Manila to be a Hong Kong

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

7/3/2013

Daily Tribune

"Ridiculous" would be the first word that one hears from fellow Filipinos when it is ever suggested that Manila could be made into a Hong Kong for the Philippines. 
In fact, when I do try to provoke a reaction to the idea this is exactly the reaction I get. But really, if one looks at the history of Hong Kong since the 50s to what it is today, the allusion to Hong Kong as a parallel for the future development of the City of Manila is not preposterous at all.

In the 50s, the City of Manila was the envy of Asia: the fabled stories of the sunset of Dewey Boulevard and the Manila Hotel, the Quiapo underpass reportedly the first underpass complex in Southeast Asia built by Mayor Arsenio Lacson.

Hong Kong at that time was swamped by tens of thousands of refugees from China reeling from the end of the mainland civil war and dotting the Hong Kong skyline and harbors like Aberdeen, rife government and police corruption persisted until the ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption) in the 70s. 
The Manila elite flew to Hong Kong for breakfast and returned to Manila for dinner, while the migrants from Hong Kong took up the "dyaryo bote" junk trade to establish themselves in Manila.

Before there was the Hong Kong Ocean Park or the Singapore Jurong Park, Manila Zoo was with its seals, ostriches, elephants, zebras, boa constrictors and the like, enthralled us Baby Boomers as little children. Now Manila Zoo, which I visited just late last week, looks like a dump from the outside and the elephant Mali (its name) is subject of an international animal protection group's campaign to be saved from starvation (though the effort to transplant it would likely kill it instead).

The 50s was the time the Philippine Air Force acrobat air team, the Blue Diamonds, streaked across Luneta's skies when Manila hosted national and regional or international parades, carnivals and events, and Philippine universities hosted the children of Asian royalty who came to study and learn from the Filipino academe.
All that was great about the Philippines was about Manila, but now like the forlorn elephant at the Manila Zoo, Mali, the City of Manila is in a sad state: with a 2010 census population of 1,652,171, the second most populous Philippine city and the most densely populated in the world with 43,079 per square kilometers, according to Wiki, a third of whom are urban poor, squatters fancily called "informal settlers" in Tondo, Baseco, Parola, Isla Puting Bato and other areas working as stevedores, peons, vendors, kalesa drivers, waiters, mall sales girls, security guards, garbage men, laundry women, beat and traffic cops and aides, and jobless job hunters or simply permanent unemployed, ad nausea. Fifty thousands are vendors all over Manila, and many clog the Divisoria main road.

A new city administration has taken over starting July 1st, and the first public demonstration of its intention right after the first flag raising ceremony of the new city government at city hall was the symbolic street sweeping led by President-Mayor Joseph Estrada which was replicated all over the six districts of the City. Sweeping the garbage of the City clean will probably be the easiest task the new city administration will be doing because the rest of the sweeping involves sweeping the graft off of the City's management of the 50,000 vendors', thousands of parking slots, countless public market licensing and daily fees and real estate collection, which have been drastically reduced in the last administration leading to the Commission on Audir report of the City's P3.5-Billion budget deficit.

Being associated with President-Mayor Estrada many Manila residents have texted me about issues they want resolved: One living on Magdalena, now Magsangkay St. hoped the traffic and flooding problems could be solved; a property owner, Greg Licaros, congratulated Estrada for replacing the police chief from the past administration; yet another asked me to lunch to suggest the vision of A New Hong Kong by tapping the huge, huge PROC Chinese business community's very keen interest in investing billions of dollars to help the City of Manila.

It was thought that Hong Kong after the July 1997 turnover from British rule to China would start going downhill but instead it has been China that has allowed Hong Kong's unprecedented prosperity. The New Manila can replicate Hong Kong's feat with China.
The National Government leadership has disastrous relations with China, but the City of Manila should do differently and cultivate constructive and positive relations with China to showcase what good relations can deliver for the Filipino people.
China has been doing this with countless other countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa doubling trade, building infrastructure, extending easy loans, spreading solar power, etc.
It's time the Philippines tap into this for urban housing and industries as Hong Kong and Singapore prioritized.

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