Post by buster on May 10, 2009 8:44:16 GMT 8
Old crone
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:52:00 05/10/2009
FOR OLD timers nostalgic over the old Manila Hotel, its management’s tussle with the Government Service Insurance System over alleged unpaid loans, said to have ballooned to P17 billion because of interest, seems like a mere quibble when compared to the more worrisome reality: the Old Glory is gone; all that remains of the Grand Dame is a pitiable shell of her old self – an old crone going the way of history in the most dejected of exits.
Set against Rizal Park that in itself has also seen better days and is barely its former self, Manila Hotel seems ultimately dirtier and rundown. We would have understood the difficulty of maintaining its huge white presence amid the smog of Port Area, Manila. But the first sacrilege committed against the Grand Dame was not the pollution but the defacement of her façade. On the corner of the green tropical roof of the hotel facing the walls of Intramuros is her name in quite ungraceful graphics. As if that were not enough, the graphics appear again at the side of the roof fronting the Quirino Grandstand. The redundancy antedated – and, perhaps, presaged – the manic passion for billboard construction around Metro Manila: it reinforces the fact that much of the loss of the quality of life in the metropolis owes to crass commercialism, slapdash development, and the regulated chaos that makes up for urban planning in the otherwise overly regulated and bureaucratized regime obtaining in the Philippines.
Manila Hotel started to go downhill the minute the statist and bureaucratized aspects of Philippine governance started to appear. In 1995, when the hotel was bid out, Malaysia’s Renong Berhad gave the best offer of P44 per share for 51 percent of the hotel. But a losing bidder, the Manila Prince Hotel (MPH), went to the Supreme Court and offered to match the winner’s bid, claiming that as a Filipino, it should be preferred over a foreigner in the purchase of an asset that MPH claimed to be part of the national patrimony. And in a controversial decision that spotlighted judicial intervention in peculiarly economic matters, the high court ruled in 1997 that Manila Hotel was part of the national patrimony and that the “Filipino first” policy of the Constitution should therefore apply to it. In that decision, the Court also awarded the hotel to MPH.
Almost immediately, Manila Hotel started to lose its Old World glamour, including its tasteful interiors and classic design. In the lobby, a classic Amorsolo mural was replaced by an apparent fake; three giant brass chandeliers were taken down and replaced with five kitschy looking ones, on the recommendation of a feng-shui expert – proof that geomancy is nothing but necromancy as far as taste is concerned. And in a repeat of the redundancy on the hotel’s roof, the tastefully demure signage of the restaurants and coffee shop were removed to give way to red-lined planks of wood or aluminum, much like the signage one sees in the panciterias of Ongpin.
Nowadays, none of the impressive grace that characterized the spacious lobby of the hotel – memorialized in old photographs and prints that were treasured by guests and tourists in former times – survives. The roses in giant vases have been replaced with plants and blossoms that are used not to pay tribute to Philippine flora but to save on costs. No light seems to enter the lobby to alleviate its oppressive mood.
The old function rooms have musty, dusty carpets. Gone is the proud sheen of the old magnificent marbles: they seem dirty and downtrodden. Perhaps the best test for any hotel is the wash room. At Manila Hotel, they reek of foul odor; the toilet’s plumbing is problematic, and it shows. There also have been reports of infestation by cockroaches.
Perhaps because of the nagging notices of its decline, Manila Hotel is undergoing renovation. But would renovation do the trick? Why look forward to the future when much of the past has been squandered in the present by a management that invokes the hotel as a cultural patrimony but does not seem to have the capacity to distinguish which is good taste and which is poor? Considering what has been happening since 1997, the renovation may only be another form of elegy to a vanished institution: its shell may have remained, but its soul has long gone, snuffed out by greed and poor taste.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:52:00 05/10/2009
FOR OLD timers nostalgic over the old Manila Hotel, its management’s tussle with the Government Service Insurance System over alleged unpaid loans, said to have ballooned to P17 billion because of interest, seems like a mere quibble when compared to the more worrisome reality: the Old Glory is gone; all that remains of the Grand Dame is a pitiable shell of her old self – an old crone going the way of history in the most dejected of exits.
Set against Rizal Park that in itself has also seen better days and is barely its former self, Manila Hotel seems ultimately dirtier and rundown. We would have understood the difficulty of maintaining its huge white presence amid the smog of Port Area, Manila. But the first sacrilege committed against the Grand Dame was not the pollution but the defacement of her façade. On the corner of the green tropical roof of the hotel facing the walls of Intramuros is her name in quite ungraceful graphics. As if that were not enough, the graphics appear again at the side of the roof fronting the Quirino Grandstand. The redundancy antedated – and, perhaps, presaged – the manic passion for billboard construction around Metro Manila: it reinforces the fact that much of the loss of the quality of life in the metropolis owes to crass commercialism, slapdash development, and the regulated chaos that makes up for urban planning in the otherwise overly regulated and bureaucratized regime obtaining in the Philippines.
Manila Hotel started to go downhill the minute the statist and bureaucratized aspects of Philippine governance started to appear. In 1995, when the hotel was bid out, Malaysia’s Renong Berhad gave the best offer of P44 per share for 51 percent of the hotel. But a losing bidder, the Manila Prince Hotel (MPH), went to the Supreme Court and offered to match the winner’s bid, claiming that as a Filipino, it should be preferred over a foreigner in the purchase of an asset that MPH claimed to be part of the national patrimony. And in a controversial decision that spotlighted judicial intervention in peculiarly economic matters, the high court ruled in 1997 that Manila Hotel was part of the national patrimony and that the “Filipino first” policy of the Constitution should therefore apply to it. In that decision, the Court also awarded the hotel to MPH.
Almost immediately, Manila Hotel started to lose its Old World glamour, including its tasteful interiors and classic design. In the lobby, a classic Amorsolo mural was replaced by an apparent fake; three giant brass chandeliers were taken down and replaced with five kitschy looking ones, on the recommendation of a feng-shui expert – proof that geomancy is nothing but necromancy as far as taste is concerned. And in a repeat of the redundancy on the hotel’s roof, the tastefully demure signage of the restaurants and coffee shop were removed to give way to red-lined planks of wood or aluminum, much like the signage one sees in the panciterias of Ongpin.
Nowadays, none of the impressive grace that characterized the spacious lobby of the hotel – memorialized in old photographs and prints that were treasured by guests and tourists in former times – survives. The roses in giant vases have been replaced with plants and blossoms that are used not to pay tribute to Philippine flora but to save on costs. No light seems to enter the lobby to alleviate its oppressive mood.
The old function rooms have musty, dusty carpets. Gone is the proud sheen of the old magnificent marbles: they seem dirty and downtrodden. Perhaps the best test for any hotel is the wash room. At Manila Hotel, they reek of foul odor; the toilet’s plumbing is problematic, and it shows. There also have been reports of infestation by cockroaches.
Perhaps because of the nagging notices of its decline, Manila Hotel is undergoing renovation. But would renovation do the trick? Why look forward to the future when much of the past has been squandered in the present by a management that invokes the hotel as a cultural patrimony but does not seem to have the capacity to distinguish which is good taste and which is poor? Considering what has been happening since 1997, the renovation may only be another form of elegy to a vanished institution: its shell may have remained, but its soul has long gone, snuffed out by greed and poor taste.