Skyline of power
Some of the key landmarks in old Manila and in the expanded Greater Manila of the postwar years were the smokestacks of Meralco. They symbolized a progressive city because of the electrical power they supplied for the functioning of industry, commerce and the modern conveniences of daily life in the country’s premier city.
Manila first experienced the miracle of electricity at the first Manila International Fair in 1893. Electric lamps lit the fairgrounds with magical white light that did not flicker or give off soot like the gas lamps of the era. The city, however, had to wait till the Americans took over for regular electricity to be available.
The franchise to do so was given to the Manila Electric Railroad and Light Company or Meralco. In 1905, the company built the Meralco Steam Plant on Isla de Provisor by the Pasig River behind San Marcelino street, where it also established its main offices and yard for its electric streetcars or tranvias. The plant generated only 2,250 kilowatts, which was ample to power the tranvias and the streetlamps of Manila. Today, that would only power a few gigantic billboards on EDSA — a waste still of energy and another case for banning them altogether, but I digress.
Manila grew and the plant was expanded. Its single smokestack became prominent as a backdrop for the newly inaugurated monument to Rizal on the Luneta. No one worried about the view then since a grand civic center with large buildings and a tall domed capitol were to be built on what is now Agrifina Circle. These buildings would have become the fitting background for the monument.
In 1939, the plant’s name was changed to Blaisdell Station. This was to honor Benjamin H. Blaisdell, who served from the start as chief engineer of the plant and later became head of all the company’s power plants up to his retirement that year. The plant, by then, had expanded to six generating units made by the Allis Chalmer company. By the eve of the Second World War, the plant was generating 29,500 kilowatts.
Blaisdell was partially disabled before the Japanese occupied Manila but two units were kept operating for basic services and to power the Philippine General Hospital. The Japanese continued to operate them until fuel ran out.
During the Liberation, the Japanese blew up the plant but the American forces were able to salvage one generating unit and army engineers got it working before the end of 1945. The boilers were repaired and an additional generating unit made operational by 1947. By the late ’40s, the electricity was not enough, so a new plant that, like Blaisdell, had shifted to using bunker fuel, was planned and built.
On November 10, 1950, the Rockwell Station commenced operations on a pristine 15-hectare site by the then-picturesque Pasig River. (All power stations have to be by rivers or lakes as water is needed to cool the plants.) The Ayalas had not yet developed the residential districts on that side of what was then called McArthur Avenue (now EDSA — yes, EDSA had several names). Forbes Park was just starting to be developed and Ayala Avenue was the just-closed runway of Manila’s international airport; forced to move by the government to Nichols airfield in Rizal City (a short-lived name for Pasay City).
The plant was named after James Chapman Rockwell, another Meralco old-timer who rose from the ranks. He started in 1911 as the first manager of the streetcars. He was then made manager of the electric department and became vice president in 1919. He was made president in 1938 and retired in 1949, by then chairman of the company’s board of directors.
Rockwell was expanded as the metropolis grew all along Highway 54 (actually the third name for the highway). Factories had moved out of Manila and further down the Pasig. Residential subdivisions followed and so, more electricity was needed nearby. Environmental laws were not so strict then and generating plants were sited as close as possible to reduce loss. (Electricity dissipates as it flows through the transmission cables, which is why transformers are required along its route.)
The metropolis expanded even more and Rockwell was beefed up to eight generating units by 1961. Its multiple smokestacks became the landmark on the Pasig River as people crossed over the then-rickety and narrow steel-girdered Guadalupe Bridge. The immediate area of the bridge crossing was still a pleasant sight. No big billboards blighted the view of Our Lady of Guadalupe on top of the dome of the Manila Novitiate, beside the historic Guadalupe church on the promontory overlooking the Pasig.
Rockwell was not only a generating plant but because of its expansive facilities, it was made a venue for meetings and conventions. Meralco sponsored luncheons for professionals, civic groups and its employees as part of its early public relations efforts (today’s CSR). In 1964, it hosted 2,000 delegates to that year’s Philippine Medical Association convention.
By1962, Meralco’s ownership changed hands to a Filipino company led by Don Eugenio Lopez Sr. The buyout from the original owners — the General Public Utilities Corporation of New York — was a feat of business negotiation reported worldwide. To push the new company’s aggressive expansion, it broke ground with the new Tegen Station right beside the old Blaisdell on February 7, 1964. Named after Alfred F. Tegen, president of General Public Utilities Corporation, the plant was completed and operating within two years. Rockwell was also improved and expanded.
By the eve of Martial Law, Meralco was generating all of the metropolis’s power requirements from the three generating plants by the Pasig — Blaisdell, Tegen, and Rockwell. The ’70s and ’80s saw ownership taken from the Lopezes and everyone knows the story of its recovery after ’86.
Today, Meralco only distributes power generated by the National Power Corporation. Electricity is generated in plants further away from Metro Manila — as it should be for environmental reasons. Rockwell has been turned into a posh mixed-use development whose skyline is an improvement over the smokestacks of the old plant. The NPC and the government still own the decommissioned plants on Isla de Provisor.
Our skyline today is dominated by wonderful skyscrapers, “cathedrals of commerce” or high-rise residences of the rich and powerful captains of business or corrupt politicians. We barely see the tops of these structures just over the jagged and incessant delirium of killer billboards. I and, I’m sure, many of the metro’s residents would like to see majestic architecture and blue skies instead of naked bodies selling things we really don’t need, with money we don’t really have, to impress other people who don’t really care anyway.
Also, I’d really like to see the old Tegen smokestack removed and the Rizal monument finally getting the proper background it deserves. Maybe they’ll start printing postcards of Luneta again and the rest of the city, for that matter (once those murderous billboards are banned — and by the way, no amount of original blown-up art — as being proposed — will mitigate the obvious and belligerent blight they forcibly impose).
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Feedback is welcome. Please e-mail the writer at paulo.alcazaren@gmail.com.
