Intramuros: Walking with Carlos Celdran

Carlos Celdran is a "controversial" tour guide who gives bemused tourists a three-hour rambling lecture and walking tour of Intramuros, the old walled city of Manila.  

It is called Intramuros (Within the Walls) to distinguish it from everything Outside the Walls, including nearby Chinatown--just a cannon shot away--that was the subject of my last blog.

This tour is not for those suffering from ADD.  You have to absorb non-stop information.

Carlos is an amusing raconteur and certainly has his own take on Philippine history.

During the tour--"If These Walls Could Talk"--he sometimes struts, shouts and declaims like a Shakespearean actor.  At other times, he can spit out words like an auctioneer on steroids--especially when reeling off lists of names, dates, places, battles, outrages and popes.

Intramuros encompassed the colonial Spanish garrison of Fort Santiago (inset), eight churches, the Governor's palace, many administrative offices and the houses of the elite (illustrado) ruling class of Manila. 

Carlos is obviously not too impressed by anyone who has held sway in Manila--from the Spaniards who arrived in 1571 to the Americans who kicked them out in 1898; and from the Japanese in World War II to the "corrupt elite" that still rules the Philippines in 2012.

In Carlos' version of history, once the Spanish Crown determined (wrongly) that there was no gold in the Philippines, they essentially handed over the fate of the new colony (then just a province of Mexico),  to the Catholic Church and the "fat friars".

The friars did not teach the Filipinos Spanish--that was reserved for the elite--but they did learn every dialect themselves and were able to communicate extensively throughout the archipelago--something that most locals could not.

He contrasted the Church policy in the Philippines to that of the Crown in the rich colonies in South America where teaching Spanish was seen as a unifying and "nation-building" force.  

Carlos bemoaned the fact that traditional regional tensions and suspicions in the Philippines were encouraged and maintained by the Church.  As a result, divided loyalties, feuds and betrayals among local leaders--especially during revolutionary times--became a sad feature of Philippines history.

Even though the Spanish brought no women with them, the Spanish military and the friars did a pretty good job of breeding prodigiously with the locals and producing the mestiza class who became the ultimate rulers.

I will not repeat all of Carlos' diatribes against the Catholic Church but he does not see it as a force for progress--especially today when it is trying to kill the Reproductive Health Bill currently passing through the Philippines Congress.

He was recently "removed" from a mass in Manila Cathedral (attended by many bishops and the Papal Legate) for unfurling a large sign with the name "Father Domaso" on it.  Fr. Domaso was the corrupt priest portrayed so vividly in the classic novel, Noli Me Tangere, by the national hero, Jose Rizal.

Carlos was later arrested but freed after many protests by his supporters.  Strange that the Church still holds such sway.

 His take on Jose Rizal was a little unorthodox as well.  He contended that ordinary Filipinos back then would never have viewed Rizal as a national figure, let alone a meek intellectual who spent much of his time abroad.  Instead, they would have been fired up by their revolutionary military leaders such as Aguinaldo and Bonifacio.

No, Rizal was the product of American propaganda at the turn of the 19th century!  What better national hero for the Americans to promote than a dead pacifist (killed by the now defeated Spanish) rather than General Aguinaldo who was still living and fighting against the Americans occupation.

The photo (above) shows Jose Rizal with the symbols of his twin oppressors--the Spanish State (Fort Santiago) and the Church (Manila Cathedral in the distance).  Carlos slyly noted that there was a large number of friars at the execution of Jose Rizal.  In his view, Rizal's books had been aimed at the true oppressor of the Filipino people--the corrupt Church.  

It was hard to believe that only a few yards away from this lush garden within Fort Santiago, Jose Rizal had been imprisoned before his execution.  He was actually executed outside the walls of Intramuros in what is now called Rizal Park.

After the tour of Fort Santiago, we were all loaded into calesas and tricycles and taken off to another part of Intramuros.

Crossing a major road full of speeding traffic in a tricycle was certainly the most exciting part of the tour.  Regee and I were in a tricycle that seemed to subscribe to the philosophy of "crash through or crash".  But we made it safely to our next destination--a bombed out building.

Seated in the shade of an old tree, we were treated to a brief history of the brutal Japanese occupation of Manila in World War II.  When the Americans arrived back in the Philippines (Macarthur's "I shall return" promise fulfilled), the Imperial Army ordered its troops to inflict the greatest damage on Manila and its residents--resulting in over 70, 000 civilian "deaths,"a polite word for cold-blooded murders of men, women children and even babies in a maternity hospital.

This was followed by the bombardment of Manila by the Americans, leaving it the most pulverized city after Warsaw at the end of the war.  While grateful for "liberation," Carlos felt that freedom came at such a stiff price that Manila virtually lost its "soul".  He was so emotional that I noticed quite a few tears and handkerchiefs in the subdued crowd.  The tourists had not expected such a pounding by their guide and looked a little shell-shocked themselves.

We then walked through the narrow streets to the only original church still standing in Intramuros, San Agustin.  It is a UN Heritage site and elaborately decorated inside--a huge contrast to the bombed out building we had just left.  I am not sure how it survived through the centuries but maybe, Carlos cheerfully suggested, those friars did have some clout upstairs?  After a bit more Church bashing (delivered outside the doors of San Agustin with a full 5PM mass ongoing), we were trundled off to our last stop.

We sat down in the courtyard of an old restaurant and were served halo halo, a mixture of many kinds of beans and fruits in condensed milk and crushed ice.  A good one is amazing.  This offering was pretty ho hum on the taste scale but that was not the point of the exercise.  Carlos compared the halo halo (literally "mix mix") to what had happened to the Filipino people over the centuries.

They had had to absorb many external shocks and adapt to new cultures, cuisines, customs and forms of government.  In the process, they had learned how to incorporate many conflicting cultures into their own culture in order to survive and come out on top.

However, this was not without some damage to the Filipino soul.  Carlos cited the loss of Intramuros ("heart of Manila"), an apologetic stance on Manila's lack of a true "center" and a general halo halo outlook and national character.  I think he was being overly severe on his compatriots but his views were certainly food for thought!

Whatever you might think of Carlos' views (alternative or on the nail?), he was knowledgable, sincere, entertaining, quixotic and fun--with a few moments of deep despair.  But, maybe, he best portrayed the conflicted halo halo characteristic that he himself had identified.

He was also smart.  At P1,100 per head for the tour and 120 paying tourists in attendance, he was going to walk off with quite a pot of money--and with minimal overheads.

Maybe he had learned a thing or two about the motivations of successive invaders and had, at last, found the "gold" that had eluded the Spanish conquistadors?