[Ilonggo Notes] Exploring Plaza Libertad, Iloilo’s first town square

Plaza Alfonso XII was renamed “Plaza Libertad” after the flag of Philippine Independence was first raised in the Visayas on December 25, 1898, shortly after then-Spanish governor-general Diego de los Rios left Iloilo, the last colonial capital in the country.

It was a brief independence, though, as under the Treaty of Paris, Spain ceded the Philippines and its other “possessions” to the US; by mid-February 1899 the Americans took control of Iloilo City, with fighting continuing for two more years on the outskirts and the hinterlands of Panay.

But the history of Plaza Libertad is much older – this 1.5-hectare open space was the central space around which the original city grid was delineated, probably in the 17th and early 18th centuries. The city’s main civic and religious buildings were planned around the original Spanish fort (now known as Fort San Pedro), the entrance to the Iloilo River – in truth, an estuary, and the Port of Iloilo. The street connecting the Fort to the Plaza, Santo Rosario, is the oldest in the city.

The church of San Jose de Placer in its current form was built between 1873 and 1885 by the Augustinian Mauricio Blanco; the Augustinian Order still administers it to date. It is also known as the “spiritual home” of the Dinagyang Festival, since it was in the church that a replica of the Cebu Santo Niño was installed in the 1970s, to the rhythms of the Ati-Atihan tribes of Kalibo, coming on the invitation of the parish priest, Father Ambrosio Galindez, OSA.

The following year, a week after the Kalibo Ati-Atihan, the parish organized the Iloilo Ati-Atihan, which was later renamed the Dinagyang. The festival has come to be known as THE Philippine festival to see and experience, with its unique brand of fervor, beats, and spectacle.

Inside the church, popular with the visiting faithful are the Santo Niño and a sawed-off hand of the Virgin, located in a glass case on top of the side altar. Several prominent Ilonggos have tombstones inside the church.

In Iloilo, the Most Noble City History and Development 1566-1898, Father Policarpo Hernandez noted that in 1890, a cornerstone was laid for a monument in the Center of the Plaza, and in January 1894, work on the plaza started based on the design of Public Works Minister Don Angel Vega. Provincial Governor Don Ricardo Monet formally inaugurated the plaza on August 13, 1896. It was named after the Spains Crown Prince Alfonso XII.

Until the late 19th century it was a fairly open, simple green space, sometimes used for pasture, and it is likely that a temporary bull ring – the only one outside of Manila – was constructed in the plaza itself. After the opening of the port to world trade in 1855, developments came in leaps and bounds, particularly in the last quarter of the 19th century.

Mrs. Campbell Dauncey, wife of a British commercial attaché in Iloilo, wrote about Plaza Libertad in An Englishwoman in the Philippines (c 1906). Some parts have been edited for brevity.

“…The Plaza Libertad, laid out as a pretty Alameda, with a low wall around it. Steps lead up on each side, the centre thickly planted with palms, bamboos, and various other trees of dark and light greens, intersected by four wide paths and a lot of little tracks, all bristling with seats. Some of the seats are of wood, broken and dilapidated, and others of iron painted to look like marble, which are quite warm to the touch hours after sunset.

The first evening we were there, when I put my hand on one of the iron seats, thinking to touch cold stone, I got quite a shock on finding the surface warm….This flowerless garden is a very pretty place at night, when the big arc-lights shine on the trees, and throw lovely shadows on the paths, making a theatrical effect; but it is all overgrown, untidy, untrimmed, neglected, the steps broken, — reminding me of some place in a deserted city, or the garden of a house long uninhabited…..Plaza Libertad has one resemblance to a real town park, however, in its rows of idle men; brown-faced, white-clad Filipinos sit on the seats and low walls like rows of sea-birds, only, instead of making nests or catching food, they simply doze, gamble, talk, or sit about in the profound abstraction of the Oriental….”

