My Childhood Memories of Manila

Discordant Notes

My Childhood Memories of Manila

The first thing that struck me when I went to the Amsterdam, twelve years ago was that it looked like Old Manila during the 1960’s. It bring back good memories of old Manila to me.

Manila was then, looked and feel like Amsterdam. There were a lot of foot bridges ( wooden most of them) between the canals. There were small stone bridges  especially near Intramuros. But the wooden bridges that connect communities north of Manila we fondly call of them lambingan bridge.

In the middle class communities,apartment homes abound. They exactly looked  like old Europe, Amsterdam and New York. Up the hill, we marvelled at Hollywood type homes with high walls. We used to run and up and down the hill, it was still a rough road until they asphalted it.

It was one of our child games. To run and outrun each other up the hill and down the hill. We will make a run around the old church walls and find our way back down the hill near the river. Our elementary school is located near the bank of the river. And at the other bank is a big high school they demolished and built new apartments.

We play in its ruins while they were starting to build the new apartment. We play at the piles of old woods and stones where Lipa High School stood.   Now you cannot make out of the place filled with apartments and houses.

We replayed the scenes we watched in war movies and the television series “Combat” starring Victor Morrow and Rick Jason and play Japanese versus Filipino guerillas. We usually make our own wooden rifles or submachine guns. 

Or sometimes, when we grew tired of fighting war, we engage in sword play. Banging swords and shields made from tin can covers usually  the big margarine cans. We play pirates or princes or sometimes as Vikings or like El Cid.

The river we call big canals in Manila were clean. They were not filled with trash. We could swim in there after a storm not on ordinary days when it is dark. It was dredged almost weekly. 

We fondly watched the big derricks dredge the rivers every other day and watch how it scooped the dark soil and dirt out of the water. Nowadays, they have outsource dredging the rivers to foreign companies.

Then Marcos decide to cover up all the canals and small rivers and made it as roads. Now the old canals that runs from the north of Manila to the Pasig river is gone.

That is the short story why Manila is always flooded. Imagine Amsterdam or Venice without its canals. They you will understand Manila well.

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