Malling then and now

While typhoon Marce was flooding the streets of Metro Manila yesterday morning, angry reactions were also pouring in from the viewers (and even the hosts themselves) of Unang Hirit because of the reported government move to shorten mall hours from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Now, I am no mall rat. In fact, I avoid going to the mall if I can help it because I can’t stand crowded places. But the mall is part of modern daily living, I go to the mall to eat, work out (at Slimmer’s World), buy clothes, groceries, books (usually at National Bookstore), pieces of furniture, lighting (A & S Lamps) and bathroom fixtures, watch movies (very important in my profession) and even have my passport renewed (they’re very efficient at Travel Pros at the 5th level of Megamall). The only activity I haven’t done so far is to undergo a liposuction procedure at the mall – which they do in Clinica Manila during mall hours.

Until about 1973, urban living wasn’t like this at all. Back then, if you needed clothes, you went to COD in Cubao. Shoes? They also had shoes in COD, but for more variety you went to that small (it was small in those days) Shoemart Department Store along Aurora Boulevard. For books, you crossed Aurora Boulevard on its side. Hungry? You crossed the street one more time to have pizza at 3M beside Quezon Theater.

When you wanted to watch a movie, you had to check the movie guide in the papers first because you could end up walking block after block to find the film of your choice since the movie theaters were scattered all over back then. (Today, all you have to do is go to Robinsons, Megamall or Glorietta and the film you want to watch will surely be there.)

To cap the night, you drove (no, you don’t walk anymore this time) to Magnolia House in Aurora Boulevard near Hemady.

Things became a little more convenient around 1974 when the QUAD opened in Makati. Here, you could buy clothes, shoes, carpets and other home fixtures under one roof. Even pets you could buy there – at Bio-Research. For ice cream, the QUAD had a Magnolia House, the only outlet that served Taal Volcano, which was basically a scoop of Chocolate Ice Cream topped by a sugar cube dipped in brandy that enabled it to produce a tiny flame when lit.

Of course, you could take in the film of your choice there because the QUAD had four movie theaters – Cinemas Q, U, A and D.

In 1976, Ali Mall opened in Cubao and made urban life a lot more comfortable in that section of Quezon City. A couple of years later, Virra Mall sprouted in Greenhills and for a long time was a fashionable shopping center until it became a haven for pirated VCDs and DVDs.

SM North EDSA opened in the mid-’80s and this made shopping very convenient for city dwellers especially for Quezon City residents. SM Megamall was eventually built in the early ’90s and this establishment was what made "malling" a national pastime in this country (second only to swapping gossip).

Today, although I do acknowledge the conveniences our malls offer, there are still a lot of other things I can gripe against Henry Sy and other mall owners. One is parking. I cannot for the life of me understand why establishments have to charge exorbitant parking fees (even hospitals do this now) when we are patronizing their stores. (And the gall of these mall owners to insist that they are not responsible for any losses or damages to property that occur when your vehicle is parked in their exorbitantly-priced parking lots!)

Okay, I know there are wise guys out there who may take advantage of the situation – like employees in those Ortigas Center offices, for instance, using the Megamall parking lot the whole day even if they have no business at all in the mall.

The solution here perhaps is to have those parking tickets validated by stores patronized by clients. They can even set a minimum purchase to rule out again those people who will buy a small box of staple wires just so they can have free parking.

Most of the time you spend close to half an hour just looking for an available parking slot – and your meter is already ticking away even if you haven’t parked yet.

Now, these government people – instead of looking into this parking scam by these greedy establishments – are planning to shorten the operating hours of malls just because they can’t find an solution to the energy crunch. What a stupid idea!

In the first place, how can you close the malls at 6 p.m. when most workers are just getting off work at that time? Majority of the employees have to observe working hours you know. What do you want them to do? Play hooky and go to the mall during office hours?

Six p.m. is still rush hour. Can you imagine the number of people and vehicles spilling out from the malls at that time and eating up into the already limited road and pedestrian space?

A lot of people I know stay in the malls after office hours to avoid the rush hour. (I used to bring my laptop and work in the food court because I didn’t want to get caught in traffic.) Now, if you don’t have a reasonably comfortable place to stay during rush hour, you will be forced to join the rest of humanity on their way back home. Can you imagine the time – and the gas! – wasted on traffic?

Whoever thought of this moronic idea should go take a hike – to the mall if you wish.

But be there only until 6. Let’s see if you don’t scream TRAFFIC! on your way out there.