A musical plaza in Bacolod

The City of Smiles is still smiling and continues to make sweet music for its residents. The city has regularly appeared on lists for most livable cities in the country.

We continue ou r series on Philippine plazas this week with another Visayan exemplar, the elegant Bacolod Public Plaza. Bacolod, the City of Smiles, is the capital of Negros Occidental. It is a vibrant city that is gearing up for a boom similar to Iloilo, its neighbor across the straits. Like Iloilo, it is gifted with extant sites and structures of heritage.

The Bacolod plaza is a two-hectare amenity in the heart of the old district. It was originally a large open space that had one side to the sea. That was over a century ago, and the waterfront has since been reclaimed and is host to SM Bacolod.

The plaza was and is still defined by the cathedral of San Sebastian, along with several other commercial structures, all contributing to daily urban life. It is odd that the Bacolod City Hall was located a block away but historical literature points to the fact that the Spanish Governor’s building was opposite the church. The city hall was moved out of the center in 2010, but we will look at that later.

The plaza’s genesis is tied to the declaration of Bacolod by Spanish authorities as capital in the mid 1800s. The plaza expanded through donations of land by Don Jose Vicente Locsin Gonzaga, as the city itself boomed in the wake of an economy based on the export of sugar and other commodities.

The expanded plaza led to the existing church also being improved. Bell towers were added in 1885. The whole composition was completed as the Philippine revolution crept up towards the end of the century. It was eventually named Plaza del Seis de Noviembre for the day the Spanish surrendered the island to revolutionaries.

Bacolod continued to grow in the American era and the original church was replaced by a larger structure built in 1825. Photos of the plaza from the 1910s show a formal European plaza and park that featured parterres (clipped hedges). The San Sebastian church was declared a cathedral in 1933. In 1938, the town was chartered as a city by the Commonwealth government.

The cathedral survived the war but the bell towers were eventually declared unsafe by the city engineer’s office in 1969. In 1976 the local Lions Club built replacements. By 1994 the cathedral was declared a Pro-Cathedral and today it is the site of pilgrimage and the center of Catholicism in the province.

Going back to the pre-war years, the city and the plaza saw many improvements. A grand bandstand was built in 1927. It is an ornate polygonal gazebo in the neo-classic style, with the names of European composers Mozart, Wagner, Haydn and Beethoven etched on its entablature.

Classical European music was a theme for the plaza. Even the park seats were shaped into harps. This European theme was carried even further in the 1930s with the addition of fountains featuring characters from fables like Pan, elves, and fairies. The noted Italian artist Francesco Monti sculpted these statues. He was also responsible for similar statues in Iloilo, as well as many other public artworks in Manila.

Aside from the bandstand the plaza is known for its lovely paving. This is in a classical curved checkerboard pattern in black and white. Reports have it that this pattern was originally in marble, although I do have to confirm the paving pattern’s origin and date of implementation.

Today the park is still the center of the city. This, despite the fact that the City Hall and other related offices have been moved over two kilometers to the east of the original center. The four-hectare P400 million new government complex involves a large neo-classic structure fronting an equally dimensioned plaza that is slightly smaller than the original.

The new plaza is stark, with a grand fountain as focal point, but it is lacking in character and definition, since few buildings surround it that could help define the space. The new plaza’s scale is not aided by the absence of shade trees or palms that could mitigate the scale of the generally empty space, or the heat it generates, which can be intense in summer.

The old plaza is still the locus of urban life. The city’s famous Masskara Festival ends at the plaza. The cathedral is still there and commercial life is still there although its center of gravity has shifted to the nearby SM.

The plaza is generally well maintained; not perfectly, but good enough compared to other similar provincial cities. The Monti statuary and fountains, as well as other monuments, do need some conservation. The landscape and urban design of the surrounding streets could do with a makeover (actually a simplification, getting rid of those layers plazas and streets like these tend to accumulate over the decades).

I give the plaza an 8.5 out of 10 since it is fairly intact and its function as a plaza and open space has not been greatly compromised. The City of Smiles is still smiling and continues to make sweet music for its residents. The city has regularly appeared on lists for most livable cities in the country. Great things appear in store for this Visayan capital.

The plaza’s bandstand is inscribed with names of noted European composers.

Bacolod City’s plaza from the air shows its elegant pattern and lovely frame of shade trees.

Bacolod Plaza at the turn of the century was a venue for bicycle races.

Bacolod’s San Sebastian church and plaza at the turn of the century.

The San Sebastian Pro Cathedral is framed by the park's mature trees and showy fountains by Francesco Monti.

When the plaza’s fountains work, they are a joy.

The plaza features a select number of memorials including this poetic one honoring the war’s dead.