THE MANILA CITY

Manila is the capital and the primary city of the Philippines, where you can
find Malacañang Palace, the official home of the President of the Philippines. In
fact, in the past, foreigners thought that Manila was the Philippines. At present,
the term “Manila” is commonly used to refer to the whole metropolitan area
(Metro Manila or Kalakhang Maynila) or the greater metropolitan area or the
National Capital Region. It composes of 16 cities and 1 municipality. The cities
under the “Kalakhang Maynila” are; Caloocan, Las Piñas, Makati, Manila,
Malabon, Mandaluyong, Marikina, Muntinlupa, Navotas, Parañaque, Pasay,
Pasig, Quezon City, San Juan, Taguig, Valenzuela and the municipality of Pateros.
The city occupies an area of 38.55 square kilometers. It is bounded by the
west by the Manila Bay. It is made up of 16 administrative districts namely:
Binondo, Ermita, Intramuros, Malate, Paco, Pandacan, Port Area, Quiapo,
Sampaloc, San Andres, San Miguel, San Nicolas, Santa Ana, Santa Cruz, Santa
Mesa and Tondo. It is divided into six districts for its representation in Congress
Each representative represents one of the six Congressional districts of Manila.
In fact, there are two known Manila, the one established by the Rajah’s
whose foundations, were buried in memory, and the other is the so called walled
city, the one established by the Spaniards. It is known as Intramuros, what the
Manileños commemorate on Araw ng Maynila.
The Philippine Commission Act 183 gave Manila the opportunity to be a city
and it gained self-sufficiency with the passage of Republic Act No. 409. However,
Manila was already made a city by Miguel Lopez de Legazpi.
HISTORY OF MANILA
Manila history begins around 65,000 BC the time the Callao Man first settled
in the Philippines, predating the arrival of the Negritos and the Malayo-
Polynesians. The nearby Angono petroglyphs, are then dated to be around 3,000
BC and the earliest recorded history of Manila, the capital of the Philippines, dates
back to the year 900 AD as recorded in the Laguna Copperplate Inscription (LCI).
By the thirteenth century, the city was consisted of a fortified settlement and
trading quarter near the mouth of the Pasig River, the river that bisects the city
into north and south.
 The official name of the city under its Malay aristocracy was
Seludong/Selurung, which was the same name given for the general region of
southwestern Luzon at that time, suggesting that it was the capital of ancient
Tondo, however, the city became known by the name given to it by its Tagalog
inhabitants, Maynil, based on the nilad plant, a flowering mangrove plant that
grew on the marshy shores of the Manila Bay.
Manila became the seat of the colonial government of Spain when it
gained sovereignty over the Philippine Islands in 1565. The seat of the Spanish
government was situated within the fortified walls of Old Manila (now referred to
as Intramuros meaning within the walls). The walls were constructed to keep our
invading Chinese pirates and protect the city from native uprisings. Several
communities eventually grew outside the walls of Manila. The city became the
center of trade between Manila and Acapulco, which lasted for three centuries
and brought the goods from the Americas to South East Asia and vice versa.
In 1762, the city was captured and then occupied by Great Britain for two
years as part of the Seven Years War. The city remained the capital of the
Philippines under the government of the provisional British governor, acting
through the Archbishop of Manila and the Real Audiencia. Armed resistance to
the British was centered in Pampanga. In 1898, Spain ceded control of the
Philippines after over three hundred year of colonial rule to the United States after
the Treaty of Paris (1898), which ended the Spanish – American War. During the
American Period, some semblance of city planning using the architectural
designs and master plans by Daniel Burnham was done on the portions of the city
south of the Pasig River.
During World War II, much of the city was destroyed, but the city was rebuilt
in after the war. It was the second most destroyed city in the world after Warsaw,
Poland during World War II. The Metropolitan Manila region was enacted as an
independent entity in 1975.
ETYMOLOGY
The city became known by the name given by its Tagalog inhabitants, as
Maynila, first recorded as Maynilad or Manila. The name is based on the nila, a
flowering mangrove plant that grew on the marshy shores of the bay, used to
produce soap for regional trade. It is either from the phrase may nila, tagalog for
“there is nila,” or it has a prefix “ma” indicating the place where something is
prevalent. Nila itself is probably from Sanskrit nila meaning “indigo tree.” The idea
that the plant name is actually “nilad” is baseless.
