HOTSPOT
Straight from the quiet time of Holy Week, tempers exploded on Twitter after somebody lamented that Metro Manila supposedly had “no culture” compared with other metropolitan centers abroad.
The fury was completely understandable because “culture” refers generally to a people’s shared experiences, way of life, and history. Aren’t we a people living, studying, working, enjoying and surviving in a patchwork of common spaces?
Composed of 16 cities and one municipality, Metro Manila is a place with a long, complex history. We have a lot of diverse districts, barangays, and neighborhoods, each with its unique characteristics.
On a Twitter Space, two professors spoke about how “culture” is defined, and instead asked people to refer to other similar but less vague concepts.
That the metropolis has seven minor basilicas is important to Catholics, and perhaps to students of anthro-pology and architecture. But how about the non-Catholics, non-believers and others not interested in religion or structures? Surely they have a “culture” too, or a shared experience with them.
Metro Manila is a melting pot of locals and migrants from the provinces. In this common space, and through our network of friends and relatives, we participate in sometimes competing, complementing, or markedly dif-ferent rituals and activities. Living in a barangay means participating in the fiesta or the “paliga,” joining the neighborhood watch or the Block Rosary, helping during disasters, saving in our minds the map of our barangay and nearby ones, and where the essential stores, shops, bakeries are located. Our interactions with the neigh-bors and the community, the travel to and from the barangay, the tricycle and jeepney drivers, and all the shared activities – the rituals, the events, the churches and temples, the civic centers like the basketball court, baran-gay halls and multipurpose halls. That’s where it all happens.
As a friend points out, the way we manage our days from the commute to interactions, the sights we see, the modes of transportation, and how we go about in those modes, are equally reflective or expressive of our shared experiences. Even in how to survive despite the many challenges and crises.
Some say we would be more familiar with the “cultures” of Metro Manila, if only there’s better public trans-portation. That’s perhaps true. But our inability or refusal to pay our 16 cities and a municipality a visit doesn’t invalidate that there’s something in each of them. We may not be able visit the Malabon or Navotas fish ports and markets for so many reasons, but nobody should even imply that nothing consequential, interesting or “cultural” happens there. Wherever there are people, there’s culture! Because it is the people who create culture through shared location, experiences, values and history.
If some could book a plane ticket and hotel rooms, get a visa, and travel hours between airports, just to see some sights, I’m pretty sure it would take a lot less effort to get to know places that are just a couple of kilo-meters away. In the case of BGC and Makati denizens for instance, what’s stopping anyone from taking a jeepney ride to Pateros to find out what’s life like there?
Or is colonial mentality, the idea that everything Filipino is inferior, too ingrained in our collective mis-education, that we cannot give ourselves a fair shake and see our metropolis and our country for what it really is?
There’s one test to find out how much we know or how immersed or participative we are in our metropolis or our parts in it. Think of what you would tell foreign visitors if they ask where they could go. If your reflex an-swer is to go visit the malls or the theme park-like business districts, that could mean there’s a problem.
It may be too familiar to us, or some people may belittle it, but our way of life and our culture will be inter-esting to other people. Our rush to leave the city for the holidays, the religiosity during Holy Week, the relative ease some could go to a beach or a mountain, the apparent peace between Christians and Muslims in this me-tropolis, and so on. If only we could look at ourselves and our metropolis with fresh eyes, maybe we could see.
Follow me on Twitter @tonyocruz