Five-Foot Walkways in Iloilo

Five-foot ways were used by everyone for everything: by the nosy for gossip, by children for their games, by hawkers to sell their wares and by vagrants for shelter.

- Selina Siak Chin Yoke
The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds

The quote is from a book about a Nyonya who grew up in Penang, Malaysia. She describes a building feature which also happens to be a common fixture in downtown Iloilo City.

Five-foot walkways represent a time when streets and walkways were public gathering spaces. It was built at a time when commerce and daily life were interwoven: people lived above their shops; you didn't have to go out of your way to buy anything because everything you need is along the way.

The five-foot way was a path, protected from the elements, that is shared by private enterprises and the public.

This is a quote from a 1993 article called "The Shophouse Rafflesia: An Outline of its Malaysian Pedigree and its Subsequent Diffusion in Asia" by Jon S.H. Lim:

The term 'five-footways' is a colloquial expression from Anglo-Asian origin, made up from two parts: 'five-foot' is a literal translation from kakilima or goh kaki, a Malay and Hokkien term respectively, and 'way' which is a corruption of the term 'footway.'

It is most likely that the term 'five-footways' was coined by local builders in response to observing the minimum width of a verandah for shophouses.

In colonial S.E. Asia, there existed two codes which shaped the built environment; namely the Royal Ordinances for Manila and the 'New World' as proclaimed by Philip II of Spain (1573), and the Raffles' Ordinances (1822) for Singapore and the 'Malay world'.

The Town Building Committee which he formed stipulated: 'All houses constructed of brick or tiles have a uniform type of front, each having a verandah of a certain depth, open to all sides as a continuous and open passage on each side of the street.

I definitely prefer bumping shoulders on five-foot walkways to being lost in the labyrinths of a mall. Because the old buildings of Iloilo are not just relics -- they are still living, thriving, and growing parts of our lives.

The last building has nothing to do with this post. I just think it's super cool.