Merry Christmas everyone! To celebrate this wonderful season—Vista Pinas style, let’s go to the acknowledged Christmas Capital of the Philippines, San Fernando City in Pampanga. At the San Fernando Exit of the North Luzon Expressway, across from the previously featured SM City Pampanga and Robinsons Starmills Pampanga is the former Paskuhan Village, now the HILAGA Philippines. This part of San Fernando got high-resolution imagery this year and so we can finally feature this sight.

This tourist attraction features a star-shaped Plenary Hall which symbolizes the world-class lantern-making industry of San Fernando. The site underwent a rehabilitation in 2003 under the Department of Tourism and was redubbed the HILAGA Philippines, a mini-Nayong Pilipino focusing on northern Luzon. According to this Philippine Tourism Authority webpage, the site features, among others, the Kappianan na Cagayan Valley Hall and the Gran Cordillera Abong Hall. Other amenities include an amphitheater, a swimming pool, and a rock-climbing facility.

Finally, the Ligligan Parul is the famous Giant Lantern Festival of San Fernando. This year marks the 100th anniversary of lantern-making in this city, which is said to have been started by Francisco Estanislao in 1908. The competition among nine barangays happened last December 20 at Robinsons Starmills and last year’s champion, Barangay Telabastagan, won again this year. I’m not sure if they’ll be displaying the giant lanterns at Paskuhan Village like they did last year, but here’s a video from 2006 showing how very pretty these lanterns are. (You can also view other videos on YouTube if you want.)

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Christmas season is here and one Filipino Christmas pasttime that I remember from my childhood are the fairs, carnivals, and amusement parks. You’re definitely a Manilenyo child of the 80s if you remember Big Bang sa Alabang and Payanig sa Pasig. Big Bang sa Alabang used to be located where the Madrigal Business Park is now and its main attraction is the 4-storey Giant Slide. Payanig sa Pasig was located in what is now Metrowalk in Ortigas and it sported a medieval motif. Big Bang and Payanig’s contemporaries include the Boom na Boom Carnival at the PICC Complex and its neighbor Star City. Among these, only Star City remains in business to this day. The end of the Christmas carnival/fair era was marked by the rise of Enchanted Kingdom, which operates throughout the year.

Photo by Jun Acullador. (CC-BY-ND-2.0)

Star City was a novelty when it opened back in the early 90s (I think). I’m not completely sure but I think Star City was the first local amusement park that had most of its rides imported from outside the Philippines. One ride that used to be really popular was the Wild River which is a wet roller coaster. You’re guaranteed to get a bit wet when you ride it and I guess that went really well with park-goers. (Unfortunately, a 13-year-old girl died on that ride in 2006 when she stood up from her seat and fell to the ground becoming that ride’s first fatality.)

It’s been years since I last went to Star City so I don’t know much about it anymore. One thing I do know is that the complex now sports the Aliw Theather, which is a popular venue for concerts and variety shows. Anyway, I’ll just point you over to this blog post written last year by Anton Diaz so that you can get a first-hand blogger—and father’s—look at Star City. This Saksi news segment aired last month might also prove interesting: It shows that many people still flock to Star City. (Some people probably find Enchanted Kingdom too far. Hehehe.)

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Photo by fadedmilkyway. (CC-BY-ND-2.0)

Unless you’re the type who sleeps during the trip, it’d be impossible for you to miss the gigantic Lion’s Head along Kennon Road on the way to Baguio City. This carved monument is one of the most popular tourist attractions of Baguio City and the sight of it signifies that one is very near Baguio—but not without passing through several zigzag turns first. (The monument is actually located at Camp 6 in Tuba, Benguet.) There’s almost always a tourist or two making this landmark a stopover and grabbing a souvenir photo of the Lion, to the delight of the store-owners a short walk to the north.

This Lion’s Head was a project of the Lions Club whose Baguio chapter decided to create a monument to signify their presence in the city. The decision to create the Lion’s Head occurred in 1968 during the term of Baguio Mayor Luis Lardizabal, who was also a Lions Club member. Work began in 1971 and was completed and unveiled in 1972. You can check out the history over at this Lions Club Baguio webpage. This mirrored Inquirer article is also informative.

