Disasters in old Manila

I woke up Sunday morning with a strong urge to go to Quiapo where I buy materials for the jewelry I make. I have not been there in a while. Lately I’ve come up with a design that needs fine chains. I couldn’t find them closer to home so I went to Quiapo.

As we got closer I saw a sign on a familiar building. This building is condemned, it read. It was the old GSIS, once beautiful with a wide circular stairway, the lovely details still standing albeit boarded up sloppily. It was built in the 1930s or 1940s by a prominent Filipino architect. What a pity they are probably planning to demolish it. They should retain this building and build a new one around it. The property is big enough to do something that will preserve this old architectural gem.

 Once it was the Clover Theater that stood on the corner of Echague. They used to stage vaudevilles, a series of comedy acts that involved song and dance. When I was young, vaudeville was dying but they had funny puns in their titles. In the ‘50s there was a movie The World of Susie Wong, starring William Holden and Nancy Kwan. That led to two vaudevilles: Ang Susi ni Wong and William Holding Nancy’s Kwan. The shows there always had hilarious titles. All gone now.

We traveled a short way down Echague then my driver suddenly said, “I don’t think the roads are passable.” There was a massive road construction going on the right lane. We asked a pedicab driver if there is a way to Villalobos.  Yes, he said, and pointed with his lips, just a little strip of road. We made it. When I got to Villalobos, just a short walk away, I was astounded. The entire left lane had been undone, dug up, under construction. It was full of dirty water, plastic garbage thrown in, really grimy. All the market vendors had moved to the right lane, meaning the walkway for pedestrians and bicycles was narrower than ever.

 I thanked God literally that the store I wanted to go to was on the right lane. Another one I normally go to — because it is the biggest, most sophisticated store on the street — was on the left lane. They added a “bridge,” planks of wood across the filthy water but they’re narrow, uneven. It would have been easy for anyone walking across that bridge to falling into that muck.

 I asked the girl who helped me, “How long before they finish fixing that side?”

“I don’t know, a long time,” she said. “The workers are always sleeping.”

 “When they finish that and when they do this side, will you close then?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

 I got back to my car and said, “I know we won’t come back for a few years.” It’s a terrible mess.

 As we moved down Echague I noticed they were also rebuilding the market. It will look good when it’s finished but until then the vendors have moved to the street. It’s absolutely terrible.

We crossed the small bridge and hit the dead part of Echague. It looked like a cemetery for old, closed buildings. Suddenly I wondered: could they not move the vendors on the right side of Villalobos over to this side of Echague temporarily while the street is being fixed? Surely they could talk to everyone concerned and get a temporary lease. I remember the busyness of Villalobos. Where is everyone going now? Does anyone think about these inconveniences?

I’d like to call the attention of people who handle these road constructions. You have to be more considerate of everyone. You have to plan better. In Mandaluyong there was a road I loved to pass that led you to the Makati bridge fast. They did something to it under the previous government. Of course they did not finish it. Someone told me that Secretary Villar of the Duterte government saw it and began shouting at the workers. They worked more, and now it’s almost finished. I passed there the other day. It is not quite done but almost there. That’s what a shouting session can do.

I admire the desire to fix roads, to raise them maybe and avoid floods. But you have to be better organized and you have to consider the people who have businesses there. You have to offer decent alternatives to the people who sell and the people who buy. You have to concern yourselves with other people’s lives, the quality of those lives, too. You have to do the most construction at the least possible inconvenience to the people around. One way is for you to find them alternative spaces to move to while you are doing major road construction. The way you do it now is disgustingly horrible.

 And that’s why I had a sudden urge to go to Quiapo last Sunday.

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