One of the earliest Rizal statues was constructed in the plaza in 1907, a bronze cast by Hilario Sunico from an original sculpture by Tomas Zamora. By the mid to late 1930s, statues, fountains, water troughs, pathways, trees, and landscaping were added. The Italian expatriate sculptor, Francesco Riccardo Monti, made four statues for the Plaza-two pairs of statues, of the Greek God Dionysus or Bacchus.

These could have been done at about the same time that Monti sculpted the formidable facade of the Iloilo Municipal Building (now the UP Visayas Main building) with the stern-looking Law and Order figures. His only other known work in Iloilo is the Maria Clara monument in the Molo Plaza.

Monti’s close association with National Artist Juan Arellano, who built many notable government buildings during the Commonwealth era, helped make this possible; he also taught at the University of Santo Tomas, mentored dozens of artists, and his work could easily fill a coffee table book.

Today, the plaza has been renovated and redesigned, thanks mainly to a 2013 law authored by then-Iloilo congressman Jerry Treñas which declared several plazas of Iloilo and Fort San Pedro as “cultural heritage tourism zones.” Funding provided by various national agencies, with the support of heritage advocates, the Escuela Taller, and the firm of Paulo Alcazaren (who was the main landscape designer of the Esplanades) has made the Iloilo plazas much more delightful and people-friendly, helping restore them to preeminent public spaces.

Basketball courts and gyms have been removed, lighting improved, and piped-in music added. Walkable paths, benches, bicycle racks, fountains, playground equipment, and restroom facilities are available.

In Plaza Libertad, statues and landmarks from the American era have been refurbished, and some relocated to more visible and prominent areas. The four Monti sculptures, with their leers, are at each of the four corners and can still scare children into behaving. An “iron horse” train, a relic of the years of sugar centrals and the long defunct railways, sits on one end.

Recent rediscoveries include a water trough and fountains for horses to drink from. In May 2023, the Australian government installed a plaque to commemorate Philippine- Australia Friendship Day. Australia was the first country import sugar from Iloilo, and in the pearl industry, many of the so-called “Manila Men” who did the risky and backbreaking work of diving for pearls in the North of Australia were from Western Visayas. Beyond the church and plaza are surrounding buildings of notable architecture. On the north end of the plaza, on De la Rama Street (formerly known as Calle Progreso, which during its heyday was the busiest Iloilo street, connecting to the port) is the new City Hall.

It is now the most prominent building, with the “Lin-ay sang Iloilo” statue crowning it. You can actually pop in for a visit to admire the many paintings by local artists that line the upper floor corridors, making it look more like a gallery than a sober government office. You can even go to the top floor balcony for a 360-degree view that takes in the winding river, ports, several bridges, the Customs house & Maritime Museum, the plaza itself, the southern part of JM Basa Street (Calle Real), and Guimaras Island. The front of City Hall used to have a street, but with the redesign, it was repaved and closed, thus merging it with the plaza. This is now utilized as part parking space and part forecourt of City Hall.

Beside it is the 1960s DBP building, in a more contemporary international style, declared a part of the city’s heritage zone. Right beside the church is the sadly crumbling house of the Lacson family, a modified “bahay na bato.” Across the Rizal statue, along JM Basa Street, are the neoclassical Masonic
temple and the old PNB building. Both are considered heritage structures.

On the Plaza’s other corner on the Santo Rosario side are the GSIS building which has brutalist features, and a Land Bank branch which is housed in a building that used to be the residence of former Iloilo mayor Vicente Ybiernas – it was also reportedly used by the Japanese as a comfort women station.

If you take a half-kilometer walk down Santo Rosario to the Fort to see the fabled sunset, you won’t miss several Spanish-era balay na bato, a plaque commemorating the arrival of the sisters of the order of St. Paul de Chartres from Vietnam, the Oscar Ledesma house with its expansive balcony overlooking the street, and the soon-to-be completed restoration for the Casino Español, the place to be for Ilonggo elite from the 1930s to the early 1960s.

The property is now owned by the Chan family, sugar magnates. – Rappler.com