street photography in the Philippines
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
Before leaving for the airport this morning, I spent 90 minutes on a trek out to the river that wends its way through Manila's sprawling congested urban space. I wanted to see a bit more of the city, and with Arnon off for a 06:00 flight I had the opportunity for a solo expedition.
Manila's a fascinating place. It's certainly a poor town, but it's also quite apparent that people's lives in that city aren't really all that different from the lives of people in wealthier towns. On my trek I was greeted by countless people marching stolidly on their way to work just like I would in Sydney or Tokyo or Toronto. The difference is that many people smiled and greeted me. You'd have to be a major celebrity to elicit that sort of response in Toronto or Sydney. And Manila's financial district was certainly a lot larger than that of Toronto or Sydney. The people still send each other text messages on their ubiquitous cell phones.
Yes, the traffic is a problem, but so it is in Toronto. Yes, the electrical system consists of a tangled mess of wiring that speaks to widespread theft. But so it is in every laneway in Tokyo. And Canadian cities are no stranger to brownouts and blackouts. Beggars in the streets? Toronto has as many. Nasty pollution in the rivers? Tokyo's streams are far worse.
I suppose the distinguishing factors that marked Manila as a poorer city were two: housing and livelihoods.
The many cramped and poorly-constructed houses that seemed to have been built illegally in every nook and cranny. There is a lot of what I'd call substandard housing in Tokyo (thin rusted corrugated metal walls with dangerous-looking electrical feeds) . But the sheer extent of the slums in Manila was disturbing. Along with these shacks was a decidedly poor infrastructure of cramped and crumbling roads and, as I've mentioned, some extremely dubious-looking electrical systems.
As for the livelihoods of the Filipinos, there are a lot of people making very marginal incomes, doing things like selling used clothing from the back of a bicycle, or driving taxis for miniscule fares.
I suppose that these two things are the real measure of wealth. And I suppose I'm moved to write about it here because while I have been to a number of places in the developing world, Manila is by far the largest poor city that I've been to.
It looks like an interesting place to visit, and I hope to get down there again. I don't know how welcome a foreigner with a camera would be, but I didn't meet any unhappy or angry faces on my first jaunt and people seemed no more averse to having their photo taken than they would in any other city.
I'll have my humble pics of the place online in the coming days.