Manila is a big, modern city. Really big, with a population of almost 15 million. And really modern, its skyline filled with gleaming skyscrapers. In fact, you will have to work pretty hard to find an older building in Manila, certainly any structure in the Spanish colonial style, or even early twentieth century American architecture. Therein lies a story, one that really must be told in order to understand this great city. My apologies for the following brief history lesson, but I think it’s important.
Most Americans are aware that two of Europe’s great capitals, Berlin and Warsaw, were completely leveled during World War Two, with few buildings left standing and none undamaged. Fewer know that Manila suffered the same fate, utterly destroyed in February 1945 as the Americans retook the city from the Japanese in a month long battle of ferocious house to house fighting. The battle is especially poignant for the Filippinos, because more than 100,000 civilians lost their lives, many to American firepower, but most to Japanese atrocities, as their soldiers massacred huge numbers of civilians as they retreated.
Obviously the city had to be rebuilt from scratch, and with the Americans firmly in control it’s understandable that most new buildings were constructed in a modern American style. So the question for me was this: how do I spend a day in a huge city that in many ways looks like a typical American city. My answer was a rare surviving church and associated museum, a partially restored Spanish fort, a newer cathedral, and for a change of pace, the world’s fourth largest mall.
San Agustin Church was the only one of seven churches inside the walls of Intramuros, the old Spanish walled city, to survive the Battle of Manila, though not without its own share of heartache. During the war the Japanese used the church as a concentration camp, and many civilians and POWs died there before or during the final battle. When you consider that the walls of Intramuros, which were eight feet thick and twenty feet high were completely destroyed in the fighting, the church’s survival seems all the more miraculous. Today the church is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which put it on my must-see list. It’s a beautiful, old church, certainly not ostentatious, but with the quiet dignity of one who has seen and experienced much.
Attached to the church is Museo San Agustin, a museum of religious statues, paintings and artifacts built on the site of the convent that was destroyed in the fighting. The elaborately clothed statues were especially interesting, and there were a lot of them. I’ll put some photos below.
From the church and museum it was a short walk to Fort Santiago, a sixteenth century Spanish fort that in its heyday had a moat filled with crocodiles and poisonous snakes. Those deadly predators were long gone by World War Two, when the Japanese used the facility as a military base. As with most of Manila the fort was destroyed in 1945, but an ongoing effort to restore much of it definitely made the visit worthwhile. Some of the ruins are open to the public, and others, like the pre-WW2 American barracks, have been left as they were after the battle.
That was it for our tour of sites inside what was left of the old walled city, my primary objective for the day. We did make two other stops, and they were both interesting. The Manila Cathedral, which is a Minor Basilica of the Catholic Church, isn’t far from the walled city, and I enjoyed strolling through it. Here’s the one fact about the Cathedral that I found the most interesting. It is the—wait for it—eighth church to be built on the site, dating all the way back to 1571. The current edition was built after its predecessor was flattened during the Battle of Manila. I know, I sound like a broken record, but this page in the city’s history is something every visitor should be familiar with.
Our final stop was decidedly more modern, as we got to spend an hour walking around the Mall of Asia, which, depending on how you measure it, is the world’s fourth largest shopping mall, covering 170 acres. The mall sees average foot traffic of 200,000/day, but on a hot, sunny Palm Sunday afternoon it felt like double that. What a madhouse. Obviously we only had time to see a small portion, but what we saw was glitzy, clean, and going strong at full capacity. Lots of high end stores you’d recognize, but also many that were uniquely Philippine. It was fun, but by this point in the day I wasn’t thrilled to be swarmed by a mass of humanity, however nice and polite, so I was happy when the hour was up and I could climb on the bus for the ride back to the ship.
A final word on Manila. This is a big city, and if you’re considering a visit I’d really recommend that you plan out what you want to see in advance. We did, and it worked well for us. That’s it for now. Not sure when I’ll be back due to our anticipated loss of internet access, but I’ll be sure to keep writing these posts and will post them as soon as I can.
The Church of San Agustin, miraculous survivor of the Battle of Manila.
Inside the church.
One more photo from inside the church.
Inside the Museo San Agustin. Wonderful statues, paintings and relics.
The museum courtyard was lovely.
One more photo of the museum courtyard. Very pretty.
There are still a few places where you can see damage from the Battle of Manila in 1945.
I got a thumbs up from this taxi driver.
The Manila Cathedral.
Inside the Cathedral.
The Cathedral has a thriving gift shop.
It’s been a while since I posted a photo of an ice cream vendor. The boy looks like he’s about to score a cone.
Inside Fort Santiago. These are the ruins of the old American barracks.
Ever had your photo taken sitting on a stack of artillery shells?
The fort’s moat. The crocodiles and poisonous snakes are long gone.
Up on the battlement.
Gate to the fort. Notice all the shell pockmarks.
The old and the new.
Can you tell I was getting hot and tired. The temperature was in the mid 90s with sauna-like humidity.
Last stop, at the Mall of Asia. That’s a big dog.
Good luck finding anyplace to get something to eat without a long wait.
Typical scene at the mall. It was really busy.
I might have tried for a frostie, but we only had an hour and the line never went down.
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