PREHISTORY
As with virtually all the lowland peoples of Maritime Southeast Asia, the
Tagalog people who would eventually establish the fortified polity of Maynila
were Austronesians. They had a rich, complex culture, with its own expressions of
language and writing, religion, art and music. This Austronesian culture was
already in place before the cultural influences of China, the Indonesian
thassalocracies of Srivijaya and Majapahit, and Brunei and eventually, the
western colonial powers. The core elements of this Austronesian culture also
persisted despite the introduction of Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and later
Christianity. Elements of this belief systems were syncretistically adapted by the
Tagalogs to enrich their already existing worldviews, elements of which still persist
today in the syncretistic forms known as Folk Catholicism and Folk Islam.
The cultural heritage uncovered by this recent scholarship explains why
Filipino cultures, as pointed out by writers such as Nick Joaquin (in his 1988 book.
“Culture and History”), seem even more similar to Micronesian and Polynesian
cultures than they are to continental Asian and Maritime Southeast Asian cultures.
These Austronesian cultures are defined by their languages, and by a number of
key technologies including the cultural prominence of boats, the construction of
thatched houses on pil tubers and rice and a characteristic social organization
typically led by a “big man” or “man of power.”
THE TAGALOG PEOPLE AND LANGUAGE
Not much is known about when the Tagalog and Kapampangan peoples
came to occupy the lands surrounding Manila Bay, but linguists such as Dr. David
Zorc and Dr. Robert Blust speculate that the Tagalogs and other Central Philippine
ethno-linguistic groups originated in Northeastern Mindanao or the Eastern
Visayas. The Tagalog language is believed to have branched out from a
hypothesized “proto-language” which linguists have dubbed “Proto Philippine
Language,” another of which was the Visayan language. Some Philippine
Historians such as Jaime Tiongson have asserted that some of the words used in
the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, the Philippines, oldest extant written
document, came from Old Tagalog, although the text itself used the Javanese
Kawi script.
EARLY HISTORY
As the Philippines oldest extant written document, the LCI provides
evidence that a socially complex Tagalog polity, known as Tondo, existed on the
Pasig River delta as early as 900 AD – a date that also marks the beginning of
written Philippine history. Tondo is presumed by most scholars to have been
located on the same location as it did in the sixteenth century; north of the Pasig
River occupying the northern part of the delta.
There are no references that state whether a settlement south of the river;
on the southern part of the delta where Maynila was eventually located, also
existed at the time the LCI was written. Ample archeological evidence exists,
however, that the settlement of Namayan (also called Sapa) flourished further up
the Pasig River sometime in the tenth or eleventh century. Legends also say that
a settlement on the shores of the Bitukang Manok River (now Parian Creek), which
eventually became the Pasig settlement, was already established by the
thirteenth century.
LEGENDS REGARDING THE FOUNDATION OF EARLY MAYNILA
All of the various legends regarding the foundation of early Maynila suggest
the existence of an already-existing Tagalog Settlement south of Pasig River,
which rises in importance due to alliance with or annexation by a foreign power.
These legends range in date from the mid-1200s to the turn of the 16th century.
ESTABLISHMENT THROUGH DEFEAT OF RAJAH AVIRJIRKAYA BY RAJAH AHMAD OF
BRUNEI
According to Mariano A. Henson’s genealogical research (later brought up
by Majul in 1973, and by Santiago in 1990), a settlement in the Maynila area
already existed by the year 1258. This settlement was ruled by “Rajah Avirjirkaya”
whom Henson described as a “Majapahit Suzerain”. According to Henson, this
settlement was attacked by a Bruneian commander named Rajah Ahmad, who
defeated Avirjirkaya and established Maynila as a “Muslim principality”.
EARLY REFERENCES TO SELURONG (1360s)
In the 14th century there is evidence of Manila being a province of the
Indonesian Hindu empire of Majapahit due to the epiceulogy poem
Nagarakretagama, which was dedicated to Maharaja Hayam Wuruk
Seludong/Selurung was listed in Canto 14 alongside Sulot (Sulu) and Kalka.
