Manila, Philippines

Manila is the capital of the Philippines, a tropical archipelago in Southeast Asia with a Hispanic cultural heritage. Manila is one of the most densely populated major cities in the world, and is part of a much bigger metropolitan area known as Metro Manila. A trade and manufacturing hub, Manila receives a steady influx of people in search of employment, which contributes to its problems of overpopulation and lack of adequate housing.

Landscape

Manila is situated on the eastern shore of Manila Bay, an inlet of the South China Sea on the west coast of the island of Luzon. It straddles the Pasig River, which traverses Luzon and empties into Manila Bay within the city limits. Though partially surrounded by mountainous regions, Manila lies on a swampy coastal plain and has an average elevation of 16 meters (52 feet).

The city proper has an area of 38.55 square kilometers (14.88 square miles). It is divided into 897 barangays, small enclaves based on pre-Spanish colonial settlement structure. The barangays are clustered into sixteen administrative districts without congressional representation. Districts north of the Pasig River include San Miguel, San Nicolas, Binondo, Tondo, Quiapo, Santa Cruz, Sampaloc, Santa Mesa and Santa Ana districts. South of the Pasig are the Port Area, Intramuros, Ermita, Malate, San Andres, Paco, and Pandacan districts. Apart from the administrative districts, Manila is also divided into six legislative districts with congressional representation. The legislative districts are referred to as Districts I–VI.

Metropolitan Manila, or the National Capital Region, is a newly incorporated metropolitan administrative region of seventeen cities and municipalities with Manila as its center. Metro Manila covers 636 square kilometers (245.56 square miles), making it one of the largest metropolitan areas in Southeast Asia.

The climate in Manila is hot and humid. Year-round temperatures average 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). During the rainy season between June and November, Manila is hit by as many as twelve typhoons. These tropical storms are caused by monsoon winds that cross the western Pacific Ocean where the Philippines are located.

In addition to typhoons, Manila is also vulnerable to earthquakes. Central Manila is only 10 kilometers (6.21 miles) west of the westernmost fault line in the Marikina Valley fault system, a boundary between tectonic plates.

Manila is extremely vulnerable to climate change. Its coastal communities are sinking because the soil beneath them is compressing. Because of climate change, sea levels are rising, which is causing flooding. High tide flooding occurs daily, and larger storm surge occasionally reaches farther inland.

People

As of the 2023 estimates, the City of Manila had a population of approximately 14.941 million. According to the fifteenth annual edition of Demographia World Urban Areas (Apr. 2019), however, the continuous urban region of Manila stretches beyond the National Capital Region into the provinces of Bulucan, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal, encompassing a much greater population of more than 25 million.

According to the Word Population Review in 2023, the City of Manila was one of the most densely populated major cities in the world, with a population density of 73,263 people per square kilometer. Ramshackle squatter communities have sprung up throughout Manila, even near affluent neighborhoods, because there is not enough permanent housing to accommodate so many people.

Approximately 75 percent of the population of Manila is of Tagalog ethnicity. Just 11.1 percent are Chinese; 3.2 percent are of Ilocano ethnicity, 2.8 percent are of Bisaya (or Binisaya) ethnicity, 2.5 percent are of Bikol (Bicol) ethnicity, and 2.3 percent are of Waray ethnicity. Centuries' worth of intermarriage between Filipinos and Chinese has produced an ethnic subgroup known as Tsinoy, or Filipinos with Chinese heritage. Chinese Filipinos have often been victims of prejudice and racism. A considerable Chinese and Tsinoy community in Binondo has earned the district the nickname "Chinatown." Binondo is famous for its Chinese restaurants, stores, and grocers.

Filipino and English are the official languages of the Philippines. The Filipino language is based on Tagalog, spoken by approximately two-thirds of Manilans, is a colloquial version of Filipino and the language upon which Filipino is based. More than half of Manilans speak English. Other languages spoken include Iloco, Samar-Leyte, Pampango, Bicol, Chinese, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Pangasinan, and Spanish, among others.

