A Walk through History

Philippine history with a dash of humor, drama, and passion in Carlos Celdran’s walking tours

By Trina D. Dela Rama

An especially toxic week at the office always calls for a special respite – something novel and exciting, an activity to cajole me out of my corporate frame of mind. Preferably, an activity to take me at least a few hundred meters away from the common destination of choice: the ubiquitous commercial shopping center.

An invitation to write about the walking tours of Carlos Celdran popped out from a sea of email messages. “The first and only walking tour in the Philippines,” it said. I was instructed to log on to www.celdrantours.blogspot.com, the blog of Carlos Celdran. There, I found a detailed listing of the tours, including general itineraries, fees, tour dates, and meeting places. I didn’t know Carlos Celdran from Adam, yet the combination of familiarity and mystery of the featured places drew me in. I scanned the list of tours offered by a man with obvious wit and humor: If These Walls Could Talk! (Intramuros Walking Tour); The North Bank! (Walking Tour of Escolta, Quiapo, and the North Side of the Pasig River); Martial Arts! (Walking Tour of the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex); All the Way Down to Chinatown! (Walking and Calesa Ride through Binondo and San Nicolas).

Each tour makes a sweet offer to the reader, beginning with a leisurely walk through Philippine history. The Martial Arts! write-up is a favorite: “It’s a tour all about the Philippines in the 1970s, and the tumultuous era of Martial Law, 18-inch bell-bottoms, and Miss Universe. It’s a little bit disco, a little bit New Society, and completely Imeldific. So come take a trippy trip through National Artist for Architecture Leandro Locsin’s finest buildings as we analyze one of the most exciting periods in Philippine history.”

Now, who wouldn’t be interested in a tour advertised as such? I sent a quick email to Carlos Celdran to confirm my attendance at the Intramuros Walking Tour, plus a text message just to make sure, then scrambled to find a map.

Rediscovering Home

The walls of Intramuros are difficult to miss as one approaches from Roxas Boulevard. Built by the Spaniard Miguel Lopez de Legaspi in 1571, the city walls once protected the most important homes, buildings, churches, and hospitals from attacks by the Chinese, Dutch, and Portuguese. Since its destruction during World War II, Intramuros has stood as a silent memorial to the glory that Manila once had.

Our meeting place was the San Agustin Church, the only building left intact during the American liberation of Manila in 1945. Built in 1586 and completed in 1606, San Agustin is the oldest stone church in Metro Manila and one of the four Philippine baroque churches listed in UNESCO’s World Heritage list.

As soon as Carlos Celdran stepped out of his car, I knew he was the man I was looking for. It could very well be said that one attends his walking tours to witness him at work and at play as much as to learn something new. Carlos was in full costume. Donning a top hat, loose black pants, leather sandals, and an 1800s-inspired white shirt – with an intricate gold tambourine necklace around his neck – the Spanish-Filipino guide looked like he had come straight out of a history book, save for the car and the yellow messenger bag.

After a quick hello, he directed me to the foyer of the adjoining museum and then scampered off to greet other guests. Joining us that day were a foreign guest, his Filipino hosts, and two women who I gather must have been balikbayans. Each one entered the museum entrance with the same amused expression that I had after meeting Carlos.

A Different Way of Seeing

The San Agustin Church has been the center of the Agustinian order for centuries and to this day it still functions as an Agustinian seminary. The halls of the lower floor and a fraction of the second floor, however, were converted into a museum in 1973.

Carlos welcomed everyone and explained that the tour would be conducted classroom-style, pertaining to instructions to sit and stand at certain points of the tour. Then, the first notes of a famous melody grabbed our attention.

Carlos had miraculously produced a cassette recorder from his messenger bag and popped in a tape. His right hand solemnly gestured for us to rise, while his left hand waved a tiny Philippine flag he again conjured from his bag. Between pleased chuckles from the tourists at the song’s commencement, Carlos surprised everyone by saying that the notes of the “Lupang Hinirang,” the Philippine national anthem, are exactly the same as those of the “Marseilles,” the French national anthem, only backwards! Truly, Carlos pointed out, Philippine culture is in many ways an upside-down reproduction of other traditions.

