By Ambassador Virgilio A. Reyes, Jr.
Manila before the Second World War was known as the Pearl of the Orient, a title that Hong Kong has recently adopted as one of its monickers.
Manila was regarded as a priceless treasure by those who came to know it since it was an artful blend of four cultures—Asian, European, Latin American and North American. When it was destroyed in WWII, not only the Filipinos lost but the world lost a precious heritage.
As recounted by the recently-departed Carmen Guerrero-Nakpil, prewar Manila literally oozed with preternatural charm: “I remember pretty houses painted in pale, pastel colors, each with a little, front garden and a low fence laden with flowering vines; especially a street that was like a bower, a long, shady, flowery tunnel, Isaac Peral [now United Nations Avenue], and moving on to “Dehwee,” Dewey Boulevard, as imposing buildings surrounded by lawns, the American clubs and the Manila Hotel on the Luneta. Then came sweeping, mammoth boulevards, huge buildings with rows of Greek columns, flanked by trees and lawns, down to Taft Avenue and the Post
Office, and more new buildings of a different style, lower with tile roofs and arcades which turned out to be the Normal School and the Philippine General Hospital.”
Nearly four centuries of history and culture turned to rubble and dust in February 1945, when the Americans led by General Douglas MacArthur and the Japanese under General Yamashita and Naval Commander Iwabuchi made Manila the scene of a horrific contest with the Filipinos caught in between.
I myself grew up in post-war Manila, when it had partially recovered from this holocaust. Miraculously, although Intramuros had been pitilessly bulldozed to the ground, there were still a few buildings which recalled Manila’s prewar glory, including the Jai Alai building, the Metropolitan Theater and the Manila Ice Plant. I came to see these historic buildings myself (although I did not know their storied past then as a child) whenever we meandered downtown with my family or on my own as an adolescent. Neighborhoods were a part of my growing up; each one had somehow its own unique character.
My parents had lived in Singalong, successively on Dian and Bautista streets, off Vito Cruz [now Pablo Ocampo] street and not far from Pennsylvania(now Leon Guinto) street and Taft Avenue. My mother’s family considered itself true-blue Manila since they had originated in Binondo and occupied such venues as Bilibid Viejo in Quiapo; Vermont street in Malate; and Dominga St and Roberts in Pasay. They went to public schools but also to private ones such as the La Concordia college and Assumption convent, St. Paul’s College and the Philippine Women’s University. The University of the Philippines was favored by them since a granduncle Clodualdo Tempongko, had been one of its first graduates and many family members were to succeed in his footsteps.
My father’s family came from Maragondon, Cavite and Nasugbu, Batangas but had moved to the city when their children were old enough to study in De La Salle College and St. Scholastica’s. After the war, they moved into a two-story wood-frame house on Dian St, where one could hear the bells of the neighboring Philippine Independista church.
By the time they were raising their own family, my mother and father had moved to the district of Paco. My grandmother Esther had occupied the ground floor of one of the four houses hurriedly built on Zulueta street by her father Felipe Tempongko’s sister. Dona Agapita(Lola Pitang) Tempongko de Magpayo was a genuine entrepreneur and knew that renting out real estate was one of the best ways to recuperate from wartime’s financial vicissitudes.
We lived on a street perpendicular to Zulueta called Merced, next door to the house of Speaker Jose Laurel and across Celedonio Salvador elementary school. My sisters went to Maryknoll College on Pennsylvania Street(now Leon Guinto) while my older brother was sent to the Ateneo de Manila on Padre Faura. When both schools transferred to Loyola Heights in Quezon City, my sisters switched to St. Theresa’s College on San Marcelino St. while my younger brother and I matriculated at another Belgian-run CICM institution, the Paco Catholic School. I was to switch to the Ateneo and my brother to De La Salle once we had moved to Quezon City.
This long exodus of neighborhoods is probably typical of memories by Manilans who grew up after the second world war. When I look at the 1965 yearbook of the Ateneo High School, I note that my classmates came from as faraway places as Santa Ana and Pasay, when traffic was not an issue.
In Paco, we were neighbors to my Tempongko and Alcantara relatives as well as the various school friends of my parents such as the De los Reyeses(parents of Tingting Cojuangco); the Macaraegs(relatives of the Puyats and through marriage, the Echauezes) and the Sorianos(whose judge father had adjudicated on the Marcos movie “Iginuhit ng Tadhana”).
All told, it was a very secure childhood since we grew up in the company of friends and relations. We were rarely out of sight from our parents since they could view us from the nearby houses where we frolicked.
We played such Pinoy games as tumbang preso, patintero and sipa. Next door to our house on Jose F. Nieto we could hear the croaking of frogs in the empty grass field and we could even catch fireflies, grasshoppers and salagubangs. Environmentalists today would have had nothing on us kids then.
School was within walking distance or a short bus-ride away. The Catholic Church and the public market were a stone’s throw away. For more sophisticated company and American amenities, we went to Acme store in Ermita. Downtown sldo meant Escolta, Santa Cruz and Quiapo, where our mother took us to shop for school supplies, books and magazines or culinary treats like hopia, siopao, caramel, buchi and bicho. Occasionally, she would take us shopping to Divisoria, where she would shop for cloth retazos for her fashionable wear. I still marvel at her knock-offs from Christian Dior, which she probably saw in the fashion magazines that she used to stock up on.
A special treat was when she and my Dad would take us to the movies on Avenida Rizal or on the Escolta. I attribute my familiarity with Hollywood and even with distant Broadway through the many films that we were taken to, when there were still stand-alone movie houses in Manila. Many of these, sadly, have been demolished. We would also take paseos in our old Ford or in the Matorco double decker buses on Dewey (Roxas) Boulevard.
It is a grand and sad disappointment to visit the neighborhoods that we were familiar with in our youth. The houses that we may have frequented in Ermita, Malate, Singalong, San Juan, Santa Mesa, and Sta. Ana are gone. Some of the once beautiful homes have become tawdry joints or have themselves been torn down to be replaced by generic high-rises. A few survive such as the Lichauco house in Sta Ana and the Lao home in Paco.
The houses where we lived in on Merced and Zulueta streets have simply vanished. The once splendid Laurel house on Merced Street is ridden with graffiti and surrounded by trash. This is possibly a symbol of Manila, once the Pearl of the Orient, which has become a seedy shadow of itself. It is extremely ironic that the Mayors of Manila adopt such slogans as “Forward Ever, Backward Never” for it and that they are responsible for the destruction of landmarks like the Jai Alai building and the erection of the Torre de Manila, a permanent and lamentable blight on the Rizal monument.
Virgilio Reyes is a retired diplomat. His last posting was as Ambassador to Italy.“‹
