Like Troy and like Rome, Manila has been many cities and will be many more.

Like every great city, Manila sprang from a wilderness of question marks. Legazpi was not the beginning, nor yet Soliman.

Soliman's palisaded kingdom was certainly not the first on the site. The indications are that it was a recent foundation, by newcomers: the palace guards were Borneans.

What settlement stood there previously, and how many such had come and gone before Soliman's fence, we may never know but what we now know as Intramuros continues to be the "original" Manila, meaning the basic ground of a city that has been pagan, Muslim, Christian; that has been Malay, Spanish, Filipino.

The city was, is, and ever will be larger than those terms, even if reduced back to the original space of ground from which it began, from which it will always begin. Should atomic war annihilate Manila, the survivors, if any, will, one can bet, automatically start rebuilding on that same tongue of land where the River flows into the Bay.

Both Soliman and Legazpi built there and they could only have been following in the footprints of those who, through the ages, like the makers of the Seven Troys, had been building and rebuilding on that original site. There, apparently, is where the genius of the city is resident-and Intramuros is a once and future womb. -- NICK JOAQUIN