Sangley or DMIA?

In the bid to slowly desaturate the Ninoy Aquino International Airport which serves the entire Metro Manila the Philippine government started to develop Clark Airfield a former US military base as the new international aiport to serve the capital metropolis. Renamed as the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport, it's the only airfield in Asia capable of handling space shuttle landings - a legacy of the American presence in the country. It has two runways and a LOT of more space to expand. As part of the program for its development, the northrail which is already on the works has been rebuilt and is planned to link Metro Manila, Bulacan, Subic and Clark. Projected travel time for people who will use the airport is 1.5 hrs from the Metro to Clark. Not bad considering commuting in the metro to the NAIA takes the same amount of time or sometimes more.

Put aside though was also an initial proposal into developing Sangley Point in Cavite located in a peninsula jutting inside Manila Bay, a very ideal location in my opinion. Plan was to reclaim land around it and make it into a combined international and domestic port and international airport and building a causeway that will link it to Manila crossing the bay in what I think will be an amazing sight. That was a very big dream but I don't think we don't deserve it. New York has three international airports serving it: JFK, Newark and La Guardia; London has Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. Why can't Manila have three too? Don't tell me we are not on the level of NY or London, we may not be financially wise but on stature: YES. Metro Manila is at par with these cities. And we should not ever think of we are overbuilding because we are just preparing for the future when our density and population increases. The government plans to close down NAIA completely when the time comes but I suggest we don't do it. We could divide the air traffic if we had three airports. Service could be very efficient then and the airports not too congested.

I really don't believe we have to be poor. It is our choice to be poor. All opportunities to raise ourselves up are in place. We just choose our leaders poorly, we don't want to get our hands dirty, we wait for handouts, and we are so undisciplined. Wake up people we could very well beat all our neighbors hands down if we wanted.

GMP 2009

Marge and me went to see the pasos at the Cofradia de La Immaculada Concepcion's annual Grand Marian Procession.

A Marian Image overlooks the famous Fort Santiago gate

This carozza was so fragrant and the flowers
were so beautiful !

Minor Basilica of the Immaculate Concepcion
Manila Metropolitan Cathedral Belltower

Cathedral-Basilica's Stained Glass by Galo Ocampo
Same person who designed Santo Domingo's Windows
He wanted to do this kind abstract to those windows too but the Father Friar's wouldn't allow him hahaha they wanted medieval type windows and got their wish. Those enormous windows could have been so wonderfully unique and exquisite if Ocampo had his way...

Cathedral-Basilica's Stained Glass by Galo Ocampo
I hope I can photograph all the Cathedral-Basilica's windows

More photos can be found here >>

LRT Extension Project

This is "the Gap"
The only space separating MRT and the LRT Extension.

Here is Undas

We visited my grandparents and relatives graves at the Manila North Cemetery and at the Manila Memorial Park.

This is the plot of the Masons in Manila North Cemetery

The "typical" look of a Filipino public cemetery

One of President Magsaysay's relatives is "askew" hehehe

Mom at my dad's parents' grave

Mom at Tita Cory and Ninoy's grave

Gate to the "other side?"

I was so happy this one got a kudos from the Philippine Photographic Society in Flickr

This has gotta be the most awesome mausoleum in the country that I have seen so far

An Ambitious Solution to Manila's Flood Problem

August 22, 2009 - flood waters rose up again in Sampaloc, and after a long while of absence, even entered the UST campus, and all it's buildings, even the hospital, even the supposedly "raised" carpark. The multistorey carpark's groundlevel is raised 1 meter from street-level but this did not stop the infamous Sampaloc Flood. This really has to stop. My suggestions are many but all can be classified "wild" and "too ambitious" but will certainly work. I hope we put everything into this because this is flood is really counterproductive to our country. Imagine... Manila is our capital. It's so embarassing!

1. Redig all the covered waterways and even create a lot of new ones. Water has to go somewhere right? We should even build flood reservoirs. They can be underground, under buildings and are left empty until there's a lot of water and it will spill in those reservoirs and then thrown out when the rain has stopped. Malaysia has done this. They build a traffic tunnel which is turned into a flood reservoir whenever the need arises. Build another big canal similar to the Mangahan flood waterway cutting right through the middle of sampaloc, it doesn't have to be open, it can even run through the entire length of streets, the flood waters will be right under our feet...

