Most of Filipinos have accepted as a “fait accomplie” that Metro Manila is an ugly place to live. A handful of areas in Quezon City, Fort Bonifacio or Alabang have sidewalks, cleanliness and free public areas, as parks. It is a fact that few foreigners decide to stay in the national capital for a few days, more impelled by the night life activity in certain areas than for the historical monuments remaining in Intramuros.
The truth is that, generally speaking, the street is something noisy, disturbing and highly poluted between your house, your working place and the shopping mall that you have to pass thru as fast as possible. While in Singapore, Taipei or Seoul the street is really a nice place to be, in MetroManila the street is the place to skip: pedicabs, smokes, jeepneys, noises, street vendors, garbage, etc. Some people have told me that those ingredients are the essence of the filipinity; I argue that I do not believe that and that those are the ingredients of backwardness. There are things that can fit in the province, but not in a place where almost 16 million people have to share their lives.
The greed of many enterpreneurs and city majors is behind the construction of many condominiums and shopping malls, as if those were the only signals of progress the city should show. In fact, from a far, the skyline of the city from the bay may happily remind the one from Hong Kong, but it does not show the clear signs of unliveability and underdevelopment perceived as soon as you approach almost any street. Every single square meter in Manila City, San Juan or Mandaluyong is a source of money for the ones implicated the absurd race for building new condos and malls. No place to have a walk, no park to play with the children -except, of course, the ridiculous bubble-garden in your condo-, no space out of smoke, no open areas to feel out of the opression of the high buildings. Moreover, condos and shopping malls are being built constantly without taking in consideration that the streets obviously can not absorve more traffic. It will reach the time, not very far from now, when the city will be totally collapsed, but then, the many authors of this huge trouble and their families will have as much money in their pockets as to go to live to a better place.
The truth is that, generally speaking, the street is something noisy, disturbing and highly poluted between your house, your working place and the shopping mall that you have to pass thru as fast as possible. While in Singapore, Taipei or Seoul the street is really a nice place to be, in MetroManila the street is the place to skip: pedicabs, smokes, jeepneys, noises, street vendors, garbage, etc. Some people have told me that those ingredients are the essence of the filipinity; I argue that I do not believe that and that those are the ingredients of backwardness. There are things that can fit in the province, but not in a place where almost 16 million people have to share their lives.
The greed of many enterpreneurs and city majors is behind the construction of many condominiums and shopping malls, as if those were the only signals of progress the city should show. In fact, from a far, the skyline of the city from the bay may happily remind the one from Hong Kong, but it does not show the clear signs of unliveability and underdevelopment perceived as soon as you approach almost any street. Every single square meter in Manila City, San Juan or Mandaluyong is a source of money for the ones implicated the absurd race for building new condos and malls. No place to have a walk, no park to play with the children -except, of course, the ridiculous bubble-garden in your condo-, no space out of smoke, no open areas to feel out of the opression of the high buildings. Moreover, condos and shopping malls are being built constantly without taking in consideration that the streets obviously can not absorve more traffic. It will reach the time, not very far from now, when the city will be totally collapsed, but then, the many authors of this huge trouble and their families will have as much money in their pockets as to go to live to a better place.
The consequences of this greed and the lack of urban planning are being felt already in the last rainy seasons. The lack of open spaces without cement, the accumulation of huge buildings, the lack of a drenage system and the lack of an efficient system for the collection of garbage is directly related to the last floods. The country wastes millions of pesos every year in relieving the flooded areas, when it would be much wiser and cheaper to spend money in prevention. Metro Manila urgently needs to go green and open, in order to do not become a Garbage Venice City with jeepney-gondolas transporting people among the dusty lake and a lot of pasarelas connecting condos and malls. Laguna, the bay and Pasig River will join if nothing is made to stop it. We are waiting for the events of the next rainy season.
The faces of the ones responsable for this are the same of the ones showing up later on in the flooded areas giving free packages of noodles to the damnified ones in front of the TV cameras. In the meanwhile, nobody moves a finger to turn back the bad practices of city majors and real state enterpreneurs, and Filipinos are patiently waiting for the next calamity. The problem is not already the ugliness or the liveability: it is already the very future and survival of the city what is in danger.
The faces of the ones responsable for this are the same of the ones showing up later on in the flooded areas giving free packages of noodles to the damnified ones in front of the TV cameras. In the meanwhile, nobody moves a finger to turn back the bad practices of city majors and real state enterpreneurs, and Filipinos are patiently waiting for the next calamity. The problem is not already the ugliness or the liveability: it is already the very future and survival of the city what is in danger.