Roman Catholicism is the most widely practiced religion in Manila, but there are small minorities of Iglesia ni Cristos, Protestants, Buddhists, and Muslims, among others. Manila's largest Muslim community resides in the district of Quiapo.

Economy

Manila Bay is where more than 80 percent of all imports enter the Philippines; more than 25 percent of all Philippine exports are shipped from the bay. Manila Bay has attracted numerous industrial firms, making it the manufacturing center of the country.

Electronics, iron and steel, watches, automobiles, tobacco products, leather goods, chemicals, shoes, textiles and clothing, coconut oil, processed foods and beverages, plywood and veneer, cement, paper products, and pharmaceuticals are all manufactured in Manila.

The average industrial firm in Manila is small and Filipino owned, and most produce handmade goods such as furniture and embroidered textiles. Large firms tend to be owned by American, European, and Asian investors who were attracted to Manila by its status as a trade hub. Manila exports electronics, processed foods, mineral ores, textiles and clothing, plywood and veneer, and a rope-making material called abacá.

Unemployment, underemployment, and poverty are very serious concerns in Manila. In 2022 the Philippine Statistics Authority reported that the National Capital Region's unemployment rate was 7.2 percent, compared to a rate of 3.1 percent for the Philippines overall. The problem of unemployment is exacerbated by a continuous migration of Filipinos to Manila looking for manufacturing jobs. The unemployment rate corresponds to the high number of households living in poverty.

Landmarks

Within the district of Intramuros are two famous landmarks: the ruins of Fort Santiago, and the church of San Agustin. Strategically placed near the mouth of the Pasig River in northwestern Intramuros, Fort Santiago was built by the Spanish in 1571 and served for many centuries as a defensive fortification. During World War II, the Japanese used it as a political prison. It is now a park where a resident theater company often performs.

The Church of San Agustin, built in 1586, was the first Spanish stone church ever to be constructed in the Philippines. It is also the oldest remaining stone church in metro Manila. Despite being heavily damaged during World War II, visitors can still view its ornate wood carvings and trompe l'oeil murals, an art technique which depicts illusionary three-dimensional imagery.

Manila's popular Rizal Park is located south of Intramuros near Manila Bay. The 58 hectare (143 acre) park is where José Rizal, a Filipino hero who championed for widespread reforms, was executed by the Spanish in 1896. The park contains a memorial monument to Rizal in which his remains are buried, as well as Japanese and Chinese gardens, an outdoor amphitheater, a planetarium, and a national museum.

Malacañang Palace in the San Miguel district has been the seat of the Philippine government and official residence of Philippine governor generals and presidents since 1863. The complex includes the presidential quarters and administrative offices. Visitors are permitted to tour its presidential museum.

History

The first modern settlers in Manila were most likely Malays from Borneo who arrived by boat between 800 BCE and 200 BCE. Successive waves of Malay immigrants formed small agrarian villages called barangays throughout the Philippines. Each barangay had as many as two thousand residents. Barangays were autonomous units, but occasionally bartered with each other and forged alliances through marriage.

Muslim traders and missionaries entered the Philippines in the fifteenth century. They converted the native Austronesians, who, as a people, retained the barangay structure of community and lacked a national identity. By the mid-sixteenth century, Muslim sultanates extended as far north as what is present-day Manila.

Explorers in service of Spain reached the Philippines in the sixteenth century and claimed it for the Spanish crown. Poor relationships with the natives prevented the Spanish from establishing a permanent colony in the Philippines until 1565. In 1570, Spanish agents were sent to Luzon to conquer the Manila region, which had become an important trading center with Southeast Asia. They overpowered the Muslims and, in 1571, designated Manila the capital city of the Spanish islands of Las Filipinas.

