Tea After Twelve: Megacities
It is three p.m. in Manila on
a sizzling Monday afternoon. The thermometer reads 30 degrees Celsius and the
traffic is at a standstill. I have been
driving for almost three hours already from the airport back to my house in
Quezon City, a drive that could take only 20 minutes if only the roads were
empty. But these days, Metro Manila's roads are never empty anymore. Traffic is
a mess of epic proportions, a nightmare, an apocalypse of sorts.
The route from the airport to
Roxas Boulevard for instance is at a gridlock almost the whole day and past
office hours because of ongoing construction and road works.
The road is lined on one side
by buildings surrounded by giant cranes and construction workers in their
bright orange workers' vest and hard hats who are busy building giant casinos
and hotels -- all part of a glittering 100-hectare Las Vegas-style casino
complex targeted for completion in four years.
Indeed, Metro Manila, a
region of 16 cities and home to 11 million of the Philippines' 94-million
population is indeed changing and it is changing fast.
Traffic is one such indicator
of rapid change, caused as much by daily road and construction work brought
about by cheap condominium boom as it is by the rise in business process
outsourcing (BPO) offices.
Blue-collared workers now
have to leave their homes double the time that they used to. If one has a
meeting in Makati, the country’s financial business district for instance, and one
is coming from Quezon City – just an hour’s drive five years ago, one would
have to leave more than two hours ahead because of heavy traffic. It’s worst to
take any of the public buses that ply EDSA, Metro Manila’s main thoroughfare
that stretches 23 kilometers through six cities, because their drivers, paid on
commission per passenger, won’t move until their buses are filled to the brim.
The elevated commuter train
that passes the same route takes only thirty minutes but one will have to fall
in line for an hour to get inside and two hours during the morning and evening
rush hours.
Once in a while, I become
part of the chaos, when I am too tired to brave the monstrous road jam and
would rather sit or stand on the crowded train than to do the driving myself.
Or when gasoline prices are skyrocketing as they do when the oil-producing
Middle Eastern region is in a crisis.
The chaos actually begins
long before the ride starts as I experienced one damp October morning, at the
foot of the train’s Quezon Avenue station, the one nearest my house, on pools
of mud and water from the previous night's rain, where the line to the
morning's ride started.
There are mostly office
workers in the long, snaking line of commuters, some in high-heeled shoes or
crisp uniform. Many are used to the kind of hell but it’s still as inconvenient
as it is any given day.
The crowd is always as thick
as the Red Sea's waves.
Welcome to Metro Manila, the
Philippines' national capital region. Welcome to mayhem. The City of Manila
itself, the Philippine capital, is indeed experiencing rapid change. Even the
once treasured national landmark, the monument of the late Dr. Jose Rizal, our
national hero who was shot by a firing squad of the Spanish Army, is now
surrounded on one side by high-rise condominiums.
Indeed, there is without
doubt a housing boom in the Philippines, with record low interest rates,
irresistible down payment requirements, many Filipinos are finding themselves
able to afford their own homes.
Developers say they are
helping Filipinos have their own homes.
Januario Jesus
"J.J." Gregorio Atencio III, co-owner of local property developer
8990 Holdings said having one’s own home is empowering.
“It’s more than a business.
We do it to change lives,” he said in an interview.
According to real estate
consultancy Colliers International Philippines, more than
4,400 high-rise residential
units were completed in 2013 in the five major central business districts in
Metro Manila that Colliers monitor.
It expects 19,700 units to be
turned over in the next three years, the company said in its outlook on the
Philippine market released in February 2014.
The monstrous traffic is the
price to pay for the prevailing construction boom in the country. Traffic is
such a nightmare that fiction writer Dan Brown has dubbed the Manila the gates
of hell, citing the six-hour traffic jams. Indeed, it is here where fiction
meets the truth.
All these development should
be good. A construction boom means job opportunities. Some Filipinos are now able
to have their own homes. But a closer look in Metro Manila’s nooks and crannies
reveals that a huge part of the population is still being left behind. Many are
still homeless and without jobs.
Shantytowns are expanding as
fast as new condominiums are rising. Philippine economic growth rose to 7.2
percent in 2013 from 6.8 percent the previous. Yet, 25 million Filipinos still
live below the poverty line.
The country’s wealth and
resources are shared by just a few billionaires and they are the same people
who are behind the booming condominium industry.
One look at any of the
labyrinthine slum areas all over Metro Manila, one will find teeming poverty
and impossibly difficult living conditions. The fetid smell of human sweat,
garbage and trash pervade in these communities as two to three families of six
are cramped in make-shift dwellings like sardines in cans.
Jobs are still difficult to
find, forcing Filipinos to leave their loved ones in Manila to work mostly in
the United States, Hong Kong and the Middle East as domestic helpers, entertainers,
caregivers or seafarers. Some 5,000 Filipinos leave Manila everyday to work
abroad.
Indeed, Metro Manila is changing
and it is changing fast. The worsening traffic situation and the construction
boom are just few of the signs of changes in this metropolis.
Some are adjusting and
feeling the change, now able to buy their own homes and drive their own cars.
But at the same time, Metro Manila’s poor stay desperately poor.
