City life

April 9, 2007 10:18:53 PM
City life

We've been in three cities so far this trip: Manila, Calamba, and Iloilo.


Manila
When we visited Los Angeles a few years ago, we said that it was what Manila would be like if only the Manileños had some money.
Metro Manila's about the same size as L. A. - I've heard estimates from 10 to 15 million people - and it shares a lot of the same character.
Traffic and smog like you wouldn't believe (no, really, you wouldn't); a few fantastically wealthy people (and the stores and shops to cater to them) along with countless people simply struggling to make ends meet; people who've moved there from all over the country on a one-way ticket to follow their dreams.
Manila's the home of the Philippine television and movie businesses; it's the biggest city in the country by a long stretch (think New York City vs. Buffalo); and of course, it's the political and economic capital. It dominates the country in a way no American city does or could. I suppose Mexico City is like this in some ways, or London or Paris.

But Manila has grown too big for its own good, and the problems all modern big cities share are overwhelming its ability to cope.



Infrastructure is completely insufficient - the roads are clogged at all hours of the day and night; new roads are going up, but they aren't going up fast enough; the two urban train lines aren't enough to help. The one airport with its three terminals (and a fourth already constructed with its opening promised "any day now") can't comfortably handle the millions and millions of Filipinos streaming overseas to work as nurses and nannies and engineers and physicians - and coming home to visit with their families. Power outages of hours at a time are routine. Sanitation services and air pollution control collapsed a long time ago.

The people are wonderful - but there are just too many of them. Manila is proof that there can be too much of a good thing.

We rarely have a compelling need to spend much time in Manila, and on this trip, we've only been in Manila to visit the airport.


Calamba
Calamba, Laguna is about an hour south of the Manila airport (if the traffic's not too heavy). We have cousins there whom we visit for a few days each time we come.


Calamba's a much more comfortable place than Manila, and in fact serves as a distant bedroom community for Manila workers.
Calamba has about 200,000 people, like Durham, but in a much tighter space. This shot is of a comfortable middle-class neighborhood, with houses of about 1,200 square feet, no space between the houses, and very narrow streets. Mount Makiling, a (mostly) dormant volcano, is on the horizon.

Calamba's claim to fame in the Philippines is that it's the historic home of Jose P. Rizal, the Philippine national hero.


I can't explain Rizal's significance in a few sentences in a way that would capture his image among Filipinos in a way Americans would readily grasp - I'm not sure I understand it myself. You could think of him as a George Washington, a Ben Franklin, and a Thomas Jefferson all rolled into one - though as far as I know, he never held elected office. Highly educated, well respected, born into a wealthy family, Rizal was a world traveler and writer who through his novels and other writings campaigned in favor of the Filipino people in Berlin and Madrid at a time when the Spanish government dismissed the Filipinos as inherently, racially unfit for self-rule.

Agnes says: Dr. Jose Rizal was a well-educated person, with degrees from A to Z, Architect to Zoologist, and everything in between. It seems that all his life, he studied abroad, in Europe. He may not have practiced all his professions before he died. And there's something about being brokenhearted over a Josephine.

In any case, Rizal was executed - Filipinos would say martyred - by the Spanish government, along with other revolutionaries.
Monuments to Dr. Rizal appear all over Calamba; his home is open for tours; his image is on the one-peso coin. He's honored in this country as nobody else is.

In addition to all the Rizal monuments, the character of Calamba is affected by its proximity to Los Baños, just a few miles down the road. Los Baños is a resort community; its name means "the baths" and comes from its volcanic hot springs. Also in Los Baños is a prominent campus of the University of the Philippines.

Los Baños also specializes in buko pie, a fruit pie made with fresh (not dessicated) coconut - more like an apple pie than like the sticky-sweet coconut pies we're used to in the USA.


Iloilo

Manila and Calamba are both on the large island of Luzon in the north of the Philippines; Mindanao is the large island to the south; the Visayas are the chain of mid-sized islands in the center of the country. Iloilo, a 45-minute plane ride from Manila, is the dominant city of Western Visayas.


We've spent more time in the vicinity of Iloilo than anywhere else in the Philippines. This is a city the size of Raleigh or Charlotte - maybe 350,000 people, with a surrounding province of more than a million. More livable than the monster that is Manila, more earthy than Calamba, this is an agricultural and commercial hub - produce and other goods come in from provinces all over Panay, along with seafood from the Strait of Guimaras and beyond. There's heavy industry related to agriculture (producing animal feed, milling rice and sugar) and light industry like the garment weaving the Arevalo and Villa districts are famous for.

Iloilo used to be the capital of the Philippines, so it has great historical importance. And even in Calamba and Manila, there are culinary homages to Iloilo - foods like pancit Molo and La Paz batchoy are known everywhere and are named for districts of Iloilo City; there are restaurants with names like Casa Ilongga and Ilonggo Grill. (I guess this is like New York pizza and Philly cheesesteaks, except you can get pizzas and cheesesteaks in Iloilo but you won't find pancit Molo or La Paz batchoy in the USA. Especially the batchoy.)



Iloilo is a college town, too:
- Central Philippine University
- University of the Philippines - Visayas
- West Visayas State University, Agnes's alma mater
- University of San Agustin
- St. Paul's College
...and others I can't think of right now. This is a city of well-educated and ambitious people - and I mean that in the best sense.



I've heard visitors call Iloilo "gritty"; the downtown area (this is a shot from Calle Real, the old shopping district, and Chinatown) does has that feel. When we're in town we spend a lot of time in the big shopping malls, not just because they're air-conditioned but because they're easier to get to. One could say that we're missing out on "the real Iloilo", but increasingly, these malls are the real Iloilo. But even for Ilonggos, they're an escape, too - an escape from the heat and the smog outside and, yes, from pervasive poverty. In their malls, as in ours, it seems no one is poor and everyone is as happy and beautiful as the billboard models. As I hear many times in this city - "OK; no problem."


There are many more pictures on my flickr photostream.