MANILA REPORT #3

When I was a student at Maryknoll College in Quezon City, I used to drive down EDSA. And at that time EDSA had long stretches of fields so the feeling was that you left the city of Manila, drove through nothing until you hit Quezon City. Now, there's concrete jungle all along EDSA, and needless to say the traffic along that avenue is horrendous.

Today, it was particularly bad because there was a fire in a slum community. The cab driver said the area was called Guadalupe, and it was made of shacks - squatters' homes. He said this was the second time the area burned down; five years ago there had been a fire. The owner of the land posted many guards to try and prevent the return of the squatters, and the cabbie said there were a lot of fights, with people getting killed. The squatters managed to get back into that land and rebuild. Then, there was this morning's fire.

Dark smoke swirled up into the murky Manila sky. People stood on the overpasses to look at the smoke and fire. The firemen apparently couldn't enter this area and blocked the surrounding roads. I didn't understand this statement fully, but I'm sure that is what the cabbie said. The cabbie insinuated that the fire could have been arson, but he toned down his statement by saying it's hard to tell because these kind of dwellings are made of flimsy wood, with illegal electric hookups, etc.

It took 50 minutes for me to get from Makati to Pasig ordinarily, it would take 30 minutes. So this wasn't too bad. The highway going the opposite way wasn't moving at all. After my hour meeting, I found another taxi and the guy was distraught about what route to take to get back to Makati, since EDSA traffic was at a standstill. He wound around through Mandaluyong and back streets and I think he may have taken advantage of me some because the meter was 50% more than usual. A lot of confusing and unnecessary turns, back tracking in some cases. But never mind he got me back to Makati - and even though the dollar is WEAK, it's still a bargain to travel from Pasig to Makati for $4.

I was tempted to go to Ilse D'Touls (you have to pronounce this with a French accent; it should really be Sa Ilalim Ng Tulay [Under the Bridge]) - a down home shopping section for handicrafts, unbelievably cheap, but the place has an edge so when you go there you have to be prepared for purse-snatchers and other bad people. I didn't go to Ilse D'Touls; didn't feel like adding any more edge to my life today.

So I thought about going to Ermita, where neat antique shops and restaurants are, and where Frankie Jose's bookshop La Solidaridad is, but it's Friday and traffic is just extra awful Friday afternoons. So I'm holed up in Makati.

Let's see what tomorrow brings!

Signing off from Makati.