FORT BONIFACIO TUNNEL IMAGES FROM LEO D. DOMINGUEZ 2012-07-24
FORT BONIFACIO WAS THE FORMER FORT McKinley
A group of Filipinos, called the Tunnel Rats, historians and armchair historians arranged with the Philippine Army History Department and the Management of Bonifacio Global City (BGC) access to the former ex Ft. McKinley tunnels. BGC also provided logistic support. These images are from Businessman Leo D. Dominguez who shot these pictures with his camera. Since someone else took these pictures; I’m on a few of those images.
Leo gave me permission to use the images in this forum and I established an album with 29 images:
app.photobucket.com/u/PI-Sailor/a/c552ed7b-8f4b-4453-b4b2-45c097ed1998?field=TITLE&desc=ascClick on the icon “i” to read the image description!
He wrote a fast description of our visit and here it is:
Here is Leo’s Report
Here's my quick report of today's expedition.
At 11 am, Lucky, Rico, Karl and I met at McDonald's at the Market Market Mall. Two ladies and two gentlemen from Ayala came to meet with us. (I think one of them was from the BCDA. Rico would know the details and their names.) Rico said that Gen. Aguilar could not make it. A military officer had died and today was his funeral. Gen. Aguilar had to attend the funeral.
Around 11:40am, accompanied by the Ayala people, we walked to the entrance of the tunnels about 300 - 400 meters from McDonalds towards the bridge leading to C5 away from the mall building.
Five or six vehicles, including an ambulance, and personnel waited for us near the tunnel entrance.
Among the personnel were about half a dozen uniformed blue guards of the Fort Bonifacio Development (Ayala).
About 6-10 people entered the tunnel with Karl, Rico, Lucky and me. Lucky took along a video cam.
Lights were available in the tunnel, powered by lines that came in from outside the tunnel.
We walked down about 15-20 concrete steps to the first chamber, before descending another 62 concrete steps to the tunnel. The steps were about 5-6 feet wide. Ropes were set up on the left hand side of the second set of 62 steps to serve as our railings.
When we got to the main tunnel, we turned right at the bottom of the 62 steps. (Someone in the group that accompanied the four Tunnel Rats counted.) The tunnel floor was paved in concrete, wide enough for a military jeep to travel on. The ceiling was at least 10 feet high. The walls on either side of the tunnel were cemented. They rose to about 6 feet high, and then the rest of the tunnel wall was adobe rock that rose another 3 feet or so and connected to adobe ceiling hewn roughly. I heard Rico say that this portion of the tunnel was likely built under Col. Fertig's supervision and design. Apparently, Fertig had been a mining engineer.
Rico noticed that vandals had pulled out "pre-WW2" iron bars from the ceiling, probably to sell as scrap metal. The vandals probably stole the original metal stairway railings, too. There were obvious attempts to chip through the side walls to take out reinforcing bars.
I'm not sure how long we walked inside the tunnel but it might have been 300 or so meters. Lots of square or rectangular rooms of different sizes averaging about 8- 12 sqm were on both sides of the tunnels, rather symmetrically arranged. One of these cavities actually turned out to be a big room the size perhaps of half a basketball court that had a deep well with very clear water - ground water, according to Karl. We estimated that the well was about two stories or 20 feet deep, about 10 to 12 feet under water. The hole maybe had a diameter of 8-12 feet. I'm guessing. About a fifth of the water surface was littered with floating fast food containers and similar debris, suggesting that people come into the tunnel on their own. Graffiti on the walls is other evidence of these public intrusions.
The people who accompanied us - some sounded like they were military personnel - said that before the base had been privatized, people were allowed in as part of a tour of the museum which stood above ground near the entrance we had used to enter the tunnel. One of them said people were charged PhP5 (someone else said PhP20) to "tour" the tunnel back then.
The lighting consisted of lamps sitting on the floor, spaced far apart so we needed the help of flashlights to see.
