Ascending the Malacañan Grand Staircase: A Presidential Inaugural Tradition
Today is the day we take on another six years of a new administration. There is a lot of uncertainty, and yet there is full of hope. While the new President-elect has been brash and has broken a lot of traditions, namely his refusal of a joint inaugural with the Vice President-elect (a divisive and polarizing move) or his initial refusal to wear a barong, it would be wise to follow and align one’s self with the country’s civic traditions and ceremonies. While populists would say that these traditions are just trappings of the elite, “pasosyalan,” and a waste of time and money, I beg to disagree. Traditions have a way of pointing us to something larger than us, great ideals worth remembering and emulating.
The office on which the president-elect ascends, is not something to be seen as a reward for the winner. It is a heavy burden to bear–a burden that was given to the president-elect by the Filipino people when the nation cast its vote. And as such, the office is larger than the politics or the personhood of the President. Ultimately, it is an office connected to a long-line of Philippine presidents from 1899 to the present. It follows that while traditions or rituals such as an inaugural are deemed unnecessary in practical terms, respect given to it is also a symbolic act of respecting the very office that has steered and shaped the helm of the nation, in every crisis, revolution, and rebirth of freedom.
One tradition I would like for us to look at is the President-elect’s ritual climbing of the grand staircase of the Malacañan Palace, leading to the Reception Hall. We have a great privilege of seeing this today on live television. This tradition was begun by President Manuel L. Quezon, when he ascended that same staircase on November 15, 1935 to take on the burden of the Presidency. From his memoir The Good Fight, he wrote:
“From the grandstand, I went through streets crowded with people acclaiming their first President, on to the Palace of Malacañan, the great mansion on the bank of the Pasig River which had been the seat of power of foreign rulers for many decades past. As I stepped out of the presidential car and walked over the marble floor of the entrance hall, and up the wide stairway, I remembered the legend of the mother of Rizal, the great Filipino martyr and hero, who went up those stairs on her knees to seek executive clemency from the cruel Spanish Governor-General Polavieja, that would save her son’s life.”
As explained by the Presidential Museum and Library:
“Quezon wanted the ritual to symbolize that, henceforth, a Filipino chief executive would be governing from Malacañan Palace, one who could walk up the stairs proudly as the leader of his own people; at the same time, ascending those stairs would be a constant reminder to every president of the portion of the oath of office which pledges justice to every man.”
Prior to the ascent of the new President’s on the stairs, the tradition of the descending of the stairs is done (first done by President Manuel Roxas on May 28, 1946), with the outgoing President descending its steps and accompanied by the new President. It is a symbol of a peaceful and harmonious transition from one administration to the next.
This tradition is usually placed after the Inaugural Ceremony proper when the new President is sworn in by a Justice of the Supreme Court at the Quirino Grandstand early in the day in the presence of the People after which the new President delivers his/her inaugural speech at the Quirino Grandstand. The President would then be “greeted by the service commanders of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police,” and then proceeds to the Malacañan. But since the President-elect opted to have a private ceremony in the Palace and not in Quirino Grandstand as is tradition, this might happen in the very beginning of President Rodrigo Duterte’s Inaugural Ceremonies.
Look at these spreads featuring the cover design of Inaugural Invites of Presidents Manuel Roxas and Ramon Magsaysay:
One can compare and contrast the order of the Inaugural Ceremonies through the years, thanks to the scans of previous inaugural invitations uploaded online by PCDSPO. See Roxas’s second inaugural, Macapagal’s, Ramos’, Aquino III’s,
As the Philippines enters a new chapter in its history, may we as a people strive to unite for truth, for justice, and for good governance, never shrinking back from our duty to defend our democracy, bought by the blood of generations who came before us.
I wish the new Philippine President good luck. May our People prosper under your leadership, as it had under the previous administration. May you remember the burden placed on your shoulders–the promise of “justice to every man.” It is a tall order that you are duty-bound to fulfill.
Photos above, all courtesy of the Presidential Museum and Library:
(1) President Manuel L. Quezon ascends the grand staircase on his Inaugural Day on November 15, 1935.
(2) President Manuel Roxas accompanies outgoing President Sergio Osmeña on May 27, 1946, as they descend the staircase. He then proceeded to ascend it ceremonially (3) as the third and last President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines. Roxas ascended the staircase again on July 4, 1946, probably with no fuss, as the first President of a Philippines independent from the United States.
(4) President Elpidio Quirino ascends the staircase without accompanying the previous president, Manuel Roxas, on April 15, 1948, as the latter suddenly died of a heart attack. President Quirino wears a black arm band as a symbol of mourning for the previous president’s demise.
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