“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 to Conquer the Orient for the Cross. Through these old streets once crowded a marvelous mulititude - viceroys and archbishops; mystics and merchants; pagan sorcerers and Christian Martyrs, Portuguese traitors, Dutch Spies, Moro Sultans, and Yanke clipper captains. For three centuries this medieval town was a Babylon in commerce and a New Jerusalem in its faith…

Now look: this is all that it’s left of it now. Weeds and rubble and scrap iron. A piece of wall, a fragment of stairway - and over there, the smashed gothic facade of Santo Domingo … Quomodo desolata es, Civitas Dei! (How desolate are you, the City of God!)”

-Bitoy Camacho
A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino, Nick Joaquin 

(Source: Flickr / johntewell)