Now that Mayor Isko Moreno has cleaned up Divisoria, Quiapo, Lawton and other major areas in Manila, I am excited to explore these places more closely and walk along now spacious streets and side streets that had been virtually unpassable due to the proliferation of once-tolerated (or is it ‘once-protected’?) street vendors. It had never occurred to me”•prior to this massive clean-up effort”•to visit these places because I hate being in crowded areas, having lived most of my life in the relatively spacious suburban Parañaque.
Even during the past dozen or so years that I have lived in Manila, I had limited my movement a few kilometers away from De La Salle University where I work, quite often in Robinson’s Place in Ermita where I go to the gym, and occasionally in one of the restaurants in Adriatico, Malvar or Nakpil. Sometimes, I find myself in Chinatown, along with colleagues or friends, to go on a food trip.
It’s ironic that I had gone around Chatuchak Market of Bangkok thrice, but had been in Divisoria just once way back in my college days; and that I had explored a good portion of Central Park when I flew to New York City a few years ago, but had not even been to Arroceros Forest Park, which is just a few meters away from the LRT Central Station. During my first trip to Singapore in 2009, I took photos of the colorful facades of the colonial buildings in the Civic District, but I haven’t even walked along Escolta, the historic buildings of which, I am sure, deserve some attention.
Now that I am on a roll, I might as well confess that while I have visited many museums during my trips abroad”•among my favorites are the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Brooklyn Museum in New York, the Seoul Museum of Art, the German Sports and Olympics Museum in Cologne”•the only Philippine museum I have visited recently is the Ayala Museum, which is not even in Manila. In 2012, I saw up close the playful works of Andy Warhol and the Louis Vuitton collection in the Hong Kong Musuem of Art; in 2015, I marveled at the works of Pablo Picasso at the MoMA; but I haven’t even found time to see Juan Luna’s Spoliarium in the new National Museum, which was featured in the LizQuen starrer Alone/Together.
Of course, I can always blame my ‘sins’ to the fact that Manila is not a tourist-friendly city, given its terrible traffic and inefficient public transport system. It is also not a pedestrian-friendly city. We rarely have streets with wide sidewalks lined with trees, the canopies of which make for long, pleasant walks. Imagine taking a walk along Orchard Road in Singapore, the promenade around Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi, Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris, or Unter den Linden (literally under the linden trees) in Berlin. It is also unfortunate that Manila Zoo is in such a sad state, and was even closed down for being one of the major polluters of Manila Bay. I visited it a couple of years ago, and could only hope that it can be transformed into something like the beautifully landscaped and manicured Singapore Botanical Garden, or Cologne’s Flora/Botanical Garden, which, in my opinion, is superior, given its natural, rustic charm.
Now that Mayor Isko has shown political will in cleaning up and developing the city, I am excited to see more of my home city. If his vision for a Manila City Walk and the New Riverside Commerce sees light, then we will have something to rival New York’s Highline or Seoul’s Cheonggyecheon River Linear Park.
Let me end by recounting how, when I lived for about six months in Bangkok back in 2007, I enjoyed taking the hop-on hop-off boat trips along the Chao Phraya River and even served as an unofficial tour guide for Filipinos who visited the city when I was based there. We can easily get off several stops along the river to visit tourist spots such as Wat Arun, Wat Pho, the Grand Palace and Khao San Road, among others. I look forward to the day”•hopefully soon”•when I can take my foreign friends on a hop-on hop-off trip on a Pasig River ferry, accompany them on a walk along a revitalized Escolta, visit the renowned Black Nazarene in Quiapo Church without worrying about getting held up, take a breather in Arroceros Forest Park, and proudly show them the best that my birthplace and home city has to offer.
Raymund B. Habaradas is a Full Professor at the Management and Organization Department of the Ramon V. del Rosario College of Business of De La Salle University (DLSU), and is the holder of the Ambassador Ramon V. del Rosario Chair of Entrepreneurship. He does research on corporate social initiatives, social enterpreneurship, and SME development. He is also a Fellow of the Social Enterprise Research Network (SERN) of DLSU. He welcomes comments at rbhabaradas@yahoo.com. The views expressed above are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official position of DLSU, its faculty, and its administrators.