Manila: Heritage, Memory, Nationhood
The Philippines has a distinctive historical status in that the character of local society before 1946 – when national independence was granted – was influenced by Western imperialism (i.e., Spain and the United States) and also by Asian imperialism (i.e., Japan). In helping to (re)shape the urban environments in which Filipinos lived, and the culture by which the native population undertook daily activities, colonisation by foreign powers led to the establishment of public spaces and the construction of monuments which are still, significantly, critical to the present-day grasp of what it means to be Filipino. Colonial era public spaces and monuments thus still inform, in the postcolonial setting, Filipinos’ understanding of collective memory.
In recent decades, the issue of memory has become a preoccupation of historical scholarship. Within, for instance, the evolving frames of social history and oral history, new methodologies have been established so as to explore/explain representations of the past. The move by historians to better grasp what memory is has, in consequence, led to new knowledge of memory’s association with how we think about, and approach, the past (as members of society and as scholars). In consequence, a new historiography has broken down different kinds, and complexities, of history-memory relationships.
Given the history of the Philippines, and its colonisation by different countries from 1565 to 1946, historians – alongside anthropologists, sociologists, archaeologists, architects, etc. – have done much in recent times to show how Filipinos’ comprehend their country’s past, and how this comprehension is utilised to inform collective memory and the sense of belonging to ‘an imagined community,’ to paraphrase Benedict Anderson.
Whilst, evidently, the notion of memory entails something personal and individual, it is also, in the view of many intellectuals, connected to cultural forms. As such, it is argued that memory is a survival of past experiences and it is a reconstruction of those experiences from a present-day standpoint. If this is true, then, with regard to monuments, how do they today notify as to who persons such as Filipinos really are? Moreover, how do postcolonial ideologies and politics affect the process as to how persons know the past? Are, as the Stanford University historian Sam Wineburg contests, memory and history colliding worlds? How, in short, do they connect and overlap with each other in an Asian society with a history such as that in the Philippines? More specifically, why in the Philippines are colonial-era monuments uncontested elements within built fabrics, yet ones built after national independence are often contentious? In superficial terms, this is the impression given of countless monuments in Manila; ones dedicated to colonial era persons – native and foreign – stand respected, yet ones dedicated to postcolonial figures can be poorly maintained and/or damaged. As Figure 1 shows, along Roxas Boulevard – the principal roadway into the centre of Manila from the southern districts and the outlying port town of Cavite – numerous poorly maintained postcolonial monuments are visible. In contrast, in proximity to and inside the Spanish walled city known as Intramuros, monuments stand proud. Why so?
In this Focus section, we provide an overview of colonial-era spaces and monuments. Case studies are given to expose how they helped shape past identity and, indeed, how they have been used to further reinforce what it is to be ‘Filipino’ in the postcolonial setting. But there is still much to learn. and against this backdrop urban historical studies have been undertaken at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). Within CUHK’s Department of History, in addition to my own work, students of the MPhil and PhD programs have been exploring facets of the Philippines’ urban and cultural past; critical to our collective endeavours have been inquiries to fathom the form and meaning of the colonial built environment.
Fig. 2: The plinth of a monument, now removed, sited at Roxas Boulevard, Manila. The plaza surrounding the architectural feature has become a parking space for motorcycles. (Photo by the author, 2023).
Broadly speaking, with particular reference to the capital city of Manila, monuments and public spaces of both national and local significance are discussed. With regard to the provincial context, an overview of American colonial-era monuments is also supplied: monuments were a tool among many employed by the Americans from 1898-1946 to help promote national unity, national resistance, and the heralding of the modern age. Claudia Montero’s paper looks at the American colonial monument to the national hero Jose Rizal in Manila, whilst Mar Ticao’s paper opens up an intellectual avenue to rethink the politics of remembrance regarding monuments in the Philippines associated with World War II and Japan’s occupation of the country.
Whilst in many Western nations, monuments allied to the theme of imperialism have been pulled down, vandalised, or intensely debated, in the Philippines no such discourse or civil unrest exists. Why? The series of case studies that follows, funded with RGC (Hong Kong) grant support, helps explain this situation and, in addition, why colonial historical monuments still matter today in the Philippines. As my own papers explain, much of the American colonial built environment was actually designed by Filipinos employed by the colonial government pre-1946, and the legacies of their work still remain. One Filipino architect, Antonio Toledo, in particular, has been much overlooked in written history, yet it was he who during the Commonwealth Era – i.e., the final phase of American colonial rule (1935-41, 1945-6) – did much to forge the appearance and layout of the Philippines’ largest city, Manila. It was he and his cohorts who introduced a proto-modern form of design which still imprints upon the city’s urban environment today.
All in all, albeit with reference to Philippine history, there is still much to learn of the colonial past, its influence still upon the development of the built environment, and its legacies as to how people understand themselves today as members of a nation. The role monuments and the built environment have played in enlightening Filipinos as to who they are remains unclear. The four papers in this Focus section grant a window to re-evaluate what the Philippine urban past has been, and how it informs the present. Of course, the present has not been exclusively shaped by the past; but, the past Filipinos have a sense of has been affected by a complex mixture of recollection, reflection, culture, and politics. Much of that knowledge has been selected/given particular meaning. Therefore, are monuments, ultimately, to be regarded not just as a continuation of the Philippine past that has been, but a past that makes sense for the present?
Ian Morley is Vice Chair (External) of the Department of History at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is also Vice President of the International Planning History Society. His publications include the monographs Cities and Nationhood: American Imperialism and Urban Design in the Philippines, 1898-1916, American Colonisation and the City Beautiful: Filipinos and Planning in the Philippines, 1916-35, and Remodelling to Prepare for Independence: The Philippine Commonwealth, Deoclonisation, Cities and Public Works, c. 1935-36.