Intramuros: Then and Now

I often imagine how this Walled City once was a hundred years ago whenever I get to visit it. It's easily along the way if you ride a public jeep to Pier or Luneta. From Project 8 in Quezon City you take a Pier jeep that goes over the Quezon Bridge, turns right after it, and goes round to the back of the Post Office. Then you pass along Pasig River to a point where the jeep turns left to Intramuros. 

Or, you may take a jeepney ride to Quiapo, get off there, and start your walkfit Manila journey to Intramuros. That would take some 25 minutes, a good brisk walk workout. And then all you need is to brisk walk around Intramuros to complete your 45-minute a day walkfit.

Then gradually, I'm taken back to the time of the Spaniards, and then the Japanese Occupation, and then finally the so-called Liberation of Manila from the Japanese Imperial Army by US forces. When I look at the old buildings and some ruins in Fort Santiago, I seem to hear the voices and cries of people who once walked the brick pavements of its streets almost a century ago, slices of Philippine life when foreigners colonized this rich and beautiful country.

Today, you can easily tour Intramuros in colorful, native horse-drawn calesas with the kutsero [driver] himself as the tourist guide eloquently telling you interesting bits of information on the different sites, acting as your folk historian. You can also choose to just walk around the Wall as your tour-walking Manila for fitness.

My all-time favorites there are Fort Santiago, the archaic Manila Cathedral [the underground cemetery there], the centuries old San Agustin church [particularly the old graves right under the church floor], enigmatic Casa de Manila, and the Wall itself where remains of its history have been restored and some of its nooks and crannies transformed into small shops, offices, hotels, and restaurants. I hope an old ruins site there near the Immigration Office would be restored, soon, too.

I was particularly excited to learn some 10 years ago how Intramuros had hotels styled like inns in the 1800s. I wondered how it was to sleep in one of them? I and my wife began planning an overnight or two in one of them and get a feel of what it was like living in the Walled City in the days of Jose Rizal and the Propaganda Movement. Were there ghosts in the hotel, by the way? We asked one of the hotel staff. He just smiled and denied everything, at the same time not confirming anything--which we took to be a yes.

The police specially detailed inside Intramuros wear Guardia Sibil uniforms, but don't talk to them in Spanish. They're very much Tagalogs and eat simple Tagalog street food available in street corner carinderias, which corners and alleys of Manila have in abundance. I note today that there are also guards in Katipunan uniforms.

Okay, back to traveling in time. I love passing by the old and historic Philippines Herald building near Letran just along one portion of the Wall fronting the golf course. My dad worked there as editor-in-chief before President Marcos closed it during Martial Law in 1972. As a kid, my dad often took me there, and those tall and thick old wall ruins would make me wonder what they were and whether Germans fought by Vic Morro in Combat used to live there, if you know what I mean.

Intramuros is a mute witness of the good times [if any] and also the ravages inflicted by the Spanish, American, and Japanese occupations of the Philippines. It used to represent the entire Philippines to the outside world but is now a mere small tourist site in Manila the size of a village.