Manila

"I offer to assist pro bono, with no other objective than to live to see my Manila, our Manila, gradually come back to life."

 

Despite having lived in several places, whether in Mindanao or out of the country, I always go home to Manila, my personal Manila.

I was just a little over five years old when we moved to Manila from San Pablo City in Laguna.  At half a year past five, I enrolled as a grade one student in Colegio de San Juan de Letran in Intramuros.  At the time, we resided in the boundary of Tondo and Sta. Cruz, in Claro M. Recto corner Masangkay, then called Azcarraga corner Magdalena, a stone’s throw away from Arranque Market.  

Until we finally moved to Malate where for the last 40 years I have resided, we lived at one time or another in Sampaloc, in Sta. Cruz near the San Lazaro race tracks, even Sta. Ana.  In short, I have lived, studied and worked within the confines of Manila.  I went through college on a scholarship of then Mayor Antonio J. Villegas.  My first government responsibility was as Postmaster-General under President Cory Aquino, with its headquarters in the classical Bureau of Posts Office astride the Pasig River.  I also became head of the Philippine Tourism Authority whose office was part of the trio of neo-classical buildings which have now become the National Museum Complex. And as political adviser to the president, I held office at the New Executive Building in the Malacañang Complex. All these offices were in Manila.

Even when I would do business in Mindanao, particularly Butuan City, or manage a family-owned farm in Davao City, or stayed in the US of A, or now in Taiwan, or even as living in the near suburbs within the metropolis meant a larger space and perhaps fresher air,  I could not get myself to leave the house which my parents bequeathed in the once genteel part of the city which at one time was called the Pearl of the Orient, Spain’s ciudad real in the Far East.

But I have also been mute witness to its slow decay.  I have seen how the once-busy upscale shopping street called Escolta of my boyhood, where I first tasted my favorite peach melba and ice cream sodas at the Botica Boie, has now become a warren of neglected buildings.  Or how the beautiful Art Deco stand-alone cinemas in the Avenida have become unsightly go-downs for imported (or smuggled) China-made knick-knacks.  How the stately trees along Taft Avenue and Ermita have either died or been cut down, forgotten relics of a time when life was infinitely more pleasant, short of bucolic.

Never mind the fact that Manila is bursting at the seams with so many people, either migrants from other cities where poverty forced them to move to the capital for work, or because of population mismanagement, resulting in the seemingly insurmountable challenges of piled garbage, un-maintained streets, poor sanitation in slum areas, crimes petty and syndicated, and now the scourge of drugs—these all big cities have to grapple with, and it is a never-ending challenge.

This article is about urban renewal, about revivifying a city once envied by other capitals in the East, virtually mutilated by the horrors of the Second World War, of which only a few of its surviving citizen still remember, but which, at least until contemporary times, still retained pockets of charm now gone to seed.

When I read that the youngish Isko Moreno, batang Maynila, won handily over re-electionist former president and then mayor Joseph Estrada, hope which of course springs eternal, lived again in my wish list.

So many problems, so many obstacles, worse, so little time.

For three years from now, Mayor Isko will once again face the Manila electorate and be measured according to what he has achieved and what he has failed to do. (Which is why this stupidly short three-year term for elected officials is really a bane we must remedy through a revised Constitution).

I am heartened by the knowledge that Mayor Moreno will be assisted by Cesar Chavez, a celebrated broadcast journalist who has served government as well in different positions, among them recently as undersecretary in the transportation department.  Cesar has also worked with me in two agencies I previously headed.  He is always brimming with ideas, and has a systematic suit within which he is able to organize both an endless stream of ideas and boundless energy.  

Also with the new mayor is another common friend, Atty. Marlon Lacson, once majority floor leader of the city council where Isko presided. 

Let me now add some two cents of unsolicited advice where likely Mayor Isko could focus and achieve the beginnings of renewal of the once proud and lovely city, at the very least to make it more livable and more enticing to visitors and resident alike.

Focus on two areas (not to neglect the rest): the Port Area-Intramuros-Ermita districts bounded on the west by Roxas Boulevard and Manila Bay; and the Binondo-Escolta-Chinatown area once known as the expanded Parian where the kastila’s ghettoed the intsik’s (written not as pejoratives but colorful descriptives).

And please, do not allow any further bay reclamation projects other than the one which both the city council under your two predecessors approved and which the national government has already green-lighted (for contractual obligations). So many greedy real estate developers will try to sell you grandiose blueprints which will not only create negative and irreversible environmental impacts, but will further lead to the rot of the original city.  In heaven’s name, for posterity’s sake, Mayor Isko, do not entertain them.

For want of space, I shall not go into too much detail.  I have spoken to your incoming chief-of-staff about my ideas, and offered to assist pro bono and with no other objective than to live to see my Manila, our Manila, gradually come back to life under your watch.

Just imagine, Mr. Mayor: Ongpin in the heart of what is touted as the oldest Chinatown in the world becomes a cobblestone-lined pedestrian street, where from say ten in the morning till ten at night, no motor vehicles are allowed to pass.  Imagine as well if all the facades of the establishments in the historic street, whether eatery or jewelry or curio store, or Oriental medicine purveyors, are re-done, at very little cost to their entrepreneurs, to look like their Hispano-Sinitic forebears.  And lit up with turn of the 19th century electric lampposts looking like the original gaslights?

With Filipino creativity, and volunteered cooperation from all sectors desiring renewal, nothing is impossible, even in the short span of three years.