Fort Santiago

The gate of Fort Santiago before the war

Dating back to the late 16th century, Fort Santiago was one of the oldest structures in Manila. Built by the Spanish shortly after they began their colonization of the Philippines, and was continually expanded and upgraded over the ensuing centuries of colonial rule. When the Americans came in 1898, the fort was surrendered as US troops advanced through the city in an almost bloodless engagement, with the Spanish Governor-General formally turning over the Philippines to US General Wesley Merrit, although this would not be the end of the American struggle for control of the Philippines.

The fort became the headquarters of the Philippine Division of the US Army after the defeat of the Spanish, and would escape the fighting that erupted a year later during the so-called Philippine Insurrection. Following this, it would remain as the headquarters of the US Army, and would see major modifications over the coming decades as the Americans made changes to the city around it.

After the city was taken by the Japanese in 1942, the fort became the headquarters of the Japanese occupation forces, and it became a place of nightmares, whose name was spoken only in hushed voices. The Japanese secret police, the Kempeitei, used the dungeons as a base of operations, and people taken by them into the dark bowels if the old citadel seldom returned. Prisoners of the Japanese were subjected to beatings, low power electric chairs, pulling fingernails after hammering bamboo nails under them, forcing hoses into prisoner’s mouths and pumping in high pressure water, genital mutilation, disembowelment, even torturing loved ones of suspects while forcing them to watch.

As the Americans approached the city in 1945, the Japanese moved to fortify Fort Santiago as well as the Intramuros itself. The old walls were dotted with defensive guns, and Admiral Iwabuchi moved his headquarters into the citadel as he prepared for his suicidal stand in the Pearl of the Orient.