City walk · Santa Ana, Makati · Philippines
José Bonifacio Róxas
a careful 19th-century estate buyer, dry about money, astonished by what his fields became
Read what José Bonifacio Róxas says
My name is José Bonifacio Róxas. In 1851 I paid the Jesuits fifty-two thousand eight hundred pesos for a stretch of farmland by the river, and I never saw what grew on it. They tell me an airport was laid across my fields, and then taken away again. One piece of it was never demolished, and I want to know where it hides. Walk my estate with me, collect the words, and show me what is left.
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Santa Ana · 8 stops · 3.7 km
about 95 min walking, 32 min listening at the stops — going inside is extra · Tap a stop on the map for a preview.
2 h · 3.7 km · 8 stops · medium
Partly shadedBest time to walk: Morning or after four, when the glass towers stop reflecting heat; Legazpi park is liveliest on Sunday morning for the market, and the Ayala and Yuchengco museums open at ten and close early evening.
The walk
Every tower in Makati stands on one old estate: the Hacienda San Pedro de Macati, bought from the Jesuits in 1851. This walk is a single line from the quiet edge of the district into the glass canyons of the business centre, ending in the green triangle that was once Manila's airport. Along the way you pass a shrine, a cemetery, a hospital, two museums, a Sunday-market park and a mall, and you hunt for the one thing that survived the runways. The Manila Zoo lies far to the west, across the river districts, and belongs to a different walk.
Start here
4 Sacred Heart Street, San Antonio
Begin on the public pavement outside the National Shrine of the Sacred Heart, on the Makati side of the district, and face the church front.
DirectionsYour mission
Gather eleven words and find what survives of the airfield under Makati.
8 stops · 7 clues and 1 photo challenge · a final puzzle