Under the Malay aristocracy, the city was known as Seludong/Selurung,
which was the same name given for the general region of southwest Luzon at that
time, suggesting that it was the capital of ancient Tondo. It was also known as
Gintu (“The Land/Island of Gold”) or Suvarnadvipa by its neighbors. The said
kingdom flourished during the latter half of the Ming Dynasty as a result of trade
relations with China. Ancient Tondo has always been the traditional capital of the
empire. Its rulers were equivalents to kings and not mere chieftains, and they were
addressed as Panginuan or Panginoon (“Lords”, anak banwa (“son of heaven”)
or Lakandula (“Lord of the Palace”). Well into the 13th century, the city consisted
of a fortified settlement and trading quarter at the bay of the Pasig River, on top
of previous older towns.
THE CONQUEST OF SULTAN BULKIAH FROM BRUNEI (1500s)
During the reign of Sultan Bolkiah in 1485 to 1521, the Sultanate of Brunei
decided to break the Dynasty of Tondo’s monopoly in the China trade by
attacking Tondo and establishing the state of Selurung as a Bruneian satellite-
state. A new dynasty under the Islamized Rajah Salalila was also established to
challenge the House of Lakandula in Tondo. Islam was further strengthened by
the arrival to the Philippines of traders and proselytizers from Malaysia and
Indonesia. The multiple states competing over the limited territory and people of
the Islands simplified Spanish colonization by allowing its conquistadors to
effectively employ a strategy of divide and conquer for rapid conquest.
WARRING CITIES PERIOD
In the mid-16th century, the areas of present-day Manila were part of larger
thalassocracies governed by Muslim Rajahs. Rajah Sulayman and Rajah Matanda
ruled the Muslim communities south of the Pasig River, and Lakan Dula ruled the
Kingdom of Tondo, the Hindu-Buddhist community north of the river. The two
Muslim communities of Sulayman and Matanda were unified into the Kingdom of
Maynila. Both city-states were officially Malay-speaking and held diplomatic ties
with the Bolkiah dynasty of Brunei and the sultanates of Sulu and Ternate (not to
be confused with Ternate, Cavite).
SPANISH PERIOD
Spanish Rule 1571 – 1762
Governor-General Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, searching for a suitable place
to establish his capital after being compelled to move from Cebu to Panay by
Portuguese pirates, and hearing of the existence of prosperous kingdoms in Luzon,
sent an expedition under Marshal Martin de Goiti and Captain Juan de Salcedo
to discover its location and potential. De Goiti anchored at Cavite, and
attempted to establish his authority peacefully by sending a message of
friendship to Maynilad. Rajah Sulayman, then its ruler, was willing to accept the
friendship that the Spaniards were offering, but did not want to submit to its
sovereignty unto them and waged war against them. As a result, De Goiti and his
army attacked Maynilad in June 1570. After a stout fight, he captured the city
before returning to Panay. In 1571, the unity of the Luzon Empire was already
threatened by the uneasy alliance of the Rajah Matanda of Sapa, Lakan Dula of
Tondo, and Rajah Sulayman, the Rajah Muda or “crown prince” of Maynilad and
Laxamana or “Grand Admiral” of the Macabebe Armada. Powerful states like
Lubao, Betis and Macabebe became bold enough to challenge the traditional
leadership of Tondo and Maynilad. In about the same year, the Spaniards
returned, this time led by Lopez de Legazpi himself along with his entire force
(consisting of 280 Spaniards and 600 native allies). Seeing them approach, the
natives set the city on fire and fled to ancient Tondo and neighboring towns. The
Spaniards occupied the ruins of Maynilad and established a settlement there. On
May 19, 1571, Lopez de Legazpi gave the title city to the colony of Manila. The
title was certified on June 19, 1572.