With this, we proceeded to take a closer look at the colonization of the Philippines and how many hands have shaped who we are today. Carlos’ tools for instruction: the cassette recorder, a black clear book full of the most interesting photographs that have yet to see publication in a textbook, an assortment of objects in his messenger bag (we spotted a piece of china in there), and a city-full of historical artifacts.

Carlos Celdran spices up his tours with theatrical story telling and tittle-tattle on colorful personas in Philippine history

The tour, of course, was anything but boring or serious. Carlos Celdran has been made famous by the novelty of his services, but more so by his charm, intelligence, and passion, not to mention his infectious laughter. No tour of his would be complete without theatrical story telling, a spattering of irreverent humor and perfectly timed quips, and tittle-tattle on colorful personas in Philippine history. He fires 10 trivia at one go and executes a breathtaking one-minute spiel on Jose Rizal. How much information can one man hold, I wonder? And yet, Carlos Celdran is self-taught in Philippine history. A painter by profession, he started guiding tours for the Heritage Conservation Society and then went into it as a freelancer. His walking tours of Intramuros have been running for almost four years now.

Upon leaving the special Legaspi exhibit on display, one of the tourists announced, “Wow. I always knew I wasn’t learning enough in school.” The rest of us couldn’t agree more.

From the Legaspi exhibit, we moved to the second floor of the museum. Overlooking the beautifully serene courtyard, the Sala de la Capitulacion provided the perfect venue for a discussion on the change of hands from Spanish to American rule of the Philippines. According to tradition, the draft for the surrender of Manila to the Americans was prepared in 1898, on the very table where we were gathered, intently listening to Carlos.

Time stopped as our small group moved to the crypt, which serves as a memorial to 141 prisoners of war killed by the Japanese in World War II, as well as to the innocent victims of the same war. Carlos lighted a candle as we whispered prayers for all the lives lost. Manila was the second most-destroyed city after Warsaw. But while Warsaw was destroyed by its enemies, the city of Intramuros was ironically destroyed by the Americans, who had aimed to liberate the city from the Japanese. The stories of mass murder, brutal deaths, and the thoughtless eradication of Manila’s heart and soul are those I will remember with sadness each time I pass Intramuros.

Moving towards the San Agustin Church itself, where Miguel Lopez de Legaspi himself is buried, the group stopped to learn even more about the nuances of Philippine art, culture, and society. Then venturing into a more intimate journey into the personal lives of Intramuros’ former residents, we crossed the street to the San Luis Complex on the corner of General Luna and Real Streets, where Casa de Manila is located.

Carlos’s biographical account of former first lady Imelda Marcos, by whose command the Casa was built in the 1980s as an almost accurate representation of a private home in Intramuros in the past, opens the Casa de Manila tour. There, history indeed hits home, with a thorough yet enthralling discussion on uniquely Filipino habits, traits, and customs. Have you ever squirmed about Filipinos’ lack of respect for privacy, your mother’s embarrassing habit of displaying photos of every family trip all over the house, or the large bowl of plastic fruits on the table? Have you ever wondered about the tradition of extended families, or the roots of such favorite Filipino dishes such as adobo and papaitan? Interesting tales answer these questions, together with equally fascinating accounts of how ice used to be exported from abroad and how the beautiful city of Intramuros used to smell rather fishy.

Two hours of history lessons were never as personally satisfying nor as thoroughly enjoyable as those spent on the walking tour. Anything you read in the newspapers or hear through the grapevine will not quite do justice to the activity and more so to the man whose personality and expertise is stamped so distinctly in the tour’s every detail. To experience is truly to live – and to experience the walking tours of Carlos Celdran is to gain a whole new way of seeing time, history, the politics of human relations, and the self in conjunction with all these.

To know more about Carlos Celdran’s walking tours, log on to www.celdrantours.blogspot.com or send an email to celdrantours@hotmail.com. Interested parties can also call (0926) 259-7506.