migblog

on the in-class movie, on borrowed land about the squatters in manila (city and regional planning 115):

the movie in-class today struck a particular chord in me because of just how seemingly unchanged the operations in the philippines have been in the very recent past. i myself was born and lived in the philippines for twelve years -- a good three-fifths of my life, and was forced almost daily to deal with these incidences, these confrontations of class distinctions as a member of the lower middle class.

the part in the movie that struck me the most was the dialogue about the gsis building and the philippine film center -- growing up in manila, it was almost taboo to talk about those structures without offending anybody because there was an almost sacred reverence for the place after the accidents occured. as far as I know, those buildings are still abandoned, the only one in use being the philippine cultural center a few blocks away.

i grew up in the northern part of the national capital region in a district called kalookan, one principality over from tondo (one of the larger squatting districts outside of the city center). it was an eye-opener, especially as a child and then again as a visitor, to see the squatting population grow yet somehow remain so stagnant in the social ladder. in the pecking order of things, even we, the people who owned homes outside of the nearby gated communities, could afford to have a maid or a laundress and therefore could afford to snub the poor, the people who would urinate on the streets and sell their tabloids to us while the middle class sat idly in our cars, pretending not to notice.

tt hit home when they showed shots of smokey mountain -- I would have to pass it everyday on my way to school, a private jesuit school in the middle of quezon city near the newly-established condominium housing minutes away from the rich gated communities -- and to hear about it recently in the news, about how the monsoon season would send flash floods and destroy more "homes" and kill more innocent lives.

this still goes on. the last time I visited the philippines, it became even more glaring the disparity between the rich and the poor, the privileged and the underprivileged. in the context of people power -- the most recent one being the ousting of joseph estrada from the presidency a little over three years ago -- there are even more raised hopes, higher expectations, and with those, larger disappointments and more failed promises as the government tries to gain parity in economic and social responsibility.

i vividly remember seeing these events in the news during a time when manila was poised to be the new "tiger" of the asian economy. it all led to a disappointing economic dip -- i remember when the dollar traded twenty-three pesos, and now, it trades fifty-four -- and an even more devastating blow to the hopes of the urban poor.

i haven't been back to the philippines in nearly five years, but despite the seeming datedness of the movie it all is still so relevant, a little too fresh in my mind.

i would have to say I'm one of the lucky ones.

posted by Open Source Food @ 2:53 PM