October 25, 2007 | 12:00am
The popular belief is that Makati derived its name from the word “kati”, Tagalog for “ebbing tide,” the description given by Don Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, the founder of Manila and the first governor-general of the Philippines, when he first spotted the area. The place then was predominated by swamps and cogon grass overlooking the banks of the Pasig River. Legaspi asked the name of the place but was misinterpreted by the natives. Pointing to the receding tide of the Pasig River, the natives answered “Makati, kumakati na,” meaning “ebbing tide.”
However, if Makati was shoreland, it was in prehistoric times; it certainly was not a coast during the Spanish conquest. The more plausible explanation, therefore, is that Makati received its name after the Spanish occupation; that its name was derived from the old Tagalog word “lamangkati,” which means “contents of the earth,” referring to the adobe extricated from the quarries in the area that provided the building blocks of the first stone houses in what eventually became known as Intramuros.
Makati had been the site of some significant battles in Philippine history. It was the battleground in the Chinese uprising of November 1639, when Chinese traders rose up in arms against an unfair Spanish decree. A Chinese horde of 3,000, coming from Calamba, stormed Makati’s Novitiate and Church but was repulsed by a supremely-armed force made up of Spanish soldiers, Tagalogs and Pampangos. At the outbreak of the Filipino-American War, Makati again became a battlefield. Admiral George Dewey’s ships pounded Gen. Pio del Pilar’s forces with heavy artillery and forced the brave but outgunned Filipino soldiers to retreat to Makati. This battle marked the beginnings of the end of the Philippine Republic.
Today, Makati is a bustling city, the center of business and finance. It has become the Philippines’ undisputed financial capital and commercial hub. High-rise buildings utilizing the latest trends in structural planning and design abound. It is hard to imagine that what used to be a place full of swamps and cogon grass is now an ultra-modern metropolis. Standing out amidst the tall buildings, however, is The Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Barangay Poblacion. It is Makati’s oldest building, having been constructed in 1620. This church is also the site where Makati’s most distinctive living tradition is held, el baile de los arcos, the dance of the arches.
It was in 1718 when Fr. Juan Jose Delgado, a Jesuit priest, brought a Marian image of Our Virgin of the Rose from Acapulco to the Sts. Peter and Paul Church. The image had a reliquary that reputedly contained a hair of the Virgin Mary. The image was enshrined in Makati’s Church. It is in honor of the Virgin Mary that the dance came to be. The dance is performed every June 29 and 30, the feast days of the Poblacion’s patron saints Peter and Paul and the Virgin of the Rose. The yearly ritual is considered special because not just any one can qualify to perform the baile. In the old days, fair-skinned girls of good reputation were picked as dancers. Another requirement is that the dancers have to be virgins. There are three parts to the baile — the diccho or simultaneous chanting of prayers, the trono or singing of prayer, and the baile, a combination of prayer, dance and song.
However, local interest in and awareness of the dance had diminished over the years. This is sad; witnessing a performance of the baile de los arcos is like seeing the end of a living chain that extends back through the centuries. The dance of the arches is a penetration to Makati’s soul in perpetuation.
