I am now close
to my second week here as an Intern in Saligan based in Ateneo de Manila
University Loyola Campus. Aside from my legal training in developmental
lawyering, this rugged independent experience has opened in me a greater lens
through which I see my world.
Clearly Manila
as the capital of the nation has always exerted its gravitational pull
in me ever since I’ve known friends leaving home to open new worlds here. Now
that I am here, I am, even though for a short two months, appropriate my own
version of the manila experience and see if the noise and silence of this place
strikes accord in my soul. The place, in itself, with all the accessibility,
the resources, the fun, and the sheer mass of concrete and humanity constantly interacting
every day, has yet to make sense.
My routine of
walking towards the UP Ikot station allows me to pass a community covered with
colourful plastic campaign materials. The structures of the houses are caught
between the developed and the developing – a community with the perfect mix of
the extremely poor and the capable. Those who just cook with fire wood at the
side walk and those whose kitchen are as big as their living rooms. Half round
in the UP Ikot Jeep, I get to see the state’s Primer University Quezon
City
I then transfer to
my second jeep which takes me to Katipunan. The old and the young, the employed
and the student patiently wait under one metal jeepney roof. Sometimes it is
obvious that people always rush away from the side near the driver. Who wants
to be the defacto conductor of the jeep right? And worse, who wants to be the
recipient of everyone’s germs right? A Mother wipes the toddler’s face. A
sister shares a snack with the bunso. The old man guards his leather brief case
with all of his life. An agent gently secures his item on his lap like it was a
child. Workers of restaurants and books stores, and multi-level networking
agents, and teachers and students with large framed glasses one by one exit the
jeep. I get to do that under a blue overpass.
My day begins as
I walk under a series of big trees and the engraved phrase under the shield Lux-in-Domino shines at the horizon.
