For years, Manila
has functioned as a layover - a city travelers pass through on their way to the
country’s more photogenic islands. Independent tour guides hope to change that.
 |
| 1896 declaration of Philippine independence |
Following the
launch of the Intramuros Administration’s “Don’t Skip Manila” campaign, various
historical walking tours that aims to reintroduce the capital as a destination
rather than a pit-stop are now being offered to tourists and residents alike.
The overall message is simple: the nation’s stories abound here.
 |
| Dropping my jaw at these original works of Jose Rizal |
One of the main
reasons no one should miss Manila is its roster of well-curated museums.
 |
| The National Library is one of the must-see places for history junkies in Manila |
Within a walkable
radius situates Intramuros and Fort Santiago, Luneta Park, the old commercial
corridors of Binondo and Escolta, and the National Museum complex; a quartet of
institutions devoted to fine arts, anthropology, natural history and astronomy.
Together, they form a big reason for transiting visitors to stay put in the
city, and also for residents to rediscover Manila.
The original manuscript of the Treaty of Biak na Bato
For tourists
inclined toward history, Manila’s museum scene expands: the San Agustin Church
Museum, Casa Manila, Museo de Intramuros, the Metropolitan Museum of Manila,
Museo Pambata. And that tally accounts only for Manila proper, not the wider collection
of museums across Metro Manila.
You can also view how they restore the old books that gets displayed on the gallery
Just steps from
Luneta Park, the National Library’s Permanent Gallery offers another surprise
revelation, a reminder that the capital still hides stories waiting to be
uncovered, as this writer discovered on a random weekday at the invitation of a
few history-obsessed friends.
More than Just a
Place for Books and Archive Documents
I had long wanted
to visit the National Library, and on that Tuesday morning, I finally did.
Securing a library ID was surprisingly smooth: a quick registration, posing for
an ID photograph, and within five minutes, my ID card came out hot from the
printer, giving me the freedom to return anytime I want.
 |
| The original manuscript of Jose Rizal's Noli Me Tangere |
But that morning
held another objective. The night before, our friend Stephen Pamorada, heritage
advocate and Manila tour guide, had stirred our excitement with a message in
our group chat: “Be ready to lay eyes on Rizal’s original manuscripts of Noli
Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo.” reading it sent a thrill through me. And
then came his follow-up: “That’s not all.”
 |
| Jose Rizal's original El Filibusterismo manuscript |
Stephen’s “That’s
not all” meant an impressive list of documents pertaining to Philippine
history: De Molucis Insulis, the earliest written account of our
archipelago following Magellan and Elcano’s first circumnavigation of the
world, published in 1523; handwritten notes by Jose Rizal, Apolinario Mabini,
and Emilio Aguinaldo; the 1743 Murillo Velarde Map, the first detailed map of
the Philippines; and used as a pivotal document that helped secure the
Philippines’ victory over China at the Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration, because
it shows the contested Spratly Islands as part of the country.
 |
| Rizal's Mi Ultimo Adios |
There were printed
issues of La Solidaridad, the trial records of Andres Bonifacio and his brother
Procopio, Pedro Paterno’s Ninay, the first novel written by a Filipino author
published in 1885, the Treaty of Biak-na-Bato, and one of the first copies of
the Philippine national anthem, the Marcha Nacional Filipina, with music by
Julián Felipe and lyrics by Jose Palma. Even pieces of furniture such as Manuel
L. Quezon’s presidential desk and chair.
 |
| De Molucis Insulis |
The list extended
further: Antonio de Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, annotated by Rizal,
and the original 1898 Declaration of Philippine Independence itself. This to me
is one of the most important documents housed inside the Permanent Gallery.
 |
| Standing beside the 1898 Declaration of Philippine Independence documents |
For decades, the
United States had insisted on celebrating July 4, aligning the Philippine
holiday with their own Independence Day. President Diosdado Macapagal who, in
1962, shifted the commemoration to June 12, and two years later, through
Republic Act No. 4166, formally declared it the nation’s official Independence
Day. As he explained at the time, “There had been other Asian revolutions
before. But the revolution which culminated on June 12, 1898, was the first
successful national revolution in Asia since the coming of the West, and the
Republic to which it gave birth was the first democratic Republic outside of
the Western Hemisphere.”
1743 Murillo Velarde Map
These documents,
their pages yellowed and ink faded, bear the weight of that historic afternoon:
4:20 P.M., June 12, 1898, when General Emilio Aguinaldo proclaimed independence
in Kawit, Cavite. They are, in a sense, the nation’s birth certificate.
Antonio de Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas
I saved my last
wide-eyed stare for the final display in the Permanent Gallery, what I
considered the collection’s most important: the original manuscripts of Jose
Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, alongside the original copy of
Mi Último Adiós. Standing before them, I felt goosebumps. Here were words
penned under immense weight of Spanish colonialism, words that would ultimately
seal Rizal’s fate and cement his place as the nation’s national hero.
Apolinario Mabini's handwritten letter
To see them in
person, inked letters that had survived the passage of time, along with the
other historical documents in the Permanent Gallery, was like witnessing
history itself in a way no classroom lesson could ever replicate.
This article first appeared on the 3rd print issue of Archipelago Press PH - a San Diego-based media company