Under Spain, Manila became the colonial entrepot in the Far East. The
Philippines was a Spanish colony administered under the Viceroyalty of New Spain
and the Governor-General of the Philippines who ruled from Manila was
subordinate to the Viceroy in Mexico City. The Manila Acapulco Galleon trade
route between the Philippines and Mexico flourished from 1571 until 1815. Manila
became famous during the Manila-Acapulco trade which brought the goods as
far as Mexico all the way to Southeast Asia. Because of the Spanish presence in
the area, the Chinese people, who were living in the area and engaging in free
trade relations with the natives, were subjected to commercial restrictions as well
as laws requiring them to pay tribute to Spanish authorities. As a result, the Chinese
revolted against the Spaniards in 1574, when a force of about 3,000 men and 62
Chinese warships under the command of Limahong attacked the city. The said
attempt was fruitless, and the Chinese were defeated. In order to safeguard the
city from similar uprisings later, the Spanish authorities confined the Chinese
residents and merchants to a separate district called Parian de Alcaceria.
On June 19, 1591, after the commencement of the construction of a fort
there, Lopez de Legazpi made overtures of friendships with Lakan Dula of Tondo,
which was prudently accepted. However, the Muslim, Rajah Sulayman, refused
to submit to the Spaniards and gather together a force composed of Tagalog
warriors after failing to get the support of lakan Dula and that of the leaders of
Hagonoy and Macabebe. On June 3, 1571, Sulayman led his troops and
attacked the Spaniards in a decisive battle at the town of Bangkusay, but were
defeated. With the destruction of Sulayman’s army and the friendship with Lakan
Dula, the Spaniards began to establish themselves throughout the city and its
neighboring towns. Afterwards came the rapid Christianization of the natives of
the city. The first missionaries to arrive were the Augustinians, followed by the
Franciscans, Jesuits, Dominicans, Augustinians and other religions orders. The friars
also began to establish schools and churches dedicated to the Christian faith,
eventually spreading throughout Manila and beyond.
In 1595, Manila was decreed to be the capital of the Philippines, although
it had already in fact served that function practically from its founding in 1571.
Legazpi then ordered the creation of a municipal government or Cabildo with a
set of Spanish-style houses, monasteries, nunneries, churches, and schools giving
birth to Intramuros. The layout of the city was haphazardly planned during this era
as a set of communities surrounding the fortified walls of Intramuros (within the
walls), which was the original Manila. Intramuros, one of the oldest walled cities in
the Far East, was constructed and designed by Spanish Jesuit missionaries to
provide protection from invading Chinese pirates and native uprisings. The walled
district of Intramuros, as well as the suburbs outside Intramuros, housed a total of
1200 Spanish families and garrisoned 400 Spanish soldiers. At various times in the
following century, the Chinese rose in revolt against the Spaniards. In 1602, they
set fire to Quiapo and Tondo, and for a time threatened to capture Intramuros. In
1662, they again revolted while in 1686, a conspiracy led by Tingco plotted to kill
all the Spaniards. These events led to the expulsion of the Chinese from Manila
and the entire country by virtue of the decrees that were made by the Spanish
authorities to that effect. However, later reconciliation nearly always permitted
the continuation of the Chinese community in the city.
BRITISH OCCUPATION (1762 – 1764)
British forces conquered Manila in October 1762, and the city was
occupied from 1762-64 as a result of the Seven Years War, Spain became Britain’s
enemy when it sided with France due to ties between their royal families. In the
ensuing sack of the town by the British, many historical documents of great value
were destroyed or stolen from the archives. The British accepted the written
surrender of the Spanish government in the Philippines from Archbishop Rojo and
the Real Audiencia on 30th of October 1762.
The city remained the capital and key to the Spanish Philippines under the
government of the provisional British governor, acting through the Archbishop of
Manila and the Real Audiencia. The terms of surrender proposed by Archbishop
Rojo and agreed to by the British leaders, secured private property, guaranteed
the Roman Catholic religion and its episcopal government, and granted the
citizens of the former Spanish colony the rights of peaceful travel and of trade as
British subjects. Under the direction of the provisional British governor, the
Philippines was to be governed by the Audiencia Real, the expenses of which
were agreed to be paid for by Spain.
The terms of surrender dated 29 of October 1762 signed by Archbishop
Rojo, and sealed with the Spanish Royal Seal, ceding the entire archipelago to
Great Britain. This was rejected by Simon de Anda y Salazar who claimed to have
been appointed Governor-General under the Statutes of the Indies.
