How do you solve a problem like Manila?

If the government does not solve Manila now, Cebu, Davao and Iloilo will also become unsolvable. Manila is a perfect example of a nation that has failed to plan well, and/or failed to implement its plans effectively. Any attempt to solve any one of the huge problems of traffic, flood, garbage, squatters' colonies, crimes, diseases and other social ills, independently of each other and in total disregard of the total socio-economic and political, cultural realities, is bound to fail, and indeed fail miserably. Manila is a microcosm of a decaying city of greed, lust and all forms of human excesses. The labor front is the worst victim of all these social cancers. The rich are somewhere else.

Manila is the nation's capital. It is the place where Malacañang is, the Senate of the Philippines, the US Embassy, the historic Intramuros and Luneta, the national heritage that is the Manila Hotel, the world famous Sunset over Manila Bay, and the oldest University, the only pontifical university in Asia, the University of Santo Tomas. But unscrupulous politicians and greedy businessmen have ruined it. The people have dirtied it. There is no respect for history and culture. It's all money, money, money. There is no long term master plan to rehabilitate it, nor is there any decent Filipino who has the vision to rebuild it. Manila is the face of the country.

If I had the power, the influence, and the money, I would restore Manila and give it back the grandeur of Rome and the glory of Greece. I will make it the landmark that all Filipinos will be proud of, the real beauty by the bay, more alluring than San Francisco, and more exciting than New York. I will make it the city of arts and culture and history, not unlike Paris or London. It shall become both a Vatican and a Mecca where Christians and Muslims, Jews and Arabs shall come to worship their God, in solemn peace and harmony. I will put many museums, libraries, memorials and monuments, sprinkled with fountains and falls, and full of orchids and ferns, ala Singapore.

To solve the traffic problem, I shall convince all universities and colleges to transfer their locations. I have a place for them. Those hundreds of thousands of hectares in Muntinglupa should be vacated by convicts who have no place in the metropolis. They should all be transferred to the Spratly Islands, Alcatraz style, and also to guard our border. The penal colony will be transformed as a University City where all colleges and post graduates, including secondary schools should be located, complete with all dormitories, faculty and administrators condo, book stores and computer shops. That city should be governed by an education czar, with the leadership style of Dick Gordon or Rudy Duterte.

Tondo shall be transformed into a modern community of peasants and middle class craftsmen, to honor Bonifacio, with shops that sell Filipino carvings and pieces of arts and crafts. The Chinese community in Binondo shall be modernized with buildings that showcase Chinese culture and arts. Malate shall become a hub of tourists, with clean shops and restaurants, where foreigners can walk and enjoy Manila Bay, free from snatchers, hold-uppers, child beggars, addicts, muggers and prostitutes. All the casinos should be transferred to Parañaque, which shall be transformed as the new Las Vegas in the East, bigger and more sophisticated than Macau.

Then, I shall build a grandiose Malacañang, Senate, House of Representatives, Supreme Court and all department buildings in one strip along Roxas Boulevard by reclamation. It shall be called the Government Island at the back of the Quirino Grandstand. If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, there is nothing impossible. If we have the will, the vision and the passion, we will have the way, and the money will follow. I shall then line up the monuments of heroes along the Manila Bay and Roxas Boulevard shall be called The Boulevard of Heroes. Then we shall build a tower taller than Petronas in Malaysia. By solving that problem called Manila, we shall put our country in the global map.  Then, the Filipinos, indeed,shall  have arrived.