Intramuros: A Glorious Past Within Walls

Superb. Fantastic. Marvelous. Wonderful. Magnificent.

These are the adjectives we usually hear when somebody describes Intramuros, but when we walked its ancient streets, visited its casas and museums, and surveyed its crumbling ruins, we realized that these are all understatements, not enough to describe the city within the walls. It is more than any vivid word or expression could describe

When Miguel Lopez de Legazpi defeated Rajah Soliman, a native chieftain of Maynilad, on June 24, 1571, he established Inramuros, also known as Ciudad Murada or Walled City, as the seat of the Spanish sovereignty in the Orient. King Philip II honored it with the title Insigne y Siempre Leal Ciudad (Distinguished and Ever Loyal City. At first, its walls were made of wood that rebels and pirates burned down. In 1584, Governor General Santiago de Vera and Governor General Gomez Perez Dasmariñas built Fort Santiago, named after James Slayer of Moors, Spain’s patron saint, whose wooden relief decorates its main gate.

Two years later, when defenses consisting of moats, bulwarks, and stone walls stretching 4.5 kilometers in length and surrounding a 64 hectare of land were completed, Intramuros then became the social, cultural, political, educational, commercial, and the ecclesiastical center of Spain’s empire in the East..          

During the semestral break, we spent a day strolling along its walls and visiting its historical landmarks. We muse over the events that took place on every spot we visited. As we entered the city, we noticed that its streets were different because they were inlaid with cobblestones. We wondered how much effort masons exerted in placing those stones in perfect alignment. Not far away, we saw the Manila Cathedral, also known as the Basilica Minore de Immaculada Concepcion, an imposing Romanesque structure of Philippine adobe.

After reading its marker, we learned that it is the fifth stone church in Manila and was rebuilt six times because of wars, fires, and earthquakes. It has façade and columns of Ionic and Corinthian designs, stained glass windows depicting various Philippine madonnas, and a main door of bronze with eight panels depicting its history in bas relief. The cross at the top of its dome is the reference point of the distance of a province from Manila.

From the Manila Cathedral, we crossed the street and proceeded to the Plaza de Roma, formerly Plaza de Armas where the statue of King Carlos IV of Spain stood and where the ilustrados staged bullfights in the Eighteenth Century. Adjacent to the square is the restored Palacio del Gobernador and the ruins of the Intendencia and the Ayuntamiento destroyed during World War II. The first, being restored by the Intramuros Administration, will house the Philippine Archives while the latter, being ignored served as pay parking for WOW Philippines visitors.