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City Life in Manila
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As a Westerner, what was living in Manila like, good and bad? What are the best places to live in the Philippines?
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Manila was amazing, in many ways, but also gross and disgusting and full of very in-your-face poverty that, frankly, isn’t for the faint-hearted. The night life’s amazing and if you live in a place like Makati or Quezon City, you might have a grand ol’ time for the most part. However if you want to live there long-term, as I did? I really, really wouldn’t recommend it. Especially not if you have children. I swear to God, two weeks in even the cleanest part of the city and you will find that the color of your snot changes… it darkens. Air pollution is a big issue, traffic is insane, and I would never in a million years want to raise a family there. Even though Manila is the capital of what is still very much a third world country, the cost of living and especially housing has gone up quite a lot and it’s not the sort of environment that I’d want the little Jean-Marie’s exposed to, as you can understand. Which is why I commuted a lot. Got a house in the province. Personally I love the mountain areas of the Philipines. The Cordillera region, Sierra Madre mountains comes to life… it’s where one can experience the true Philippines, away from the bars, the chicks, the parties and the pollution. Also, perhaps most importantly… away from the disgusting foreigners. Maybe you are the type of person that doesn’t mind some foreigners around. Me, I don’t like it. Makes one ashamed to be a Westerner. Or Chinese, or Russian, or Middle-Eastern for that matter; the Philippines truly attracts the dregs of society, the worst of the worst the West has to offer. In the provinces you can have a house and lot at a much lower price. Cost of living is affordable, gas cheap, and commuting isn’t hard if you own a car. This was my view… not the girls, not the bars, not the vibrant young people of the often very metropolitan business area of Manila, Makati… no, it was the quiet, endless green mountains, hills and valleys of the Cordillera, home to the Igorots, the Bugkalots and various other tribes with names that escape me, each with their own unique language, their own unique culture and often cuisine… the climate is much more agreeable, too, compared to hot and humid Manila. Manila is fine if you are young. Or childless. Or just an older bachelor or lady looking for a good time. The moment you have kids, you want to get out of there. You want some fresh air, a change of scenery, a slower pace of life, something a bit more wholesome. A retreat to get away from the madness of the world, to find and embrace stability. Manila is very much the madness of the world I wanted to get away from. In the mountains, I found peace.
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Manila has improved a lot over the past 10 years or so, but still it’s basically a gigantic hellhole like no other place on the planet – at least no other place I’ve ever been. There might be similar hellholes in Africa and India, but I’m quite certain nothing like it in SE and East Asia, since I’ve been to all that possibly could be as bad. To be clear, nowadays Manila has some excellent food and awesome shopping, in impressive shopping malls. The problem is you can’t really escape the fact you’re in one of the world’s most desperately poor cities, where the well off are around 5-10% and the desperate poor are like 60–70%. Income inequalities are obscene, and the way Filipinos disregard poor children, no other word but disgusting. You have large groups of rich Filipinos going shopping, smiling and laughing to glitzy malls with their brand new BMW or Lexus SUVs, while babies and toddlers right next to them are sleeping on the sides of 8 lane highways and desperate, hungry children begging in nightgowns, kids as small as 3–4 year olds climbing on moving vehicles in heavy traffic to beg for money, spending their days running around between cars in brutal gasoline fumes not fit for a human and in extreme danger of being run over. Filipinos walk past smiling and laughing, not batting an eyelid at these kids including sometimes newborn babies sleeping on the street, straight out of the hospital. (Thank you Catholics worldwide. Yes you are to blame.) I lived in both the South and North of Manila for about a month each a few years ago (Pasay and Caloocan). Since I wasn’t in the center those areas were really unremarkable. There were a bunch of minimarts, which were basically a short escape from the often unbearable conditions on the street. Most times when I went walking in downtown (Malate/Ermita area) aggressive fixers/drug dealers started following me and harassing me, leeching onto me and impossible to shake off. They did not seem dangerous, just an extreme annoyance, when you have an unwanted loser as a mandatory local guide. This only happend in the main downtown area though, which is a very small part of the city. What I found really interesting was that many parts of the city looked like some post-apocalyptic wasteland, and people were living there. These were places you’ll never see a white person. There were streets and abandoned shopping malls that looked like they came straight out of a zombie horror movie. It felt very surreal being there. I remember feeling like I was inside a sci-fi. I never once felt unsafe though, they’re probably so shocked you went there, the last thing that would occur to anyone is to hurt you. I remember a lot of issues with rain, heat, pollution, no sidewalks and the people were really all very small compared to me, which was amusing. Walking around often felt like I had to climb through the city. The only place to go nearby was the shopping mall which were all pretty much the same American mall clones. And also the minimarts. For anything else you had to brave the city to get there, sometimes going home totally soaked, exhausted and filthy. Local Filipinos really did not seem to give a damn about me living among them, except to say hello, which both suprised me and I really appreciated it because no one ever bothered me outside of the tourist areas. Some regular girls tried to pick me up at places like markets occasionally, basically everyone else treated me just like completely normal people. Despite really wanting to have local friends, I found it impossible to establish relationships with Manilans because all the people I met seemed really not that sophisticated so it was impossible to talk about anything besides small talk, we simply did not have anything in common to be able to have a conversation. They really weren’t that interested in the West, or were so clueless their interest was extremely superficial. Retrospectively, I should have made an effort to go to places with more educated locals, but getting around was so difficult, I didn’t really feel like going far after a few nightmare experiences dealing with the elements. I was basically in culture shock the entire time, but to be more specific it was shock at the horrible conditions, not really their culture, which I actually really liked. I like to visit Manila nowadays, but still every time I go there I’m astounded by how can people live this way. It’s a fascinating city, but the conditions of the poor make me really upset. Maybe to compensate for all this ordinary (non-rich) Manilans are probably the friendliest and most polite people I’ve ever seen on the planet. There is no excuse for the callous disregard that the rich Filipinos and Catholics around the world show for the poor children though. Forgot to mention, insane traffic. Insane is an understatement. At that time it took something like 3–4 hours to get from North to South Manila and still be within the same city. At times I felt like I would pass out from the gasoline fumes. Despite all the bad, I still go back to Manila. Why? Because it’s an exciting city like no other and locals are really nice, and I wish I could do something to help these kids there.