DIY Manila heritage tour: Fort Santiago

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The weekend after I arrived back from India, the GQNC interns and researchers went on a Manila heritage tour. I guess I was still on a cultural hangover from India and just to continue doing this until the culture bug wore off... and I did promise interns Brock and Herlyn that we were going to organise something for them, as part of the team tradition.

Anyway, we started our heritage tour in one of the oldest parts of Manila, Intramuros. And what better way than to go on a tour of Fort Santiago, right? Of course, I've been in one of Carlos Celdran's Intramuros tours but actually walking the city at my own pace made me feel like I know the old city more.


Fort Santiago used to be surrounded by water. On one side, it's still bordered by the Pasig River, facing the former financial and industrial district. On another side, it used to be facing the Manila Bay but years of reclamation and development has led to the real estate development that is now the Manila Hotel and Roxas Boulevard.

To me, Fort Santiago resonates in history because this is where Jose Rizal, the Philippine national hero, was imprisoned before he was executed in Luneta. 


During this trip, however, I learned that a lot more people were imprisoned here, even in worse conditions because they were placed in dungeons. Yes, the fort used to have those too! It was so medieval! In fact, the dungeons were so bad because of the proximity to the water. At some point, the dungeons were inundated that people could actually get sick in it.


And just like in the Ayala Museum where I keep noting new details from the dioramas, I noticed something new at the fort as well: the coat of arms at the portico at Fort Santiago did not feature that of the kingdom of Spain. Instead, it showed the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Castile (which was ruled by Queen Isabela I) instead of that of the Spanish Empire.  


That made me pause. Is this why we call the Spanish Kastila rather than Espagnol? Why was the Kingdom of Aragon (King Ferdinand II) not as visible in the farthest colony of the "empire where the sun never set"? Perhaps it's because Castile had more power economically and funded the explorations of the conquistadores. I realised that I thought I knew a lot about Philippine history, but in fact, I didn't know a lot of details; I just know the general story.

This field trip was well-timed because I'm reading a book called "A Game of Queens", which talks about the queens consort and the queens regnant who were very influential in the 16th century. One of them was Queen Isabella.

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