Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1
MANILA ORIENTATION
The key tourist district is the area fronting
Manila Bay
along
Roxas Boulevard
, taking in
the neighbourhoods of
Ermita
and
Malate
, and stretching north to the old walled city of
Intramuros
and over the Pasig River to
Chinatown
, also known as
Binondo
.
Makati
,
8km southeast of Manila Bay, is the city's central business district, built around the main
thoroughfare of Ayala Avenue, and home to banks, insurance companies and five-star hotels.
Just to the east of Makati (and almost an extension of it), lies the city's newest business and
retail hub,
Fort Bonifacio
. The artery of Epifaño de los Santos Avenue, or just
EDSA
, stretches
from major transport hub Pasay in the south to Caloocan in the north, curving around the
eastern edge of Makati en route. Further along EDSA beyond Makati is the commercial district
off
Ortigas
, which is trying to outdo Makati with its hotels, malls and air-conditioned, themed
restaurants. Beyond that is
Quezon City
, where many bus routes from the north terminate,
though otherwise it's largely off the tourist map.
Manila that grew in its stead was thoroughly modern, with streetcars, steam trains
and US-style public architecture, a trend that continued under American rule in the
early twentieth century.
World War II
Manila suffered again during World War II. The
Japanese
occupied the city from
1942 until it was liberated by the US at the
Battle of Manila
in 1945. The battle
lasted 29 days and claimed 1000 American lives, 16,000 Japanese soldiers and
some 100,000 Filipinos, many of them civilians killed deliberately by the Japanese
or accidentally by crossfire. Once again, Manila was a city in ruins, having
undergone relentless shelling from American howitzers and been set alight by
retreating Japanese troops.
Rebuilding
was slow and plagued by corruption and
government inertia.
The Marcos era
In 1976, realizing that Manila was growing too rapidly for government to be
contained in the old Manila area,
President Marcos
decreed that while the area
around Intramuros would remain the capital city, the permanent seat of the
national government would be Metro Manila - including new areas such as
Makati and Quezon City. It was tacit recognition of the city's expansion and the
problems it was bringing.
Imelda Marcos
, meanwhile, had been declared governor of
Metro Manila in 1975 and was busy exercising her “edifice complex”, building a
golden-domed mosque in Quiapo, the Cultural Center of the Philippines on Manila
Bay and a number of five-star hotels. Her spending spree was finally ended by the
EDSA Revolution
in 1986 (see p.444).
Manila today
In the 1990s popular police o
cer
Alfredo Lim
won two terms as Manila mayor - his
crime-fighting efforts certainly improved security in the city and he was elected a third
time in 2007. He immediately and controversially set about undoing much of the work
of his predecessor
Lito Atienza
(mayor 1998-2007), who had spent millions on city
beautification projects. Though congestion and pollution remain huge and apparently
intractable problems, Lim has presided over a booming economy, managed to remove
squatters in Quiapo and has cleaned up the Baywalk area along Roxas Boulevard.
Manileños rewarded him with a fourth term as mayor in 2010, just months before
the
Manila bus hostage crisis
, when a dismissed police of
cer hijacked a bus of Hong
Kong tourists, eventually killing eight of them; the mayor's handling of the tragedy
was highly criticized in the subsequent enquiry. In a remarkable twist, ex-president
Joseph Estrada
(see p.446) was elected mayor in 2013.
