Colonial mentality is a global phenomenon dating back to thousands of years ago when explorers who discovered new lands brought home as trophies the best the newfound region offered, including their names, as proof they indeed reached those far-flung territories.
Historically, this occurrence started to surface in Davao City at the start of the 1960s when the western concept of ‘rest and recreation’ was translated into beer gardens, cinemas, and bars. Few of these nocturnal hangouts survived for decades but eventually folded up with the rise of attractive drinking pubs that offered sophistication and style, not copycats.
Old timers who swore to roam the city’s streets by night remember names like El Madrid, El Cairo, Rainbow, and Roxy as some of the significant names in neons. Against the dimly-lit streets of the city, they rose above single-story buildings like beacons. And more than just being businesses, the identities of these establishments reminded residents on how far had western influence been transplanted to local shores.
El Madrid, a beer garden at the Acacia intersection in Davao City, oral tradition says, was a tribute to the famous Spanish city where the early contemporaries of Dr. Jose P. Rizal staged their resistance against the friars. True or not, the ciudad de español has along been associated with romance, chivary, and intellectualism.
On the other hand, El Cairo, another beer lounge at the Acacia junction, was supposedly inspired by the concept of beauteous Egyptian belly dancers prancing and wriggling their way around the ogling males during key celebrations. In Old Testament era films, this situation was a key cinematic ingredient that provided the excitement. Where else is Cairo but in Egypt?
And who would forget Volare, still at the Acacia area, which was copied from the popular song originally recorded by Italian singer-songwriter Domenico Modugno, and later popularized by Italian-American singer Dean Martin. In Italian, the term means ‘to fly’. Old timers associated the bar with women known as mababa and lipad or prostitutes.
A movie that was destroyed by fire but was later rebuilt was Roxy theater, named after a moivehouse in Hollywood. Its last address was near the corner of Jacinto and Uyanguren streets at the end of the old Reolsyl bus terminal. With the influx of bomba (sex-oriented) films, it was forced to join the bandwagon but lost to more daring theaters who showed porno movies.
Filipinos’ fixation for things American and Western was also present in other noctural landmarks that sued to be favorite destinations of nightowls. There was Dux, along Magallanes (now A. Pichon) street, which meant ‘Saxon chief or leader.’ But it was not so.
The pub—actually a singing lounge—was named after a Hilton suite with same name in the US where ducks (that’s right!) are given royal treatment, including red carpet treatment during certain hours of the day. Better still, the birds were allowed to take the elevator up the top floor where they had a customized swimming pool. Fiction? Nope.
The mark of Hollywood was also present in another beerhouse known as The Rainbow. It was, urban legend says, inspired by the Rainbow Bar and Grill, a bar and restaurant on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California.
Pianist par excellence Faro Benitez (who later moved to the present Waterefront Hotel at Lanang) used to own a drinking pub at corner Rizal and Anda streets, at the place where a bank now sits, which he named Keyhole. Known as a popular watering hole of media practitioners, the beerhouse copied its name after the Keyhole Bar in Mackinaw City, Michigan.
Unlike its American counterpart which has a collection today of over 23,000 keys that cover its wall, the old Keyhole at Davao was the city’s only piano bar in the eighties. As a consolation, it had a go-go tavern along Claveria (CM Recto) street,which recently closed down was the Tip Top Bar. It was named after the Tip Top Deluxe Bar & Grill, in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Of course, nocturnal habitués still remember the fashionable Marrakesh at Matina’s red district, which offered bands, beautiful belles, booze, and, at times, brawl. Owned by a prominent Davao family, the classy bar was named after an imperial Moroccan city which, today, is “a major economic center and home to mosques, palaces and gardens.”
Down north, there was this Hagar’s Place, at Insular Village, where expats used to congregate with their fiancées and partners. The restobar apparently got its name from the Egyptian handmaid of Sarah, Jacob’s wife, who begot Jacob’s son. Whatever was the inference of the biblical narrative to the choosing of the place’s name, only the owner knew.
After all the drinking and singing, the likely destination for inspired partners would be some cozy place to unwind. What comes to mind is Queensland, a motorist hotel (motel) that’s synonymous to fleeting tryst. It’s unclear if it got its name after a place in Australia or due to the fact that this is where lecherous men land their prized catches.
And, by the way, SHO-TA, a Tagalog slang popularized in the eighties and nineties,, is a corruption of ‘short time.’
