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We took the following pictures in Intramuros last 4th of July. As an “outsider,” it’s my lame attempt at commenting about the current Philippine political situation. To those who may get offended, advance apologies. I deemed an image of Marcos’s sculpture to not even be worthy of occupying space in my camera’s SD card.

  
Left: Olivia and I with Emilio Aguinaldo. Right: Aquino with a big L on her forehead (L for Laban, of course).

  
Left: Joel with ninong (really!). Right: Olivia doing for Erap what he was probably doing anyway in the photo the sculpture was modeled from.

Tara lending a hand in balancing Arroyo’s precarious head.

After heading back to Manila from Cavite, we visited my wife’s aunt in Cubao. Cubao is my old stomping grounds. We lived in Project 4, and Cubao was where my family would go to the movies, eat out and shop. I always swore I would still remember the roads there even after a 22-year absence. Sure enough, I was able to navigate my way back to where we used to live, even though P. Tuazon is now dotted with new buildings. Our old street looks narrower and our old house looks awfully small now. The makopa tree is gone - the whole garden area has been paved with cement. I have no pictures to post here because I stupidly had forgotten to bring my camera’s battery which was sitting in its charger back at home base.

Cubao is pretty much the same. Ali Mall is still standing and the original SM is still there. I was surprised to see Fiesta Carnival still intact. A new mall called Gateway juts out of the space right next to the big National Bookstore and connects Araneta Coliseum to Farmers Market, which has been vastly improved. A new MRT station is accessible from inside.

Speaking of malls, as we headed to Bataan the next day and traversed the entire Metro Manila from South Super Highway, through EDSA and then to North Super Highway, I was amused to see that there are shopping malls every few kilometers along this route. Appropriately, the skyline along EDSA is garnished with billboards pushing the latest fashions, beauty products and mobile pre-paid cards. They’re very twenty-something targeted.

Paved roads in Manila are much improved. Not only are there more of them, but there are less potholes to encounter. Philippine driving, however, is quite a different matter. It shocks me in two ways: one, everyone git-gits each other; two, somehow nobody gets mad at each other for this practice. It’s become the de-facto way of establishing one’s right of way. Amazing. This means a relatively quiet drive (save for my whimpering) with no one blowing their horn at one another. Commuting in Manila was a much noisier affair twenty-some years ago. I’m also glad to find out that some sort of Clean Air Act has been passed in Manila.

Next: Bataan

We’ve been here in the Philippines for a little over two weeks. I haven’t had time to get online and post anything because of our tight itinerary. The times I actually get on the internet I just check my email and answer some comments, then quickly logoff.

My wife and I anticipated the difficulties traveling with three young children so we adjusted our expectations and tailored our trip to be as kid-friendly as possible. So far it’s been good. Our home base is at my uncle’s place in Las Piñas which is fairly near the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

Our first few days here we spent in Cavite where my wife went to high school for one year. She took time to reconnect with her old ka-barkadas. Cavite is unrecognizable to her she says. Gone is the small town feel as Cavite has acquired new roads and shopping malls as part of the effort by the local government to improve the area’s infrastructure. Coincidentally, Cavite, a film making the rounds in independent film festivals worldwide, depicts its landscape as “dismal and upsetting.” The movie, although said to be visually stunning, “shows a kind of poverty and desperation that most Americans rarely see.” I’m not sure if I saw the same Cavite but had the filmmakers shot it ten years ago, its portrayal would have been even more dismal. I was told the route from Manila leading to Cavite was known as dumping grounds for victims of vigilante-style murders but this has been largely eliminated due to the improvement of roads in the area.

While in Cavite, we took a quick trip to Tagaytay, had lunch, enjoyed the view and went horse-back riding.
  

Next: EDSA and Cubao