To start the day, I cooked egg fried rice (with dried seaweed and Vienna sausage) and special egg drop soup for us.
We didn’t bring our bikes to Intramuros because 1) it was going to rain; 2) it was too hot. We first went to Fort Santiago because it was the nearest spot near our parking area. When you’re in Intramuros, you go on foot because parking areas are few and far between so better stay where you are parked. I covered the Department of Finance for years and the Bureau of Treasury was just right there, plus my old newspaper’s office was just spitting distance so I know how hard it is to find parking space there. I was always in danger of being towed by the Manila Traffic officers everyday when I parked around the area.
Anyway, it was a lovely afternoon to visit so I can help my kids strengthen their Araling Panglipunan (Social Studies) knowledge without using rote learning system, plus I want them to see two of the oldest churches in Manila.
I think the last time I was here was a decade ago when my mom received an award and the ceremony was held here.
Media Naranja is also the area where the ships of the Galleon trade (Manila-Mexico) stopped, if I got it right. If you look down through grills of this courtyard, you will see the prison cells below. It was an inhumane prison because there were openings on the side that allowed the water from Pasig River to flow through when the tide was high. The prisoners would be soaked, if they were lucky. If there was a storm, they would drown.
Fort Santiago fell into the hands of the Japanese and Media Naranja was where 600 Filipino and American prisoners of war were found, already decomposing.
This is the first time I’ve seen the dungeons after 1987 when we had a field trip here. The last time I was here in Media Naranja was when I was with my cousins from the US but the dungeons were under construction because it was already crumbling so I wasn’t able to show them these.
The feeling I had when the girls and I entered the dungeons was similar to the one I had when I was in Corregidor in 2007. It was heavy. The air was oppressive, not just physically.
Right off the bat, the heaviness was all around me. If you’re claustrophobic, better not go inside. It’s also eerie and macabre.
They had photographs of how the American military found the 600 decomposing prisoners when Manila was liberated from the Japanese.
You can climb the walls of Fort Santiago and it was made that way for the guards to patrol the area. My mom told me it was where she and my father had their dates when they were in college 🤣. My father’s campus was south of Manila and my mom’s campus was north of Manila so this is some kind of halfway for them. When I told my kids this story, they were like, whaaaaat? Hahaha! The top of the walls were already made into a park but they couldn’t imagine how it looked like up there because they were too lazy to climb.
We walked out of Fort Santiago towards Manila Cathedral. I wasn’t able to get a good photo of the facade of the church that I can use to practice sketching parts of Intramuros.
We couldn’t enter the church because the temperature reader registered my body heat at 37.5. I was so hot at that time and was sweating a lot, hence, the reading. The guard didn’t let me in. Oh well.
So in the classic Hispanic arrangement of plazas, adjacent to the church should be an administrator’s building. In this case, it was the Palacio del Gobernador, the residence of the Governor-General before an earthquake destroyed it in the 19th century. After that, the Spanish governor-general lived in Malacanang Palace along Pasig River and it has been the residence of whoever is the head of the Philippine government until today.
I know this building very well because it used to house the Bureau of Treasury (BTr) and I covered the Treasury bill auctions here every Monday and Wednesday—the event that determines the benchmark interest rates in the country. In 2018, BTr transferred to the Ayuntamiento de Manila (Manila City Hall), just right across the plaza after the reconstruction of the building was finished.
They were able to reconstruct this well. It is very pretty inside and the last time I was here was in August 2018 when I hosted an economic briefing that was televised.
We no longer went to San Agustin Church because it was already late and it was about to rain. There’s always the next time. Rizal Museum was closed, as well as the other notable museums like Balay Tsinoy and Casa Manila because it’s Black Saturday. San Agustin Church also has its own museum. I also wanted to show the girls the old site of Ateneo de Manila and University of Santo Tomas but it was already getting dark and big fat raindrops were already pelting the windshield of my car.
While driving out of Intramuros, I showed the girls the old and present offices of the newspaper I used to work for. I told them Intramuros was like home to me for almost 6 years.
I drove along Roxas Boulevard and showed the girls where the notorious dolomite beach was. Then we proceeded to SM Mall of Asia because we needed to buy Twin A a new mattress since her current one is already giving her backaches because it was already sagging. I know that it was substandard because it was the foam that came with the bunk bed. The girls also wanted to buy something from SM Department store with their birthday money.
It was a nice day out.
Tomorrow later today, Easter Sunday, the girls will resume their review while I will be spending the entire day drawing or sleeping because Monday will be hectic with back-to-back-to-back calls.
