I often sit near a tour group and listen to the script of the guide. The material delivered is basic, but inaccurate in some parts and often quite boring. The need for a handy printed guide is quite obvious.

I have compiled my own notes from various historical sources and the result of hours of exploring around the walled city. What got me interested in the history of Spanish Manila was a small pamphlet I found in a bargain bin of a bookstore 25 years ago. Very cheap at 50 centavos, "A Walking Tour of Historic Intramuros," by the (then) Jesuit historian Nicolas Cushner was the result of his own hours of walking along the postwar ruins. Armed with Cushner's book in my pocket, I visited Intramuros one Saturday morning in 1980, only to discover that the book was dated. The pictures and information had been gathered in the 1960s, and Intramuros was not the same anymore. No wonder the book was in the bargain bin.

So one had to return to the library and dig up the standard works from the hefty and academic Diaz-Trechuelo 1959, "Arquitectura Española en Filipinas" (1565-1800) to Ortiz Armengol, 1958, "Intramuros de Manila de 1571 hasta su destruccion en 1945." The latter is the more readable book and remains the standard work on the subject. Ortiz Armengol is a fictionist, an authority on Galdos, and served as Spanish ambassador to the Philippines in the early 1980s.

We have come a long way in the past 25 years. Thanks to the Intramuros Administration, there is some sort of zoning and regulations on construction within the walls. The agency also runs a museum, Casa Manila, and amassed the state collection of colonial art, which sadly remains in storage because there is no dedicated exhibition space for the ecclesiastical art.

Today there are two guides to Intramuros available: "In and Around Intramuros" by the Jesuit Rene Javellana and the recently launched "Ciudad Murada: A Walk through Historic Intramuros" by Jose Victor Z. Torres, the senior sites development officer of the Intramuros Administration by day and a playwright by night. Both books are useful, though neither can fit comfortably in your pocket.

Torres surely shared my experience of having to wade through stray materials to supplement the walking research around Intramuros, so his work comes with useful maps. On the inside cover is a redrawn version of the 1713 Rojas map of Intramuros to give us an idea of the city in the past, while the back cover has a useful map of Intramuros today. There are sections of the book on Intramuros streets and also monuments and landmarks. The book is organized around a three- to four-hour walk around the city, moving counterclockwise from Fort Santiago. This isn't my usual route because I like to start at the Bastian San Diego across the Manila Hotel and walk toward Casa Manila or Fort Santiago where you can rest weary legs in a restaurant and get a cold drink before finishing the other half of the walls.

If you just follow the walls, the length would be 4.5 kilometers but since one has to stop at various places it takes time and stamina. The best time to do walking tours would be in the cooler rain-free months from November to early February.

Torres actually gives all the necessary names and plots the city in two pages by giving the landmarks as follows:
"There were seven gates in Intramuros (not including Fort Santiago): Postigo, Santa Lucia, Real, Parian, Isabel II, Santo Domingo, and Almacenes ... The city had 32 streets: Aduana, Almacenes, Anda, Arzobispo, Audiencia (now part of Gen. Luna), Basco, Beaterio, Cabildo, Claveria, Escuela, Hospital (now part of Cabildo), Legazpi, Maestranza (disappeared after this section of the walls was demolished), Magallanes, Muralla, Novales, Postigo, Real del Palacio (now Gen. Luna), Real, Recolletos, San Agustin, San Francisco, San Jose, San Juan de Dios, San Juan de Letran, Santa Clara, Santa Lucia, Santa Potenciana, Santo Tomas, Solana, Urdaneta, and Victoria ... Intramuros had nine bastions: Baluarte de San Miguel, Medio Baluarte de San Francisco, Baluartacillo de San Francisco Javier, Baluarte Plano Luneta de Santa Isabel, Baluarte de San Diego, Baluarte de San Andres, Baluarte de San Francisco de Dilao, Baluarte de San Gabriel and Baluarte de Santo Domingo as well as small fortifications like Revellin del Parian, Revellin de Real de Bagumbayan, Revellin de Recolletos and redoubts like Reducto de San Pedro and Reducto de San Francisco. Within the city there were seven churches: Manila Cathedral, San Agustin, Lourdes church, San Ignacio, San Francisco, Santo Domingo and Recoletos..."

The above shopping list ends with hospitals and schools. Just reading it makes one imagine Intramuros at its height, before the Americans destroyed it during the Battle for Manila in 1945. It made me realize where the names of streets in the Urdaneta Village subdivision in Makati City originated. So many saints to protect the walls and the city. So many stories in the street names.

Aside from the above books and good walking shoes, I recommend that readers stroll through the city and literally walk through history.

Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.