The Lion has undergone numerous paint jobs and I’ve seen it in its yellow veneer and it’s black attire during the numerous times I’ve gone to Baguio City. The Lion’s Head is actually camouflaged in the satellite imagery of Google Maps and I’ve highlighted where it is in the retouched thumbnail picture above.

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Located very near the previously featured Gapusan Beach is the Cuyo Fort in the town of the same name in Palawan. This fort stands very prominent in the history of Palawan because Cuyo was once the capital of Palawan from 1873 till 1903. This is according to the official website of the Provincial Government of Palawan, which gives a somewhat contradictory account in their history page. It seems that after Taytay, Cuyo became the capital of the province of Castilla, which covered the northern portions of the present-day province of Palawan. In 1903, the three provinces of Castilla, Asturias, and Balabac were constituted by the Americans into Palawan and designated Puerto Princesa as the capital. Cuyo became a capital because the island’s location was strategically located between Panay and the mainland of Palawan.

Photo by Thopz Perez, from the Flickr photostream of Cuyo Press.

The Cuyo Fort was completed in 1683 (the National Historical Institute marker on the site gives a date of “about 1680”) and served as the town center of Cuyo and a primary means of defence against enemies from the sea, usually Moros. The fort houses a church on one side and a convent on the opposite side (which is now located perpendicular to the church). In 1827, a belltower was added on one of the corners, or bastions, of the fort.

Some more information about the fort can be found on this blog post (and it has a couple of pictures), while this other blog post contains several seemingly cut-and-pasted information about Cuyo itself. Finally, check out this photo gallery, which contains a lot of pictures of the fort.

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Here’s a very interesting find for Vista Pinas. 2338 Makiki Heights Drive, Honolulu, Hawaii, is the address of the mansion where former President Ferdinand Marcos spent his last years in exile until his death on September 28, 1989 (the 29th in the Philippines). (His body is currently interred at the previously featured Marcos Mausoleum in Ilocos Norte.) After being ousted from Malacañang Palace during the 1986 People Power Revolution, Marcos and his family was brought to Clark Air Base by the U.S. Military then to Guam and finally to Hawaii. In that U.S. state, Marcos first stayed at a house in Niu Valley on the Kalaniana’ole Highway before finally settling at the Makiki Heights residence.

The mansion is technically not the property of the Marcoses but was provided to them as a place to stay by Bienvenido Tantoco and the estate of Gliceria Tantoco and who supposedly owned the property’s title through the company Lei Investments, Ltd. Nevertheless, the mansion and the lot was considered as part of Marcos’ ill-gotten wealth (Lei Investments allegedly being a dummy Marcos corporation) and there was a move to seize this house, which was later retracted. (See this article for details, but this New York Times article gives a conflicting account of ownership.) The mansion was eventually sold for 1 to 2 million dollars and the money is now part of the settlement package to be handed out to the human rights victims of the Marcos regime.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’m not 100% sure that the house I’m pointing to here and the one shown in the Google Maps thumbnail is 2338 Makiki Heights Drive. But I’m fairly certain I got the correct residence because of some “investigative journalism” on my part. First of all, the location of the street, Makiki Heights Drive, is certain: I checked in Google Maps, Microsoft Live Maps, and Yahoo! Maps. Next, I tried the geocoding feature of all three mapping providers and Google and Microsoft pointed to this house, while Yahoo!‘s was several tens of meters off to the north so I’m fairly assured that I’m in the correct vicinity. (I don’t trust the geocoding 100% since it may be off by some amount as I found out when I searched for Jollibee Daly City back in 2006.)

For corroboration, I searched and read various online articles about the house and found out that it has a swimming pool, extensive gardens, a gate, a long driveway, and that it overlooks the ocean. Using the satellite imagery from the three mapping providers, and most especially Microsoft’s Bird’s Eye view (check out this particular view), I determined that the house pointed to by both Google and Microsoft’s geocoding was the only one in the area that matches the mansion’s description.

