Goethe-Institut - Blog Cityscapes - Manila

Holidays in Monsoon Weather

nospam@example.com (Pia Benosa) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:22:06 +0100

We don’t have Thanksgiving in Manila, or any similar event. Only ridiculous mall propaganda like Thanksgiving sales that have no real meaning to us, if only to remind us to start our Christmas shopping early. Over here, Christmas is not only a time when students stuck in the university for three quarters of a year finally make the trek back to their moms’ sweet-smelling kitchens; it is also a time for the millions of Filipinos abroad and at sea to embark on a homebound exodus—of course, ideally with packs of chocolate and funds for remittances, as local TV will attest. Christmas is a long season spent planning and anticipating the noche buena, when families, no matter how poor, wait ‘til Christmas eve to eat dinner—where the Christmas ham is star. It is, in other words, the occasion we live most of each year for.
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Manila for Commuters

nospam@example.com (Pia Benosa) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:23:00 +0100

I haven’t had plenty of opportunity to take foreign friends around Manila. In fact, besides friends born to Filipino parents abroad who have ancestral homes here for summer retreats, I have no experience taking friends around my own country at all. It’s not that we’re at the bottom rung of BudgetTravel’s Top Countries to Visit When Depressed—I mean, come on, those beaches that stretch out into the ocean (or at least some part of China’s disputed baselines) has got to make it to some list, right? And, it’s the Philippines! How much more “budget” could you get?

Or are we, indeed, at the bottom of that list?
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What We Would Never Leave Home Without

nospam@example.com (Pia Benosa) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:08:27 +0200

In Manila, one can never go wrong with a pick-up line about the weather. We may not have snow, but the fickle-mindedness of the skies always leaves us with unforgettable consequences–cancelled classes, a national fuss over whether to cancel classes, casualties, damage to property, a lot of anger directed at the government, and if we’re lucky, a mere note to self to get that umbrella repaired, or to buy a new one.
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Why We Will Never Occupy Philippines

nospam@example.com (Pia Benosa) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 15:13:00 +0200

We have always been the 99%. We've known it a long time.

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I Dream of Green

nospam@example.com (Pia Benosa) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 19:41:36 +0200

A few weeks ago I received an e-mail inviting volunteers to participate in a coastal cleanup of Manila’s most notorious waterway—the Manila Bay. My schedule couldn’t have permitted me to join, but I was with them in spirit; a whirlwind that would sweep all the trash and unsightly establishments that corrupt the glorious history of these waters—informal settlers and titanic malls both included—is all that I would pray for during the thousands of bus trips I’d taken down the coastal road next to the bay, while en route to my hometown.
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Manila: Definitions

nospam@example.com (Pia Benosa) — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 07:57:00 +0200

There are words we do not use often in Manila. “Culture” is one of them.
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Mind Your Own Manila, or Not

nospam@example.com (Pia Benosa) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 09:25:36 +0200

June 12, 2011 marks the Philippines’ 113th year of independence. Yet even without Castilian friars spying from church towers, even with fewer American soldiers walking out of nightclubs with adolescent girls dangling from their arms, even with no caste system which pre-colonial alipin and Spanish-colonial era sangley errand boys and the general lot of indios are in the lower tiers of, Manila society remains to be one where community is defined by currency.
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Manila: Paint It!

nospam@example.com (Pia Benosa) — Wed, 25 May 2011 05:58:18 +0200

Manila needs a major, major paint job.

I do not exaggerate when I say the city needs that much renovation, nor do I simply take off from what in the last year has become a very popular catchphrase in the country (“major, major”, because of this). I say it because the last ten years has seen parts of the city enshrouded in the most unlikely, and dare I say it, the most awful of color schemes—thanks to political and tourism campaigns that fail and change as quickly as people in position do.
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Manila: Trash Talkin'

nospam@example.com (Pia Benosa) — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 23:39:00 +0200

by Maria Pia Benosa

I graduated from university a few weeks ago. The sunflowers, which grace my school’s main avenue every summer—a sendoff for the new graduates who will soon join the ranks of the unemployed—did not bloom on time this year. Some blame the late summer and point toward the now familiar somber shading of the skies. Some blame the gardeners who did not anticipate the increasing effects of climate change.

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You Can Look But You Can't Touch

nospam@example.com (Wawi Navarroza) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 18:23:08 +0200

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Manila by Night (seen through the eyes of a young girl)

nospam@example.com (Tengal Drilon) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 17:26:55 +0200

ByTengal

Credits:
Additional camera by Kreame Isaac
Music: Nodular Fronts by Caliph8
http://soundcloud.com/caliph8/

Manila: City of Vulgar Prudes

nospam@example.com (Pia Benosa) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:45:56 +0200

by Maria Pia Benosa

In certain contexts, just like how “Filipina” is defined elsewhere, Manila has become synonymous to sex.

But for the longest time, people in this city have turned a blind eye to any evidence of it—despite the rampancy of sexually-charged billboards of showbiz icons on national roads, streamers of motels promising the best value for so little, girls in bikinis dancing on noontime television daily. Even a sign on a Philippine jeepney that reads: "I am not responsible for anything lost in this vehicle. Including virginity," does not stir much civil alarm and complaint. It’s as much a shocker as it is an everyday thrill for the fun-loving Filipino.

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Postcards from Suburbia

nospam@example.com (Wawi Navarroza) — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 17:40:52 +0100

by Wawi Navarroza

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Manila: Fragments and Memory

nospam@example.com (Pia Benosa) — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 15:38:55 +0100

by Maria Pia Benosa

Recently I had a chance to see an old city plan for Manila, drafted in the 1900s by the same architect who shaped the cities of Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. into the postcard beauties we now know.

But today, Manila is nowhere near that grand design of a city by the coast—where government buildings in the tradition of early civilizations tower over their constituents, and where all roads lead you back to the bay that saw many great battles.
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Manilanimal

nospam@example.com (Tengal Drilon) — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 13:08:39 +0100

by Tengal

Credits
Audio used:
John Fahey - The Yellow Princess
Lawrence English - Stillness in Motion