Dirty old Manila, dirty old Philippines

I hate writing something derogatory about our own cities and country. And I detest myself for putting our own homeland in a bad light. But I don’t want to lie, neither could I ignore the painful and embarrassing facts I see each day.

I have an office in Manila, along Roxas Boulevard and where people come each twilight, to watch, among others, the beautiful sunset over Manila Bay. But I see garbage and smell filth, and all around are half-clad children begging or selling wares.

My office is almost directly in front the US Embassy, where foreigners come and go from Luneta and from the sleazy bars in Malate, where pedophiles wait for prey, and sex-starved sailors rendezvous with female or male sex workers. And I ask myself, is this the city where Rizal was killed for love of freedom and country?

Manila is also the locus of Malacañan, the Senate (in a rented building), the Supreme Court, and the Court of Appeals along the dirty old Padre Faura. It is also where the Basilica is, the center of the nation's Catholic faith, and where the cardinal is supposed to reside officially.

It is also the site of the famous Quiapo Church and Plaza Miranda, the old symbol of freedom of expression, now overshadowed by Mendiola, where bloody demonstrations and rallies used to end with truncheons being used against the people by a state that has become too powerful and suspicious.

Manila also has UST, where Rizal, Quezon, Osmeña Sr., and Macapagal studied, and where Atio Castillo died of hazing by a fraternity.

By all appearances, Manila is dirty. Manila Bay is dirty, the esteros stink. Pasig River can kill by suffocation and asphyxia even the vermin and pests. There are stinking garbage, human and animal waste.

There are too many homeless families and street urchins virtually residing in the sidewalks, who sleep, eat, defecate, and urinate everywhere. These people don’t have the gall to lambast government for such a dirty city because they are the ones making it dirty.

And to think that this is the city that dares to invite tourists to come and see the famous city by the bay. This is the city that used to be the pride of Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, the residence of General Douglas Mac Arthur in the penthouse of the grand old dame, the Manila Hotel.

The problem is, to many foreigners, and even to most Filipinos, every nook and cranny in Metro Manila, is to them, simply Manila. The airports in Pasay and Parañaque, are also very dirty. But the plane stewardesses would always announce: “We have just landed in Manila” and NAIA is known to many as Manila International Airport, even if its terminal is in Pasay and its runway in Parañaque.

Pasay is the dirtiest, like a part of Caloocan and Quezon City. Makati, Muntinlupa, Las Piñas, and San Juan are somehow better. But Pasig and Taguig are dirty. Marikina, Pateros, Malabon, Valenzuela, and Navotas are dirty. And to many tourists, all of them are Manila. And Manila is dirty.

And since, to foreigners, Manila is the face of our country, they would easily rush to conclude the Philippines is dirty. I remember once, a friend of mine, a former female mayor of a southern Cebu town, innocently ask her granddaughter whose father was British: “Darling, in your one-week stay in Manila, what can you say about your mom's country?" The girl, without batting an eyelash retorted: “Dirty.” Well, the truth, from the mouths of babes. Dirty. The verdict is guilty. Dirty.