Outside of Manila the only armed resistance to the British was in Pampanga
where Salazar established his headquarters first in Bulacan, then in Bacolor. So
successful was Salazar’s efforts that Captain Thomas Backhouse reported to the
Secretary of War in London that “the enemy is in full possession of the country”. At
the time of signing the treaty, the signatories were not aware that Manila had
been taken by the British and was being administered by them. Consequently, no
specific provision was made for the Philippines. Instead, they fell under the
general provision that all other lands not otherwise provided for be returned to
the Spanish Crown. An unknown number of Indian soldiers known as sepoys, who
came with the British, deserted and settled in Cainta, Rizal, which explains the
uniquely Indian features of generations of Cainta residents.
In January 1798 during the French Revolutionary Wars a British naval
squadron entered Manila for reconnaissance, seizing three gunboats in the
bloodless Raid on Manila.
SPANISH RULE 1764 – 1898
Mexican Independence in 1821 necessitated direct rule from Spain. Under
direct Spanish rule, banking, industry and education flourished more than it had
in the previous two centuries. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 helped to
facilitate direct trade and communications with Spain Construction of bridges,
roads and railways, and expansion of the ports came to symbolize the rapid
development.
Being the traditional seat of education and liberal thinking in the Philippines,
Manila was a rich field for anticlerical propaganda. The seeds of revolution
germinated in 1886 with the publication of Jose Rizal’s book Noli Me Tangere
(Touch me not), a novel critical of the way the Spanish friars were governing the
Philippines. The Spanish government condemned the book, and Rizal was exiled
to Dapitan. In 1892, he returned to Manila to found La Liga Filipina, a nationalistic
organization. Later that year, in Tondo, Andres Bonifacio founded the Katipunan,
a secret organization with aim of overthrowing Spanish colonial rule. The
movement grew until open rebellion broke out in August 1896 after its discovery
by the Spaniards. Bonifacio’s attack on Manila was unsuccessful. Rizal became a
martyr of the revolution when the Spaniards executed him by firing squad on
December 30, 1896 in Bagumbayan. After several months of fighting, a
revolutionary government was formed at the Tejeros Convention in Cavite
province with Emilio Aguinaldo at its head. Aguinaldo’s government was also
unsuccessful in its fight for independence, and as part of the Pact of Biak-na-Bato
peace treaty. Aguinaldo accepted exile in Hong Kong.
AMERICAN PERIOD (1898 – 1942)
American troops invaded Manila in 1898 and waged war with the
Spaniards and Filipinos in the Spanish-American War and the Philippine-American
War. With the defeat of Spain, U.S. forces took control of the city and the Island in
one of the most brutal and forgotten chapters of Philippine American History. The
American Navy under Admiral George Dewey defeated the Spanish squadron in
the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898.
During the Battle of Manila, the American took control of Manila from the
Spanish. Admiral Dewey testified that after the battle the Spanish Governor
wished to surrender to the Americans rather than to the Filipinos. In the Treaty of
Paris in 1898, Spain handed over the Philippines to the United States of America
for USS 20,000,000 and ending 333 years of Spanish rule in the Islands.
Having just won their independence from Spain, the Filipinos were fiercely
opposed to once again being occupied. Emilio Aguinaldo proclaimed the First
Philippine Republic at the Malolos Congress and had begun to build the
foundations for an independent nation. Admiral Dewey, however, claimed he
never recognized the Philippine Republic, as he did not have the authority to do
so and did not consider it an organized government.
War broke out between the Filipinos and the Americans on February 4,
1899, the 1899 Battle of Manila began the Philippine-American War. The
Americans pursued the retreating Filipino forces province by province, until
General Emilio Aguinaldo (then President of the Republic) surrendered in
Palanan, Isabela on March 23, 1901. Manila continued under an American
military government until civil government was established for the city in July 31,
1901.
During the American Period, Daniel Burnham has adopted some
architectural design in the portions of the city south of the Pasig River. In 1935, the
United States government committed itself to granting the Philippines
Independence after a ten-year transition, a period that was extended by one
year due to World War II. The general headquarters of the Philippine
Commonwealth Army was stationed in the capital city in Ermita, Manila under the
Commonwealth government was active on December 21, 1935 to January 3,
1942 followed by the Japanese Occupation and March 4 1945 to June 30, 1946
after the liberating Battle of Manila.