Among the dozen people with us were - from the info written on their uniforms - "Rescue" personnel that came with the convoy parked above us. They had emergency breathing devices in case any of us needed them.
We walked back to the bottom of the 62 step stairway and a few of us went past it. There was another flight of steps that went deeper downward from the level we had just toured. I don't have the exact number of steps down, but it was probably around 20-30 steps. There was no lighting available at that new level. We had to rely entirely on our flashlights.
This time, there were no concrete side walls, and the ceiling appeared much lower. While the flooring in the upper level had wet areas, this lower area seemed to have more. We went probably 300 or so meters, but we turned back after we were told that the flooding was deep beyond a certain point further in that tunnel. We were told that this would have led to a metal barred entrance/exit - probably with the archway that we had heard about. I didn't go as far down this tunnel as Rico and Karl had. I think Lucky stayed at the upper level of the first tunnel we explored.
It was about 12:30 pm when we exited the tunnel where we had entered. We found Lucky soon after sitting inside the ambulance being administered to by a male nurse. Lucky was on the oxygen set. He said in jest that he was just making sure the equipment in the ambulance was working.
We thanked the folks from Ayala for showing us the tunnel. We dispersed soon after that. Karl, Rico, Lucky and I had lunch in the open air food court at Market Market behind the fruit and flower stands.
We talked about meeting up again for the Molave Tunnel in two weeks, likely two Tuesdays from now.
I took photos with my point-and-shoot Canon S95, but can't send them out yet because internet in my house has been down the past few days.
The photo I sent earlier was from my Blackberry.
I hope Lucky, Rico and Karl can chime in with more learned commentary. Rico could point out on his map where exactly we had been.
Lucky should have good video.
Cheers,
Leo
As it has become my way of presenting pictures, here are 14 sample images. The pictures in the above album are a little bigger:
Z387—The Tunnel Rats assemble/meet at McDonald's at the Market Market Mall. From left to right are Professor Rico Jose, Karl, Document Film Producer Lucky Guillermo and ladies from the Ayala Corp.
Z388—This drawing came from this forum and may have been fleshed out by one our forum members. It will be helpful for your orientation.
Z389—Our hosts provided the logistics, opening the tunnel, provide light and security. Emergency vehicles also stood by.
Z390—It was tricky getting in and out thru that steel cover and on the initial set of steps.
Z391—Once one is thru the steel cover and down the initial set of steps, one turns right and comes down these 62 steps. In this image we are at the bottom of the set of 62 steps.
Z392—At the bottom of the 62 steps we turned right again and this is what you see, the tunnel has a concreted floor and about 6 feet high walls. This is in the north direction towards Barangay Rembo.
Z393—In the north section is a small ceiling collapse and this is where Professor Jose is interviewed by Film Producer Lucky Guillermo with a video camera.
Z394-- We are looking down what we believe was a deep hole for ground water. It is towards the Rembo exit.
Z395-- Advancing in the south section, towards the Pembo exits. The floor, where visible, both south and north looked this way; towards the north (Rembo) it was dryer.
Z396-- We are at the south section of the tunnel where it turns east to the Barangay Pembo Exits; this way up was for air or it was another exit.
Z397—Karl is emerging from the Ft. Bonifacio Tunnel, it seems all the people looking close at me whether I need any help, he, he.
Z398-- We are out of the tunnel and it seem I’m very happy that we were able to explore the tunnel.
Z399-- The three young people were from Ayala and BCDA, the elderly are from left to right, me Karl, Professor Rico Jose and Businessman Leo D. Dominguez
Z400-- At this point we are done and are walking back to the Market Market Mall.
At this time like to remind all the viewers that in this forum we have another, one even better thread about the Fort Bonifacio Tunnel at the former Fort McKinley! Our friend, John Moffitt (fots2) with friends, did some really in-depth research about the tunnel and penetrated it more than us Tunnel Rats. This is the URL:
corregidor.proboards.com/thread/1260/fort-bonifacio-tunnelTHANK YOU LEO FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION!!!!!
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