24. I4J CAVITE-DEWEY-HEIWA-ROXAS BOULEVARD

I4J CAVITE-DEWEY-HEIWA-ROXAS BOULEVARD

Dr. Troy Alexander G. Miano

20 March 2017

From the balcony of my room at the 10^th floor of the Midas Hotel (former Hyatt Regency) in Pasay City, I can see in front of the building the stretch of the popular waterfront promenade now known as Roxas Boulevard. I remember my faternal grandmother from Calbayog City in Samar province once visited us in Manila and mentioned the place “Dewey Boulevard”.  Puzzled, I asked my dad where the aforementioned boulevard is located. He smiled and said that it was the old name of Roxas Boulevard. This was the start of my numerous researches on the name origin of the streets of the City of Manila.

I descended from my hotel room and was one of the first participants to arrive at the venue of the I4J meeting located at the basement of the building in a tent made hall. Seated on my right was a lady government employee from Narra, Palawan and I asked her views regarding the Integrity Circle the I4J is establishing. She responded stating that her municipality and the province of Palawan are very active in this endeavour. I reviewed once again what I4J is and read a booklet published by Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS).

Beginning January 2014, the KAS is implementing the project “Partnership for Integrity and Jobs (I4J). This three year project is co-founded by the European Union (EU) and the General Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development through KAS. Project I4J focuses on the pilot development of integrity mechanisms and models of transparent and effective small business and investment registration as well as promotion procedures at selected Local Government Units (LGUs) in cooperation with civil society and decision makers at these LGUs. Specifically, the project aims to include LGUs as key players for clean administrative procedures into the Integrity Initiative program set up by the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) and the Makati Business Club (MBC). It recognizes the role of LGUs as a sustainable network for self obligation and monitoring of and ethical structures and procedures. It also aims to create models of transparent, effective small business and investment registration and promotion procedures and promote them. The Integrity Self-Assessment Tool (ISAT) will generate an Integrity Profile for the LGU and transparent identify areas of improvement to strengthen integrity policies and practices within the LGU.   

Going back to the boulevard which runs along the shores of Manila Bay and well known for its sunset and stretch of coconut trees and the divided roadway, I recalled a special feature from ABS-CBN News in 2015 revealing that the famous eight-lane major arterial road stretching from from Luneta in Manila and ends in Parañaque City at the intersection of NAIA Road and the elevated NAIA Expressway has three former names. Using the words of Google, the boulevard has become a trademark of Philippine tourism, famed for its yacht club, hotels, restaurants, commercial buildings and parks. Originally called Cavite Boulevard, it was renamed Dewey Boulevard, Heiwa Boulevard and now to Roxas Boulevard.

I saw a an old photo of the riprap wall of the projected Cavite Boulevard by Mr. William E. Parsons published in 1912 in The Century Illustrated Magazine Vol. 83. The Cavite Boulevard was part of Architect Daniel Burnham's plan for beautifying the city of Manila. At the request of Commissioner William Cameron Forbes, Burnham visited the country in 1905 at the height of the City Beautiful movement, a trend in the early 1900s in America for making cities beautiful along scientific lines, for the future urban development of Manila and Baguio City.

According to Burnham's original concept of the Cavite Boulevard, the bayfront from the Luneta southward should be a continuous parkway, extending in the course of time all the way to the Cavite Navy Yard about 32 kilometers away. This boulevard, about 76 meters in width, with roadways, tramways, bridle path, rich plantations, and broad sidewalks, should be available for all classes of people in all sorts of conveyances, and so well shaded with coconut palms, bamboo, and mangoes as to furnish protection from the elements at all times. In order to make the boulevard presentable and useful as soon as possible, a quick-growing tree like the acacia might be planted, alternating with the trees of slower growth, and be replaced after the latter attain their growth. The boulevard's seaward side should be planted so as to interrupt occasionally the view of the sea and, by thus adding somewhat of mystery, enhance the value of the stretch of ocean and sky. The boulevard would be on reclaimed land to about as far south as the Old Fort San Antonio Abad in Malate, beyond which it strikes the beach and follows the shore line to Cavite. The possible extension of the ocean boulevard along the north shore would naturally depend upon the development of the town in that direction and upon the question of additional harbor works north of the Pasig River.

In 1915, Cavite Boulevard, named because the end of the road leads to the historic Tagalog province of Cavite, was rechristened to Dewey Boulevard to immortalize George Dewey (1837-1917). Dewey was the only person in United States history to have attained the rank of Admiral of the Navy. Admiral Dewey is best known for his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898 during the Spanish-American War (April 21-August 13, 1899). During the Japanese Occupation (1942-1945), the boulevard was renamed to “Heiwa Boulevard” and was used as an airstrip towards the end of World War II. “Heiwa” means “peace and harmony” in Japanese. In the 1960s, Dewey Boulevard was rechristened for the third time honoring the last president of the Commonwealth, first president of the Third Republic, and the fifth president of the Philippines (1946-1948), Manuel Acuña Roxas (1892-1948). Roxas, a native of Capiz province, was Governor of Capiz province (1919-1921), member of the Philippine House of Representatives from Capiz 1^st District (1921-1938) and the 2^nd Speaker of the House (1922-1933), Secretary of Finance (1941), Senator and 2^nd Senate President (1945-1946).

Several streets of Manila have been renamed through the years, sometimes without regard to street names as signpost to history. For historian Ambeth R. Ocampo, old names of the streets of Manila, “in one way reaffirmed and enhanced our culture.” The boulevard which is part of Radial Road 1 gives us a glimpse of our nation’s history from the American period though the Japanese Occupation and the Third Republic.