To protect Manila from invaders, the Spanish built a thick stone wall around it in 1584. This enclosed area, called Intramuros, was laid out like a modern European city, complete with a fort and stone churches. Extramuros, the area outside the walls, contained pueblo-like villages. The Spanish converted the natives in Manila to Catholicism, and from there sent missionaries to other parts of the Philippines. Eventually, nearly all of the Philippines was converted to the Spanish way of life. Not all Filipinos accepted Spanish rule however, and revolutionaries took up arms against the Spanish during the Philippine Revolution (1896–98). The revolution did not succeed in ousting the Spanish from the archipelago, however.

Spanish colonial rule of the Philippines did not come to an end until the conclusion of the Spanish-American War of 1898. The United States defeated Spain within a year, and then purchased the Philippines for $20 million. The transfer of authority was not recognized by Filipino leaders, however, and Filipino revolutionaries fought against the United States during the Philippine-American War. In 1901, the United States recognized the capital city of Manila as a municipality with the right to elect its own officials. It modernized Manila by installing an improved water system, building electrical plants that supplied electricity to the city, widening roads, adding new infrastructure, and providing better health care and education to its residents.

World War II curtailed this period of growth, however. Japanese soldiers invaded Manila in 1942. By the time they surrendered the city in 1945, over 80 percent of Manila had been destroyed. In 1946, shortly after the end of the war, the United States granted the Philippines independence. Manila was named the national capital, and retained this status until 1948. Over the next several decades, Manila benefited from a strong economy and was able to rebuild and expand.

Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos, who held power from 1966 until 1986, curtailed personal liberties, violated human rights, and sent the country's economy into a tailspin by enacting martial law in 1972. In 1976, he proclaimed Manila the capital of the Philippines once again and combined the city of Manila with nearby municipalities to form Metropolitan Manila. Martial law was lifted in 1981, but corruption and a poor economy remained even after a revolution in Metropolitan Manila in 1986 forced Marcos into exile.

Between 1986 and 2016, the Philippines has had six presidents: Corazon Aquino, the nation's eleventh president and widow of opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr., who had been assassinated in 1983; Fidel Ramos; Joseph Estrada, who was impeached on corruption charges; Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who had previously served as Estrada's vice president; Benigno Aquino III, son of Benigno and Corazon Aquino; and Rodrigo Duterte, a former longtime mayor of Davao who has declared war on drugs and has publicly approved the extrajudicial killings of drug users and criminals.

Bibliography

Chu, Richard T. Chinese and Chinese Mestizos of Manila: Family, Identity, and Culture, 1860s–1930s. Brill, 2010.

Clarke, Gerard. Civil Society in the Philippines: Theoretical, Methodological and Policy Debates. Routledge, 2012.

Delano, James Whitlow. "Sinking Land and Rising Seas Threaten Manila Bay's Coastal Communities." Inside Climate News, 18 Nov. 2022, insideclimatenews.org/news/18112022/sinking-land-and-rising-seas-threaten-manila-bays-coastal-communities/. Accessed 28 Feb. 2024.

Demographia World Urban Areas. 15th ed., Demographia, 2019. Demographia, www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf. Accessed 2 Apr. 2019.

"Highlights of the Philippine Population 2015 Census of Population." Philippine Statistics Authority, 19 May 2016, psa.gov.ph/content/highlights-philippine-population-2015-census-population. Accessed 21 Dec. 2016.

Lorenzana, Jozon A. "Being Indian in Post-colonial Metro Manila: Identities, Boundaries and the Media." Migration and Diversity in Asian Contexts, edited by Lai Ah Eng et al., Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2013, pp. 182–206.

"Philippine Population Density (Based on the 2015 Census of Population)." Philippine Statistics Authority, 1 Sept. 2016, psa.gov.ph/content/philippine-population-density-based-2015-census-population. Accessed 2 Apr. 2019.

"Philippines." The World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency, 20 Feb. 2024, www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/philippines/. Accessed 28 Feb. 2024.

Shatkin, Gavin. Collective Action and Urban Poverty Alleviation: Community Organizations and the Struggle for Shelter in Manila. Ashgate, 2007.