To gain insight into this radical makeover, let me excerpt from a 1905 article entitled "The Re-making of Manila" by Bradford Daniels. The subhead was "Changing a pest-hole into a healthful and beautiful Capital of Commerce of the East." Daniels wrote:
"When the Americans marched into Manila on August 23, 1898, it was the filthiest place in the Orient; today it is one of the cleanest cities east of the Suez (canal), and tourists who visit it pronounce it the most attractive spot in the East. In six years it has been transformed into a center of activity and enterprise."
Daniels pointed out that because of its attractiveness, the city drew the adventurous and enterprising from America: "Restless young (university) fellows (and lawyers) who felt that even in the United States the world was moving too slow for them, physicians who saw new worlds to conquer, engineers who sought to amass great fortune quickly, merchants who dreamed that they saw profitable trade – these and many others came to Manila… Thus came representative men …and the accumulated knowledge and experience …was concentrated in a single city as it has never been before."
This capacity that led to the betterment of the city was exemplified in key civil servants like army surgeon Major E. C. Carter who took on the task of addressing the sanitary problem of the city: "With a sympathy that enables him to put himself in the other man’s place, he undertook the education of the Filipino to better modes of living in a way that has accomplished more in three years than (other men may have) in a generation. The 226,000 inhabitants have been so thoroughly vaccinated that smallpox has come to be insignificant; cholera (was cut down to one thirtieth the deaths from previous outbreaks); and with new water and sewage systems another outbreak of the scourge within the city limits will be practically impossible. Bubonic plague has been reduced to a minimum by inoculations, by isolation in the San Lazaro Hospital, which is the finest and best equipped building for infectious diseases in the East, and by the relentless campaign against rats. Through these methods the death rate in Manila has fallen far lower than some (large cities in the mainland like Baltimore and New Orleans). …Plans for a civil hospital to cost more than P1,000,000 (have been made)…"
This hospital was eventually built and is known today as the Philippine General Hospital. Daniels continues with descriptions of other infrastructure built to benefit the city: "In the harbor itself 600 acres are protected against the terrible typhoons by two massive stone breakwaters extending nearly three miles. In the construction of these great walls more than two million tons of stone have been used."
These harbor improvements led to the creation of the modern port of Manila which, until the outbreak of hostilities in the Second World War, was the best in the East and rivaling Shanghai and the Japanese ports.
Daniels describes another important improvement, this time in land transport. "But, of all the innovations, the street cars are the dearest to the hearts of the Americans. The Manila Electric Light and Railroad Company is spending more that five million dollars to supply the city with transportation and light. The city will soon have a new telephone system too. The streetcar company has employed native labor from the first, and with eminently satisfactory results. It now has 50 miles of as fine a track as could be found anywhere and the line may be extended around the head of Manila Bay to Cavite.
"The Meralco and PLDT have had their ups and downs but today are institutions that still provide for people’s needs. Too bad the tranvias are gone and the current LRT/MRT system is an incomplete and uncoordinated system that is constantly playing catch-up with the growing metropolis. As far back as a century ago there were already plans to link Cavite with Manila via an efficient rail system. We are truly a hundred years behind.
Daniels also highlighted the new parks that were being built or planned for the city (according to the Daniel Burnham master plan of 1905): "Near (the southern edge of the city – today’s Harrison Park) there will be a pleasure park such as can be found nowhere else in the Orient; and on Sundays the people may enjoy an outing through one of the finest section of (countryside in the archipelago)."
Too bad Harrison Park was sold to private developers and we lost the only opportunity south of the city to build a much needed park.