MEDIUM RARE
Jullie Y. Daza
On our way to The Manila Hotel in her almost-new Beamer, I asked Lolita’s driver to show me the Binondo-Intramuros bridge designed and built as a friendship project of the People’s Republic of China. Snaking through a labyrinth of narrow streets and alleys, we were suddenly and smoothly at the foot of the bridge – and what a pretty one, looking light as a cloud, as if suspended in mid-air.
There were more surprises to come, for this bridge which connects the gold mine that is Binondo, the world’s oldest Chinatown, to the Walled City that once was the ghetto – Parian —“is even lovelier at night,” said Lolita, “when the lights come on.”
Without the lights, what was clear to me in the fading sunlight was that this section of Binondo, bounded by streets with Spanish names like Madrid and Jaboneros, must now be the new and newer Chinatown.
The pandemic notwithstanding, the sight of so many ongoing construction projects was just mindboggling – in one location, four or more, at a glance. Midway through construction, their frameworks promised to reach heights of 40, 50 stories. In another 12 months, no doubt there’ll be another boom on the same or another street.
Thirty years ago, when Lolita’s family built their first condo in the neighborhood, “we made a mistake by limiting its height to just 11 stories.” The building occupies an entire block, four streets on four points of the compass: “Can you imagine the amount of money we did not make, ai-ya!, we should have added 20, 30 floors.”
Another surprise. The pretty bridge, painted a bridal white, spans Pasig river and yet, Lolita insisted, “the streets don’t get flooded.”
The only “flood” that happens around here is currency, the kind that flows and is exchanged in pesos and centavos. (How much does a square meter cost?) The big banks are adequately represented, cheek by jowl, and no matter how narrow the streets may be, the wide-bodied clunkers, 10- or 16-wheelers, pickups and vans have learned to adjust their heft and noise to the comings and goings of commerce. The residents don’t seem to mind – they own the business, don’t they, the stores and the shops, the condos building by building, unit after unit?