Makati's history is written into the modernist bones of The Peninsula Manila. Beneath Napoleon Abueva’s iconic Sunburst, the Lobby opens upward in a sweep of marble, chandeliers, palms, and broad staircases, carrying the hum of a room that has seen presidents and soldiers, newlyweds and debutantes, orchestras, eccentrics, and generations of families return to the same tables. Outside, Makati has spent decades remaking itself in glass and steel. The hotel, by contrast, has preserved an older idea of grandeur. Since opening in September 1976, its permanence has been tested repeatedly. Political crises have reached its doors more than once. In 2007, one quite literally came crashing through when Senator Antonio Trillanes IV and Brigadier General Danilo Lim marched into The Peninsula with Magdalo soldiers and supporters after walking out of a court hearing tied to the 2003 Oakwood mutiny. It only took a previously unthinkable pandemic to finally empty the..
