Manila Must be Cleaned

Last Wednesday we were sent by our boss to the Coast and Geodetic Survey Division of NAMRIA which is located somewhere in Binondo. All is fine from Katipunan until we reach Manila.

Ahhh…Manila. The capital of the Philippine Republic. The former mistress of South East Asia in the golden age of the Spanish Empire. Manila is great, until its demise into its current state of filth and decay. Sorry if I generalized too much…but then again I observed for the many times that I visit the city that its state somewhat pitiful. It is the more pitiful when I reached Divisoria.

Am I too “maarte”? Maybe not. Everyday I pass through Payatas to go to work and the smell there is tolerable. Divisoria is another story. The smell there stings…intolerable. I feel sorry for Manila. I feel sorry for the heritage that is now mired with filth and neglect.

I am hasty and maybe too harsh to judge the city. Maybe I am. Maybe the places I visited is not enough for me to give a general picture of Manila. But then again, Manila is the center of the Republic. There should be no place for filth.

It is a shame. Davao City is way too cleaner than Manila. Manila must be cleaned not in a way done by MMDA in the streets of Quezon City. The city government must not follow the elitist ways of Bayani Fernando’s office of simply destroying the parts of the city that is “ugly” (”ugly” in the eyes of MMDA includes the poor, the squatters, the “illegal vendors” that are not all part of the elitist beauty). Manila must create a comprehensive plan of restructuring the city.

I commend Mayor Lim’s clean-up in Baywalk. Now its time for him to delve deeper into the problem of the City. I pray that the city will improve.