So there. Through the magic of the Internet, we can now “visit” Hawaii and see how Marcos lavishly lived out his last years. (Read this New York Times article for a more in-depth look.) Now if I can only find the Heidelberg, Germany house where Rizal lived.

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Many people have the mistaken impression that the Mabuhay Rotonda marks the boundary between Manila and Quezon City. The whole intersection is actually found around 50 meters from the border and completely within Quezon City. Formerly called the Welcome Rotonda until it was renamed on May 17, 1995, the Mabuhay Rotonda is at the confluence of three of Metro Manila’s major streets: España Boulevard going southwest to Quiapo, Quezon Avenue going northeast to Diliman, and E. Rodriguez Sr. Avenue headed east towards Cubao. Mayon Avenue and Nicanor Ramirez St. are two other roads that end in the rotunda.

At the center of the 25-meter wide rotunda stands a rectangular marble monument with the words “Mabuhay” (Long Live) and “Lungsod Quezon” (Quezon City) written at the top. Surrounding the monument’s pedestal are four lion statues. Despite the name, the Mabuhay Rotonda is not actually a rotunda or a roundabout: cars cannot go round and round the monument. In particular, the section of the circle between the monument and España is closed to traffic, save for a lane that’s presumably used by tricycles and pedicabs (see this photo).

Photo by trekm. (CC-BY-NC-SA-2.0)

The monument was designed by architect Luciano V. Aquino and built in 1948 during the term of Mayor Ponciano Bernardo. Quezon City has just been declared the capital of the Philippines on July 17, 1948 and so the monument was build to welcome people to the capital, hence “Welcome Rotonda”. During the Marcos era till the present, Mabuhay Rotunda is one of the usual gathering places for street rallies as these two photos illustrate. It’s a good rally site since it’s quite visible, being the endpoints of three major streets, to the consternation of the drivers and commuters. And recently, MMDA put up one of their numerous bright blue and pink footbridges at the intersection along Quezon Avenue, marring the sight of the Rotonda (check out this Flickr picture).

If you want to learn more, this Manila Times article provides a history of the rotunda as seen from the eyes of one of its nearby residents.

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I think we can consider Gaston Park to be the center of the City of Cagayan de Oro. It functions as the equivalent of the town plaza since to the northwest stands the City Hall and to the southwest is the Saint Augustine Metropolitan Cathedral, which is the seat of the Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro. To the west lies Cagayan de Oro River and the Carmen Bridge.

Photo by Marc Benton. (CC-BY-NC-SA-2.0)

Gaston Park was named after Segundo Gaston, a pre-war mayor of Cagayan de Misamis (the old name of the city) who served from 1916-1919 and then went on to become the governor of the old Province of Misamis. The park was the site of a Spanish settlement established in the 1620s by the Augustinian Recollects. A wooden (then stone) fort, called Fuerza Real de San Jose, was built at the site to repel the Moros under Sultan Kudarat coming from the south but was later demolished in 1875. The area became an execution area for criminals during the Spanish period and later as a training ground for Filipinos during the Philippine-American War.

As you can clearly see from the Google Maps thumbnail, Gaston Park is a circular park about a 100 meters in diameter and the big round smaller circle at the middle is a fountain pictured to the side. The fountain was created through the initiative of former Mayor Justiniano Borja. The place is a popular hangout during Sundays (probably by the churchgoers from the nearby cathedral).

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The National Arts Center is a picturesque institution located at the sides of Mount Makiling 200 meters above sea level in Los Baños, Laguna. This is one of former First Lady Imelda Marcos’ numerous architectural projects and was established in 1976. (Other such projects that have been featured here in Vista Pinas include the Golden Mosque and the Coconut Palace.) The National Arts Center is run by the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

Photo by Marie.

