Dear Manila: I have mixed feelings about you

I’m freezing purple in my office looking out over the desert where several hours from now I’d be staring at a sunset so bored it can’t be bothered setting until night lazily pushes it over with its toe. 

I notice this because sunsets where I grew up are like a woman’s hormonal moods. Sometimes sulky, sometimes serene, other times flaring its skirts in wanton abandon. Manila sunsets are much like its inhabitants – vastly varied and deliberately theatrical despite the congested smog. 

It’s quite impossible not to love the Philippines when we’ve got world wonders like Banaue Rice Terraces or subterranean Tabon caves or numerous beaches with sand the consistency of powdered milk. I can sell you on the idea of meeting Manila for the first time because of her colonial structures dating back 400 years, or the historical significance of having the oldest Chinatown in the world blah blah blah. Big deal. 

Not that I’m being irreverent about my origins, but if I am to be completely honest, would that rote of tourist attractions found on any other traveler’s blog be enough for me to book a flight? Sure, maybe squeeze in a day trip if I have a connecting flight to the islands. Manila is like being born a Barbra Streisand in a family of Scarlett Johanssons. 

I have never really figured out how I felt about Barbra. She can move me to tears and just as quickly snort said tears when confronted with the sight of her nose. The point is, Manila is just as quirky and unconventional as Barbra’s face. You have to listen to her voice and get to know the diva that she is to truly appreciate her beauty. And even then she would still leave you confused, feeling a mass of contradictions.

Anyone born and raised in Manila who tells you they have ALWAYS loved their city is either a reprehensible liar or just really dense. It’s an unbelievable challenge to not bleed hemorrhoids when you spend a massive chunk of your life in gridlock commute on EDSA being forced to stare at silly billboards of even sillier celebrities flaunting their cosmetic surgeries.

Only in Manila do you find this blatant celebration of vanity. It’s hard to get past the fear of riding a public bus and getting 5 stitches for not willingly giving your cellphone to a guy who sticks his serrated knife in your face. 

I don’t know which is more depressing – the poverty that never seems to have a solution or the idiots we elected who confront plunder indictments with music videos. So no, no one can automatically love Manila. It happened to me at a time I was able to understand what that emotion really means – an emotion which trickled down to my subconscious and greatly influenced the kind of person I am working on becoming. 

Manila, the urban sprawl that dresses like a metropolitan city but operates on island time. A beauty whose overcrowded slums and SM malls and churches in every corner (and in SM malls!) and potholes and sweaty armpits are just as much a part of its authenticity as its verdant green parks, hypermodern glass buildings, and resounding laughter that flows like chocolate velvet from your soul to your groin.  

The Filipinos’ resilience is spoken of like a cliché. 

We were recently handpicked by the Universe to take on some of its most crushing calamities. We suffered centuries of Spanish and American occupation and constant political sodomy by our own, yet we stubbornly produced a culture that is so involved they can’t open a packet of food in public without feeling the need to offer it to everyone else. 

Just take a look at our jeepneys: what was a relic from the US military in World War II we turned into a colorful icon of public transport – with seats facing each other, clearly demonstrating the Filipinos’ social disposition.  Filipinos immerse headlong into intense, unnerving “feels” and either turn those into something tangibly beautiful or make droll vaudevilles that belie its gravity. 

This is why our artistry – be it music, medicine, engineering, dance, visual, etc – is achingly genuine. The indomitable, waterproof spirit that comes innate to us is a therapeutic balm in a world of disconnect. 

Manila is the experiential resonance of its people. The ability to absorb, adapt, and assert influences into a hybrid is the strength of our cultural identity. When you’re constantly surrounded by disgustingly talented people, there really is no other way to be but your inspired best. There is never a shortage of warmth and orgasmic food and intelligent souls to have discombobulated conversations with. 

I come to understand how entertainment is such a pervasive element in everyday Manila life and I come to understand why. For what is our purpose really but to fully engage in being alive? In this city, you are only truly limited by the ceiling of your imagination.

There is no universal answer for why you should visit Manila. But she is worth so much more than a day trip or as a purgatorial platform to the rest of the stunning archipelago. I can tell you that the city is so vibrant you can taste the lights and smell the sounds in an acid-induced festival of colors, but you really wouldn’t get that unless you’re willing to allow the time to experience the magic. 

I’m not being hokey, there’s just simply no other word for it. Manila, reflective of her people, is that place in your psyche where you spontaneously attempt to heal from unbearable conflicts. Manila is that beautiful word that means spiritual transformation and fundamental change in character. Come to Manila when you’re weary and broken and ready for an awakening. Come when you are ready for Metanoia. – Rappler.com

Sweet Caneos is a professional flow artist and pole dancer, founding the first hula hoop community in the Philippines and Saudi Arabia, where she is currently located. She footnote fancies herself an “author,” though the only literary work she has done before were 1,500-word-minimum spiteful letters to ex-boyfriends.