The image of Malacañang Palace itself has become iconic. It is reproduced countless times on P20 bills and has become a logo, in front of which official pronouncements are made. The palace has become synonymous with the power of the personage in residence and one of the keys to understanding both is to look at the evolution and current state of the palace today.
This has been difficult to do until recently. Most everyone who laid claim to the place had limited knowledge of its entire history or an incomplete picture of its physical territory. A recently launched book has changed all that and will serve to enlighten both official residents and other interested parties on how our No. 1 elected official lives and the settings from where he/she exercises political duties.
Malacañan Palace: The Official Illustrated History (published by Studio 5 Publishing Inc. and available at major bookstores) is a hefty guide to close to 200 years of the palace’s history. The coffee-table book is meant to be a companion to a previous volume penned by the late, great Nick Joaquin. While this earlier work focused on the personalities and their stories – that used the palace as a dramatic setting – this new publication highlights the landscape, architecture, and interiors of the palace.
The morphing of a former summer residence to the official palace and seat of power is lavishly delineated in this book, a compelling visual and textual feast that will satisfy not only architecture and history buffs but the general reader as well. The hundreds of archival pictures and contemporary images (by celebrated photographer Wyg Tysmans) provide graphic support to the book’s six main chapters written by Manuel L. Quezon III – popular op-ed columnist, Palanca award winner and curator for history at the Ayala Museum; Jeremy Barns – AIM economist and researcher, Spanish colonial-era scholar and man-about-town; and yours truly.
Okay, so I’m a little biased, but the book is truly a substantial contribution to political and architectural history. Over five years of hard work went into sourcing all the materials, writing, and photography (driven by the erstwhile Studio 5 team led by Joe and Marily Orosa). Long-buried archives from Spain and the Bureau of Public Works were unearthed to yield original architectural drawings by a long list of eminent Spanish, American, and Filipino architects: Cespedes, Parsons, Doanne, Arellano, Mapua, Toledo, Luna de San Pedro, Araneta, and Ramos, among others. Additional drawings and special illustrations were commissioned especially for this book – three aerial renderings of the palace (by architect Christian Jucco).
The book design (by BG Hernandez, edited by Jose Orosa and JV Rufino with assistance from Jay Bautista and Sheila Ducay) is elegant and accessible to readers. The historical text chapters and archival photos alternate with sections of contemporary pictures by Tysmans covering the main palace, the state entrance and state rooms, the private quarters, Kalayaan Hall, Bonifacio Hall, the new Executive Building, Mabini Hall and, finally, Malacañang Park.
The book answers historical questions like the origin of the place’s name Malacañan. There are four main theories: the original owners of the place – Luis Rocha (then Colonel Miguel Formento until 1825), the use of the river landings – for transport from Intramuros, and chronologies of the buildings themselves – for example, the executive building (Kalayaan Hall) which, contrary to popular belief, is from the American and not the Spanish era.
Malacañang Palace is one of the oldest palaces in Asia – older than the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, the Istanas in Malaysia and Singapore. Only the Royal Palace in Bangkok is older. The earthquakes of the mid-1800s forced the Spanish governors-general to move to the summer residence and the growing rumblings forever stopped plans to reconstruct the original Intramuros Palacio del Governador. This history of fleeing and temporary residences and moving centers of power was a pattern that repeated itself in various aspects of the construction of Manila’s government centers (from Intramuros, to Burnham’s Luneta site, to Quezon City).
Today, government is still fractured – the congress is in the Batasang Pambansa, the Senate is in Pasay, and Malacañang is still by the river (though five alternative sites had been chosen in the last hundred years). As author Quezon says, Malacañang is "a capital for a nation without a capital…" The Palace will survive for another hundred years. Its history goes on just as our social history pushes the incomplete evolution of democracy (or whatever animal we wish to call our governance). We need constants such as Malacañang, landmarks important to our heritage. We just hope that our future leadership benefit from historical insight and that the settings we build lead to a clearer vision discerned.