Manila and its Facade

I was on my way to Manila for a job interview. I was nervous, yes, but was okay. With high hopes, my mom and my brother accompanied me (via my sister's truck) and we navigated our way towards the land of dreams and promises... Manila.

I recalled when I was a kid, my aunt used to live in Caloocan and we would go visit her sometimes. Her condo was in a part of Caloocan that had a park in front. Cars were parked where they should be and there were absolutely no squatters in the area.

My ate and kuya also lived in Manila, while they were studying. Kuya at the Philippine Aeronautical School (PATTS) in Pasay and my sister at St. Scholastica's College in Malate. They both lived in good neighborhoods that's why when I came to visit (from Baguio), It was like I never left Baguio (except of course the difference in the weather!)

That's why, I was FLOORED when I saw what has happened to it (Manila) when I came back. Probably I never saw any of the sights that I am uploading right now, because of the kinds of neighborhoods I visited in the past, or, Manila never really was the land of dreams and promises, only broken-hearted "probinsyanos" who dreamt of a little more than rice fields.


Shanties (medyo okay pa nga dahil concrete ang building eh) surrounded by loads of pedicabs and children running around in their bare bottoms


Old glory houses (spanish era) that were forgotten and still lived into until this day (a gust of wind could kill the ones inhabiting this house)


Commercial districts of downtown Manila amidst luxury cars and shanties


Children riding their bikes in cross country traffic (with killer jeepneys and buses)


People waiting for the bus (in the stench of rotting garbage and human excrement)


I wonder whether the politicians that proudly say how "Clean and Green" the city is are BLIND or only look at their gated communities in their well-kept subdivisions to proudly announce that INDEED THEIR CITY IS CLEAN. I wonder whether the ones who proclaim are the "CHAMPION OF THE MASSES" or "PRO-POOR" should be proud, because nobody, even rats, deserve to be such in living conditions like the children I saw running in between city traffic bare-footed. I wonder whether the families of these people vote, for they certainly are in DIRE need of somebody to just live 1 day of their lives to make a difference. I wonder whether the government is STUPID to say that the bracket between the UPPER CLASS and the "masang Pilipino" have been indeed breached, for as I saw it, the children only get less clothes on their back, less education and more poverty when they grow up. I wonder when they wake up, do they realize that there's so much more out there that whatever these WRETCHED politicians say.

I do hope that inside those shanty-filled make-shift "condominiums" of sqalid horror, there lies a heart that will someday help those, who are, WILLING TO MAKE A CHANGE.