DECEMBER 8 marks the 196th
foundation day of El Pueblo de los Angeles, when the settlement Culiat,
established in 1796 by Don Angel Pantaleon Miranda and his esposa Doña
Rosalía de Jesús, separated from its matrix San Fernando and was officially
named in honor of the holy patrons Los Santos Angeles Custodios.
“A history built on
resilience, culture, and the enduring spirit of every Angeleño,” read a blurb
from the city LGU of this year’s commemoration, instantly opening the memory
bank of my earlier stories of Angeles City. This one from February 2006 focuses
on aspects of heritage.
Heritage of sin
DON Angel Pantaleon de
Miranda, in his storied goodness, had only supremely sublime ends in founding
Kuliat. Conversely – more aptly, perversely – Angeles, the city that rose out
of Kuliat, was conceived and birthed from the loins of an occupying army. How
the Don must have convulsed in his grave!
The epithetical “Sodom of the Pacific” summed up the city’s not so distant
American past, and impacted in its present as well (Or as badly?).
Sin City has been so etched in the national psyche as an Angeles legacy that it
simply cannot be buried in oblivion, not even by the thousand tons of Mt.
Pinatubo ash and lahar that devastated the city. Or, if one may, phoenix-like
it formed, flew and flourished from that very volcanic ash. Whichever, Sin City
is there as ever in all its shameful – or should it be shameless? – ignominy.
An unwanted but indefeasible heritage.
Heritage. The word is one hot issue these days, rising from the teapotted
tempest that brewed out of the proposed city council resolution of the
Honorable Jay Sangil to declare the Grand Palazzo Royale as a city heritage
site. Precisely, the alderman argued, to focus on the good and the beautiful in
the city and veer it away from its sin image. No fireworks were exchanged
though in the council hearing at the Palazzo itself with learned members of the
community opening their cultural and historical reservoir of knowledge that was
greatly appreciated by all those present.
So, Grand Palazzo Royale may not fit the heritage tag but, in the words of
Tourism Director Ronnie Tiotuico, more than qualifies as a “prime tourist
attraction.” Interestingly, Tiotuico pointed out that the craftsmanship
involved in the construction of the Palazzo, being a skill passed down from
preceding generations, is by itself a heritage.
Presently though, a presumed (presumption mine) cultural cognoscente who was
not present at the hearing came out in print with a scholarly disquisition on
heritage. Thanks to his erudition, we barbarians whose comprehension of
heritage was bounded by its dictionary definition of “property that can be
inherited” were enlightened with the element of time, historical significance,
cultural impact, and ethnic identity that make heritage… well, heritage.
In the practical application of this new-found learning, I am now inclined to
lobby the city council to declare Fields Avenue as a city heritage site. It
meets the qualifications of time, having been there for as long as anyone can
remember; of historical significance – of world proportions at that, playing a
pivotal, albeit leisurely, role in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, care-giving to
battle-fatigued American GIs; of cultural impact, being the melting pot of
Waray, Cebuano, Bicolano, Ilonggo, Ilocano, and Capampangan culture,
pulchritude, even idiosyncrasy, if not perversity; of ethnic identity, Fields
Avenue is uniquely Angeles City’s.
A bonus: Fields Avenue has an international reputation, being the point of
convergence of foreigners, no, make that a miniature United Nations in the
city, with its share of just about every nationality: American, Australian,
British, Belgian, Swiss, German, Japanese, Korean, Indian, Chinese, Malaysian,
Singaporean, Thai, whatever. To some others though, Fields Avenue could make
the Interpol’s rogues’ gallery on the profiles of some of its habitués.
Yet another international factor for Fields Avenue is its having more hits in
the Internet than the Angeles City and Pampanga websites combined. Then there
was that spread – publicity, good or bad is still publicity – in the glossy GQ
magazine titled “The Sex Trade, Part 1: Pleasure, At Any Price,” indeed a
crowning achievement for Angeles City’s famed avenue of the senses.
Even more qualified than
Fields as a city heritage site is the Area, also uniquely Angeles City’s.
Pre-war pa, it even holds some anthropological significance being
the long-preferred locus of the rite of passage of Capampangan males. The Area
easily coasted through the American Period, the Japanese Occupation, and the
American Re-Occupation, and survived a number of conflagrations sparked by
righteous religious vigilantism.
The Area – it is privately acknowledged – even
serves as a zone of peace: the combatants – policemen, army troopers,
insurgents of all persuasions – laying down their arms there to lie down in the
arms of its denizens.
Sin City forever. A fitting heritage for Angeles. Pronounce that the American
way --
“ein-jeh-less.” Translating to “without angels,” as in where there is
sin there are no angels. Haven’t we read something to this effect somewhere?
Yes, The Sinners of Angeles, magnum opus of the Capampangan writer
I revere most, Tatang Katoks Tayag. Now, that’s one literary heritage Angelenos
should be most proud of.
2025. TO BE FAIR, sin has
since been expunged from the city’s image not so much by human design as by
some karmic irony or poetic justice: Clark’s past as the bastion of American
imperialism drawing in all sorts of camp followers, prostitutes most
infamously; Clark’s present as special freeport zone generating investments,
trade, tourism, and employment.
For bad, for good.
Indivisibility makes Clark and Angeles – that is the city’s indelible
heritage.
