Romancing the streets of mega Manila

By BONG PEDALINO
January 17, 2011

A line from an old song by the Hotdogs bears timeliness for a neophyte visitor like me: simply no place in the world like Manila.

For exact territorial correctness, I was not able to step in the soils of Manila, for as far as public and commercial vehicles that I had ridden in my four days’ stay there last week, I had been to Pasig, Mandaluyong, San Juan, and, of course, Quezon City.

But such perfect territorial description does not matter, because for a “promdi” (slang for “from the province”) Manila is a generic term, encompassing the environs of a modern metropolis that can also be viewed as an urban jungle.

As soon as our plane touched down at the tarmac of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), I can feel the smell of a concrete forest, where people and high-rise buildings and vehicles – thousands of vehicles – competed for space.

The distance from the airport to our assigned hotel was about under twenty kilometers, but we reached there in solid two hours, from 6:30 to 8:30 pm because of bumper-to-bumper traffic – a scene I only saw on TV was unfolding right before my eyes, backlights of vehicles in glowing red illuminated like flickering fireflies.

And so in the next four days, my eyes feasted on sights of roads twisting here and there, the overpasses, underpasses, shallow tunnels, seamless curves, with matching blaring whistles of taxicabs, jeeps, service cars, buses, and single motorcycles.

Pedestrian crossing was passé, for in its place was the skywalks where people move like ants in opposite directions, either for a leisurely stroll or on the way to work, after alighting from the stations of the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) and the Light Rail Transit (LRT).

The malls, whose structure are so huge they defy comprehension for starters, were always filled with people buying anything until exhaustion, which made me wonder that malls should also be covered by surveys to determine if people really have gone bottom poor, eating only twice a day – a situation you cannot believe happening when you observe lavish lifestyles in these cool shopping centers.

The outskirts, however, offered a different scenario: cramped houses standing side by side as children frolic unmindful of whistling, passing motorcabs.  “Hangang dito na lang po tayo,” said a taxi driver as he stopped by a station of waiting motorcabs.  “Binato ako dyan ng pumasok ako minsan, at akoy gumasto ng P18,000 para sa repair sa mga nabasag,” he chuckled.

An unfortunate incident, no doubt.  But reminders for reckless drivers also abound in bold letters beneath the hard columns of overpasses.  “Pumagitna po tayo, makakarating din tayo,” one sign reads, referring to the unwanted overtaking and sudden, out-of-lane insertion.

Then there is this ubiquitous instruction, which is self-explanatory: “Follow your lane.”  And still another: “Dahan-dahan po tayo, may namamatay na dito,“ obviously referring to past fatal accidents that hopefully would no longer be repeated.

Yet everyday on prime news we hear accidents after accidents happening.  Were those warning signs not read or were they just become simple routines that no longer merit attention?

Still, I cannot help but be filled with awe and wonder, as life goes on in crowded highways in this bustling metropolis.  “Iyan ang EDSA shrine,” the taxi driver told me as we passed by yet another wondrous structure of a road named after a historic figure.

And EDSA itself, the long stretch of a street, was no less historic, for it was here when people once converged in a show of strength and power that not even tanks were able to get through.

I can relate with EDSA even as I did not live there, because I was part of those glorious moments in spite of the fact that I was far away from the so-called Imperial Manila.  There was this inner sentiment that somehow I belong.

The Hotdogs had the same feeling.  “I walked the streets of San Francisco,” the lyrics of their song “Manila” goes.  “Traveled around in Disneyland.  Dated a million girls in Sydney.  Somehow I feel that I don’t belong.  Hinahanap-hanap kita Manila.  Ang ingay mong kay sarap sa tenga.  Mga kotse mong nagliliparan…“

For me, my discovery of the streets in Manila has just began.