Mehan garden controversy peacefully resolved

We were very pleased to read that Manila Mayor Lito Atienza gracefully agreed to transfer the site of the City College of Manila from Mehan Garden to Intramuros. We understand that the City College will be built where the old Ateneo de Manila was. There is another very challenging but great opportunity here.

We remember the old Ateneo because that is where we studied in the third grade before it burned down. It was the building where Jose Rizal studied. I recall an old museum there that had a lot of Rizal memorabilia. The challenge there is if the present Manila administration can restore the old Ateneo de Manila as it was, then, it would be, not only in keeping with the architecture of old Manila, but a restoration of the building where Rizal got his early education.

Intramuros was thoroughly demolished during liberation. Nick Joaquin wrote a classic story of its demolition entitled The Mass of St. Sylvestre. We have always believed that it would be great if a gifted director turned it into a movie. The movie could be shown every New Year and it would be to the Filipinos New Year what Charles Dicken’s Christmas Carol is to the British. In his classic play on the last Fiesta de la Naval in Intramuros, National Artist Nick Joaquin also captured the old Intramuros. Bitoy Camacho says:

"Intramuros! The old Manila. The original Manila. The Noble and Ever Loyal City. .

"To the early conquistadores she was a new Tyre and Sidon; to the early missionaries she was a new Rome. Within these walls was gathered the wealth of the Orient — silk from China; spices from Java; gold and ivory and precious stones from India. And within these walls the Champions of Christ assembled to conquer the Orient for the Cross. Through these old streets once crowded a marvelous multitude — viceroys and archbishops; mystics and merchants; pagan sorcerers and Christian martyrs; nuns and harlots and elegant marquesas; English pirates, Chinese mandarins, Portuguese traitors, Dutch spies, Moro sultans, and Yankee clipper captains. For three centuries this medieval town was a Babylon in its commerce and a New Jerusalem in its faith. . .

"Now look: this is all that’s left of it now. Weeds and rubble and scrap iron. A piece of wall, a fragment of stairway – and over there, the smashes gothic façade of old Santo Domingo. . . Quomodo desolata es, Civitas Dei.’ "

The City College of Manila is a major step towards the very belated restoration of old Manila. This would be right up to Mayor Atienza’s alley. He has a very strong architectural background.