The most prominent structure in the National Arts Center is the Tanghalang Maria Makiling, a 2,500 capacity, flat-top-pyramid-shaped, open-air theater that is quite visible from the surrounding area. This theater was named after the legend of Maria Makiling and it’s the one shown in the photo above and in the satellite image thumbnail. Other important buildings are the Pugad Adarna (Executive House) to the north, the Bulwagang Sarimanok (Clubhouse) to the northeast, and the Pugad Aliguyon (Marvilla Cottages) to the southeast.

The National Arts Center also houses the Philippine High School for the Arts which provides scholarships for the artistically-gifted youth. You can find the campus due south from the Tanghalang Maria Makiling at the end of the north-south road.

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I’m doing a double feature for Vista Pinas this time: Robinsons Starmills Pampanga in the previous post and SM City Pampanga in this one. I think it’s apt since these two malls of the two largest mall operators in the Philippines stand right across each other in San Fernando City and adjacent to the San Fernando Exit of the North Luzon Expressway. I don’t know of any other pair of SM and Robinsons malls that are closer than these two.

What’s immediately obvious from the satellite image is the fact that this SM City still embodies the typical monolithic rectangular architecture of almost every other SM Supermall; the notable exceptions being SM City Baguio and the Mall of Asia. It’s also interesting to see that SM City Pampanga is also aligned with the cardinal directions, just like SM Megamall and SM City Baguio are. Also, when the satellite image was taken, the eastern annex is still not finished. What’s not observable from the satellite image is the fact that the land occupied by SM City Pampanga actually straddles the boundary between San Fernando and the town of Mexico. Finally, if this news article is to be believed, SM City Pampanga is supposedly the longest mall in the country, with a total length of 668 meters east to west. (SM Megamall is about 550 meters north to south, while SM North EDSA is about 600 meters east to west.)

Photo from the website of SM Prime Holdings.

Anyway, SM City Pampanga is the earlier of the two malls and was finished back in November 2000. Upon completion of its 3 annexes, the mall now has a total retail floor area of about 13 hectares. Among its anchors include various other SM properties like the SM Department Store, SM Supermarket, SM Cinemas, SM Appliance Center, Toy Kingdom, and ACE Hardware.

Should you wish to know more, there’s a good enough Wikipedia article and a kinda useless official webpage. Hehehe.

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I’m doing a double feature for Vista Pinas this time: Robinsons Starmills Pampanga on this post and SM City Pampanga in the next. I think it’s apt since these two malls of the two largest mall operators in the Philippines stand right across each other in San Fernando City and adjacent to the San Fernando Exit of the North Luzon Expressway. I don’t know of any other pair of SM and Robinsons malls that are closer than these two.

In stark contrast to the pasty white roof architecture of SM City, the Robinsons mall has red roofs and a decidedly irregular shape reminiscent of its flagship mall, Robinsons Galleria, in Ortigas Center. Visible in the satellite image is the unmistakable triangular marking of a helipad on the eastern wing, something I’m surprised to learn a mall could have. Anyway, Robinsons Starmills has a total retail floor area of about 6 hectares and was opened in February 2002. Among its anchors are the requisite Robinsons Department Store, Robinsons Supermarket, and Robinsons Movieworld.

Photo taken from the Philippine Beaches and Beach Resorts website

I’ve always been intrigued by the unique name of the mall. So, if this news article is true, the name “Starmills” was supposedly inspired by the famous Christmas star lanterns (parol) of San Fernando City, the unofficial Christmas capital of the Philippines. All along, I thought that the mall’s building used to be a flour or paper mill with the name “Starmills”. Hehehe.

If you’re interested to learn more, this old article about the opening of Robinsons Starmills contains plenty of information. Two of the interesting snippets from the article are: “The mall also has six entrances, each representing a different geographical region of the country, and a lighthouse behind the building features observation decks for viewing the nearby mountains” and “as a next step, Robinsons plans to expand the site with residential, hotel and office developments within the next few years”. It seems taht the hotel and office developments are still to be developed, and I’m not so sure where the lighthouse is. I’m guessing it’s the white circle near the southern part of the mall and the mountain for viewing is most probably the imposing Mount Arayat.

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