What's your memory of Luneta?

The monument of the Philippine National Hero, Dr. Jose P. Rizal, who will celebrate his 151st birth anniversary tomorrow- June 19, stands proudly at the park named after him - the Rizal Park.  It's better known as Luneta Park.

During the execution of Rizal on December 30, 1989, the park was called Bagumbayan or Nuevo Barrio (New Town or the Tagalog word, Bagumbayan). This is also the site where the three martyr-priests, Gomez, Burgos, Zamora were shot.

Luneta or Rizal Park is certainly rich with history.  It is where the Independence Day from the American rule was proclaimed on July 4, 1946, and it is also the favourite site where Philippine presidents take their oath and where they're proclaimed president of the Republic.

I'm sure everyone has her/his own memories of Luneta Park.  

As a youth in the late 50's and early 60's, my father used to bring us to Luneta on Sundays.  He'd pack us eight kids into his huge green Pontiac and drive through Paco and onto the wide lanes of Dewey Boulevard, now Roxas Blvd.  

We'd run and inhale the sweet scent of Manila Bay (this to combat a nagging cough as my parents used to tell us). "Malinis ang simoy ng hangin, magaling sa ubo."

Of course the water of Manila Bay was clean and pure those days.  You can actually taste its saltiness as you clear your throat and try to inhale way deep down your stomach.  We'd even ride the bote or ferry for a short cruise of Manila Bay.

As we grew older, our trips to Luneta became scarce.  Sometimes some of us kids sneaked out on our parents and asked our cousin to drive us to Luneta to watch the skaters trut their wares, or we went there during school class trips.

As we matured even further in the late 70's and early 80's, Luneta became a place not to be.  The Park, although refurbished largely by the late Doroy Valencia and the ex-First Lady Imelda Marcos, deteriorated in status and became synonymous with cheap trysts and forbidden activities which took place in the many dimmed mazes of the Japanese Garden, along the shore and inside the cars parked near the Cultural Centre and the Folk Arts Theatre.

Even Rico J. Puno immortalized Luneta in his Tagalog version of The Way We Where, "namamasyal pa sa Luneta kahit walang pera."

Like its benefactors, the Marcoses, Luneta symbolized both the excesses and filth of the Martial Law years, with its mammoth structures and rehabilitation done in haste to court foreighn tourists and to hide the stink of the dictatorship, squatters in and along the Boulevard, among many others.

After the Marcos' downfall, new politics arrived and in the succeeding years, Luneta seemed to be forgotten with its crumbling pavements and vagrancy problems, until the late 90's and the early 2000's when Atienza and the Erap administration brought revival to the Boulevard by the Bay.

Luneta's Fountain

So Luneta continued to survive.  As Luneta was originally envisioned by the American colonizers,  (Philstar 2000 article), it was a dream.

"The dream had started at the turn of the century as the Americans sought to shape the city in the image of a great colonial capital. Daniel Burnham stood at the old Luneta (somewhere around the present Rizal monument) and saw that the greatest asset of the area was its proximity to the waterside and the "priceless" view of the magnificent bay and the daily magic of its fiery sunset.

But the port works were already in progress and were blocking the view so he immediately suggested the extension of the waterfront a thousand feet into the water. This reclamation would also allow for a hotel and other leisure facilities on either side of the extension framing a clear and unimpeded view of the bay. These were built within 10 years of the plan and have been part of Manila's historic landscape for the past 85 years. Three generations of Filipinos have enjoyed the priceless amenity of this open space. Future generations may not be so lucky."

Today, Luneta is on the roll.  With the Baywalk and an extended acreage into the Bay, the Park provides added tourist income, but less view, less clean air and diminished space for the strollers. 

Now, visitors to Luneta may take an evening Manila Bay boat cruise which features food and entertainment. 

No more wind in your face, as in our youthful years.