WORLD WAR II AND JAPANESE OCCUPATION
Filipino and American combat units were ordered to withdraw from the city
and all military installations removed on December 24, 1941 (Philippine Time). That
same day Manila was declared an open city to spare the city from death and
destruction. Despite this, the Japanese warplanes bombed Manila and for the first
time, Manileños experienced the first air raid. Quezon issued a decree enlarging
the safe zone to include outlying areas of Manila as safe zones, establishing the
new administrative jurisdiction, Greater Manila. The main general headquarters
of the Philippine Commonwealth Army was withdrawn and retreated to the
military stations in Ermita, Manila. On December 24, 1941, they are closed down
following the arrival and occupation of the capital city by the Japanese Imperial
Forces, who took control of the main general headquarters of the
Commonwealth Army on January 3, 1942. Following the Japanese Occupation,
the general headquarters and military camps and bases of the Philippine
Commonwealth Army were used around the provinces of the Philippine
Archipelago from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao from January 3, 1942 to June 30,
1946.
The post of mayor of Greater Manila was given to Quezon’s former
Executive Secretary, Jorge B. Vargas. On the evening of New Year’s Day of 1942,
a Japanese courier delivered notice to Vargas that Japanese forces already
bivouacked at Parañaque would enter Greater Manila the following day. From 9
am to 10 am of January 2, Japanese Imperial Forces marched into the City of
Manila.
After the fall of Corregidor on May 1943, Vargas was tasked to hand over
Greater Manila to the new authorities and present the remaining Filipino leaders
to Japanese authorities. Vargas and the Filipino leaders present were asked to
choose three options; (1) a purely Japanese military administration (2) a
dictatorial government run by a Filipino under General Artemio Ricarte who went
on self-exile to Japan after the Filipino-American war, or (3) a government by
commission selected by Filipinos. Vargas and the local leaders chose the third
option and established the Philippine Executive Commission to manage initially
Greater Manila, and was later expanded to cover the whole of the Philippines.
Vargas assumed the chairmanship of the Philippine Executive Commission and
appointed to the post of Mayor of Greater Manila in 1942, Leon G. Guinto Sr., a
Secretary of Labor under the Philippine Commonwealth administration of
President Manuel L. Quezon. Guinto held the position of Mayor of Greater Manila
until the liberation of the city.
On October 20, 1944, American and Philippine Commonwealth troops, led
by American General Douglas MacArthur, began the reconquest of the
Philippines. General Tomoyaki Yamashita, ordered the commander of Shimbu
Group, General Shizuo Yokoyama, to destroy all bridges and other vital intallations
and evacuate the city. However, units of the Imperial Japanese Navy, led by Sanji
Iwabuchi, refused to leave the city. Thus, from February 3 to March 3, 1945, much
of the city was destroyed during the Battle of Manila and 100,000 to 500,000
civilians were killed during the Manila Massacre. Almost 85,000 to 140,000 strong
Filipino soldiers and military officers under the Philippine Commonwealth Army led
the military operations around Manila and in Central and Southern Luzon aided
by all 3,000 guerrilla fighters and 15,000 American liberation forces. As a result of
these events in World War II, Manila was the second most destroyed city in the
world after warsaw. Poland during World War II, once Manila was officially
liberated, the general headquarters of the Philippine Commonwealth Army with
the Philippine Constabulary was relocated to the capital city on March 4, 1945 to
June 30, 1946. After the liberation, Greater Manila was dissolved, and its town
returned to their pre-war station. On July 4, 1946, the Philippine flag was raised for
the first time in Rizal Park. Reconstruction took place during the years following
World War II.
 ACTIVITY # 3
Answer the following Questions:
1. What are the two (2) known Manila?
2. What was the official name of the City during Malayan Aristocracy?
3. According to local history, How did Maynila/Manila get its name?
– Kindly post your answer in our corresponding FB Page with your
• Name
• Course & Section
• Activity Title: Activity # 3 The Manila City
• Date
Note: it is ok if you read articles from google for further ideas, but please do not
copy paste the article and post as your answer. Take it as your reference only…
THANK YOU!