The Walled City – known from its most famous feature: a nearly three-mile-long track of heavy stone walls and defences that completely encloses the old Manila District.
With this paper, I will start with a couple of facts regarding the trip around the Intramuros. This is to give a quick review of what I have observed in my trip in the historical place. First, the Bastión de San Diego was named after St. James the Great and built in the vicinity of a previous defence constructed by a man named Sedeño in the late 16th century. He named the fortress from Nuestra Señora de Guia (Our Lady of Guidance) after a church in Ermita, which it faced. At present, the bastion is an archaeological location where three historical rings of stone, associated across each other, were discovered. Most discourse exclaims that one of these rings belongs to Sedeño’s fort. It is acknowledge that the fort was incorporated into the Bastion between the years of 1591 to 1594 when Governor Perez de Dasmariñas constructed the stone outskirts of the City of Manila. Also known as the Barbette San Diego which looks like the 'ace of spades' from the bird’s eye view. This structure was developed by the Spanish and used as a foundry - factory that produces metal castings. During the Second World War, it was heavily damaged and it is observe as ruins today.
Second, situated inside Intramuros and just opposite the San Agustin church is Casa Manila – a reconstructed Spanish colonial mansion filled with period furniture and furnishings of Philippine, Chinese and European origins. Walking through the archways and past fountains, one can notice the local materials (hardwoods, shells) present in walls. The view from the huge rooms which occupy three floors is astonishing. The Casa Manila clearly rebuilds the rich merchants’ way of life in nineteenth century Manila.
Third, located on Santa Clara Street, Fort Santiago is the Rizal Shrine. This was dedicated to the lifework of José Rizal. A fortified complex which house s the building the Philippines' national hero, he spent his last night and the same place where his family later found concealed in an oil lamp, the famous poem Mi último adiós (My Last Farewell). The Rizal shrine is basically a home to various memorabilia, books, manuscripts and artworks belonging to the exceptional life and versatile work of our national hero. Moreover, Fort Santiago actually served as barracks for Spanish artillery soldiers during Spain's colonization of the islands. It housed the Military, Spanish officials and dignitaries and also served as a formidable prison with infamous dungeons where torture was not uncommon.
Agoncillo did not say there was literally no Philippine history before, 1872, but that 1872, being the year of the martyrdom of the three priests Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos and Jacinto Zamora, marked the beginnings of Filipino nationalism. For Agoncillo, the apex of our historical development is the Philippine Revolution against Spain in 1896, because this was when the Filipinos look an active part in their history. He added that the documents and books before 1872 were chronicles written by Spaniards, not Filipinos; thus, what we have is not a history of the Philippines but a history of Spain in the Philippines.[1] Agoncillo said that there was no Philippine voice before 1872. Before GomBurZa, Filipinos were captives, soldiers, or maids in Spanish homes. They did not have any interest in the way the country was being run and all of that changed in 1872. Agoncillo said we should start writing our history from our view. [2]
Based on what is mentioned above, Agoncillo wanted the Filipinos to view our history different from what the textbooks have told us for the past years in our schools. He means that references about the Philippine History before the year 1872 were all written by foreigners and no nationalistic viewpoint were incorporated in those texts. Thus, the emphasis is definitely biased with the authors. On Rizal’s novels, he clearly brought the readers to a distinct style of fine and restrained writing a love story in the contemporary issues of his time. He may not have directly wrote facts about our country but he mentions a lot of illustrative descriptions of the way of life, the clothing, the market, the people, and a lot of anomalies in the government (especially in El Filibusterismo).
The typical history book would tell you that Spain brought nothing but misery to the Philippines. The Spanish did educate us! The Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, the oldest university in Asia, was established by the Spaniards. The Spaniards also instituted numerous primary schools to educate the indios. The reason why university was never widespread in the islands those days was the fact that our economy was primarily agricultural. Spain itself was ravaged by numerous wars back then and the Philippines liquidated their national treasury. You can not expect Spain to put the Philippines or its other colonies first before their own citizens. A lot of what happened back then was a result of the providence. The exploitation, slavery, and etc. were all a natural order of things. If our country were a super power back then, we would have colonized and exploited other lands as well.
It is not only the Americans who treasured and gave us the value of education. One should see the other side of the story where most of the history books were written in the American occupation – and of course written in their language. Surely a lot of tragedy happened in the three hundred year occupation of Spain in our country, but they also brought us our religion – Catholicism. This stems out to different factors such as being baptized with new surnames, the construction of churches and fortresses, the bible and other religious books, and the way of a Christian life. The Spanish period should be seen in both ways and not only the horrible and dreadful side that most people believed.
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