The City of Manila, properly The Distinguished and Ever Loyal City of Manila, turns 442 today, and she does look her age.
From daily traffic jams in front of City Hall to pedicabs and kuligligs crossing roads they’re supposedly banned from, to a police department that had its water cut off over unpaid bills, the seat of power in the Philippines has definitely seen better days.
Manila mayor-elect Joseph Estrada painted a dark picture of the capital during his run against incumbent Mayor Alfredo Lim, whose term ends at the end of the month. With a fresh mandate from a new city, the former San Juan mayor, senator, and President, has promised to return Manila to its former glory.
This website hopes Estrada fulfills that promise.
Estrada has already taken a major first step in appointing tour guide, artist, and social activist Carlos Celdran as the city’s tourism consultant.
Celdran has led protests against the construction of Torre de Manila–a condominium project that he said would have destroyed the view of Rizal Park–as well as against a reclamation project on Manila Bay. Critics of the Manila Bay reclamation project, which includes Senator-elect Cynthia Villar, say it will destroy the famous view of the sunset on Manila Bay, deprive citizens access to the baywalk, destroy coastal ecosystems, and cause massive flooding in the nearby cities of Paranaque and Las Pinas.
Find out more about the history of Manila on the Presidential Museum and Library website, which has put up infographics on the city supposedly named for the nilad lilies that grew along the Pasig River.
—
Photo: “Escolta, the principal business Street in Manila, Philippine Islands.”
