My Childhood Memories of Manila

Discordant Notes
July 7, 2011

My Childhood Memories of Manila

The first thing that struck me when I went to the Amsterdam, twelve years ago was that it looked like Old Manila during the 1960’s. It bring back good memories of old Manila to me.

Manila was then, looked and feel like Amsterdam. There were a lot of foot bridges ( wooden most of them) between the canals. There were small stone bridges  especially near Intramuros. But the wooden bridges that connect communities north of Manila we fondly call of them lambingan bridge.

In the middle class communities,apartment homes abound. They exactly looked  like old Europe, Amsterdam and New York. They are near the schools and the business district of Quiapo, Santa Cruz and the like. Residential homes abound in the south of the main streets.

Up the hill, we marvelled at Hollywood type homes with high walls. We used to run and up and down the hill, it was still a rough road until they asphalted it. it was the palatial homes of the Legardas. And around it are the nipa shacks of the poor district of Sampaloc.

A railroad divide the lower class from the upper class. As you go up the hill, the richer the people are. The bigger are the houses.

It was one of our child games. To run and outrun each other up the hill and down the hill. We will make a run around the old church walls and find our way back down the hill near the river. Our elementary school is located near the bank of the river.

We use to mill around one of the oldest and smallest park in Manila. It was called Plaza Guipit. Gipit in Tagalog means "a place that is too narrow." But the people say it also means "too poor". Referring to their state.The city mayor then, Antonio Villegas replaced it with a new name-Plaza Isabelo Delos Reyes. In honor of another hero- the labor leader who co-organized the Aglipayan Church.

There stood the first monument to Andres Bonifacio in the early 1900's. It was built through the contributions of Manilenos before anyone can build a monument for the real hero of the Philippines.

It was a simple bust of Andres Bonifacio. It is a real monument built by the people for him. We gaze at him when we were young and hold him in awe. Until now, our respect for him never faltered. The "Great Plebeian".

And at the other bank is a big high school they demolished and built new apartments.  We play in its ruins while they were starting to build the new apartment. We play at the piles of old woods and stones where Lipa High School stood.  We replayed the scenes we watched in war movies and the television series “Combat” starring Victor Morrow and Rick Jason and play Japanese versus Filipino guerillas. We usually make our own wooden rifles or submachine guns.

Or sometimes, when we grew tired of fighting war, we engage in sword play. Banging swords and shields made from tin can covers usually  the big margarine cans. We play pirates or princes or sometimes as Vikings or like El Cid.

The river we call big canals in Manila were clean. They were not filled with trash. We could swim in there after a storm not on ordinary days when it is dark. It was dredged almost weekly. We fondly watched the big derricks dredge the rivers every other day and watch how it scooped the dark soil and dirt out of the water. Nowadays, they have outsource dredging the rivers to foreign companies.

Then Marcos decide to cover up all the canals and small rivers and made it as roads. Now the old canals that runs from the north of Manila to the Pasig river is gone.

That is the short story why Manila is always flooded. Imagine Amsterdam or Venice without its canals. They you will understand Manila well.

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