2. Regrade the entire city. This has been done, although after a really destructive force rapt through a city. Seattle, which was built on a tidal plane was regraded one and in some places two storeys high after its great fire. Imagine if we raised the entire Manila landscape one storey high. No more flood.. LOL... this is really far fetched, too much history will be buried but it will be an enduring solution. And reconstruction doesn't have to be overnight. And we will not be wasting money trying to slowly raise street levels like what Manila is doing now feet by feet. In the long run, it is more expensive. And we'll also have a new tourist attraction... Manila's Underground City. --This is really not uncommon I discovered, Mereyside in UK was raised one storey high, Seattle as I've said one to two storeys high (Seattle Underground City), a large part of Atlanta has been raised one storey high (Atlanta Underground City), Rome is resting on a different Rome more times over, Mexico was raised from a dry lakebed... I can go on and on. I am leaning more towards this suggestion really. And considering the sealevel is rising, it may be our only option soon enough. It's a big sacrifice yes... but it is also a very big opportunity... we could bury all our electric cables making the city beautiful. New monuments... new public buildings, and most importantly flood, never again to be seen... can you just imagine?

Addendum :

This is interesting to share. How exactly did Seattle do it?

After its great fire, the decision was made to forever end the flooding problem of the city. They built concrete walls to line the street leaving the sidewalk at the original ground level at first... The insides of the concrete walls (the street) was filled in to produce the new raised street level. People continued using the old street level. Slowly merchants transferred to their second floors and used it as the new commercial space and used the lower floor for storage. Brick arches were put on the narrow sidewalks and were lined with thick glass to allow light below. There were two levels of sidewalks at that point. Once the people have completely moved out of the "now" underground these sidewalks were closed. Parts of the remaining underground city of Seattle is now available for tours... It's amazing how they did this, and how persistent and determined they were to stop flood from hurting their commerce... I hope we had this vigilance...

Manila Frustration

Pictured above is the proposed Burnham plan for the reconstruction of Manila which never came into fruition save for a few buildings. This is really frustrating. Of course no one can ever tell of the real circumstances during that time, history anyway should always be taken with gigantic boulder of salt. President Quezon scrapped the plans to further his plans of a new capital outside of Old Manila in his name (which by the way also did not materialize). But can you imagine Manila if the plan did go through? Burnham's plan for Manila commissioned in 1901 and completed in 1905 was actually made before those of Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. (with McMillan, they revived L'Enfant's 1791 vision for the US Capital - the crowning feature of which is the National Mall). All these cities have the same perfect symmetrical look with wide diagonal boulevards, intersecting streets, big parks, and awe-inspiring public buildings and monuments.

Some of the amazing features of the Burnham Plan?

• A 75 meter baywalk/park from the national mall all the way to Cavite with a wide scenic boulevard spanning the entire route. This actually "sort of" made it through as the Dewey/Roxas Boulevard.
• A park, canopy covered scenic drive covering the entire length of the Pasig River terminating in an park at the edge of the Laguna Lake. Sigh... wonderful right?
• Wide boulevards radiating from the center of the National Mall right behind the capitol. This is very similar to Paris' and DC's layout and it would have been amazing.
• The capitol will surround a gigantic plaza which I imagine would look like Plaza Mayor in Spain.
• Big parks surrounding the city edge.

A key feature of Burnham's concept of urban planning is taking advantage of waterfront scenery. Other big unplanned cities have covered waterfronts, filled to the brim with buildings whilst those of Burnham's like Chicago and DC has given the waterfront "to the people" with parks and public spaces which is ideal, since tall buildings built farther away can actually still see the view right? Burnham envisioned Manila as a walk-to-everywhere city just like Paris with more canopy cover, which would have been ideal, healthier citizens, with less pollution.

It's really frustrating. Chicago, after 100 years since Burnham's plan for it, is still implementing and finishing his fantastic vision, with building the eco-bridge that will cover the mouth of it's harbor in a bid to host the Olympics on 2016. Imagine, our city, with buildings rivaling those of Washington D.C. and Paris. Is it too late to reorganize our congested city? Do wee need the destruction of war just to fix our urban jungle? I'm actually loving Imelda in that she sees no boundaries nor limits in what she wants to accomplish. I want more architectural monuments in our capital, I want to bring Manila the glory she deserves.