The title's from a line in one of my favourite songs of all time - Kylie Minogue's "Spinning Around". I like the song so much that I have listed it down in my will as one of the songs to play in the necrological service.
Incongruous as it may be to have that line in what aspires to be a quasi-history blog, I find it most apt: finding it difficult in my present milieu suitable concepts to define myself, it is to the past that I therefore turn. And uncovering my past, my history, the collective story of my race, leads me inexorably to an unabashed love for the city of Manila.
From the earliest onset of this love to as late as a few months ago, it has been my tendency to decry and wail at what I perceive to be the "destruction" and "slow death" of my city. Only after reading Nick Joaquin's "Manila, my Manila" did I finally abandon the mater dolorosa posturing and set myself to loving even more what still is, and to be grateful for the opportunity to enjoy what treasures still remain.
Speaking of "Manila, my Manila", I think this book should be required reading for everyone entering the city limits. Written in the incomparable Joaquin style, which inevitably reduces me to uncontrolled sobbing for the sheer majesty of what it evokes, this book makes the history of Manila memorable precisely because it is presented as stories; I actually wanted to entitle this blog "historiasdemanila" for in Filipino, as in Spanish, the terms for "story" and "history" are one and the same. From what I gather of the foreword by Mayor Mel Lopez (my copy is the 1990 edition commissioned by the city government for use both in the city's public education system and as guides for visitors high and low to the city, acquired in Old Manila bookshop after years of searching...price - P280), that was the point: to have a "pop" history that would be easily accessible to non-specialists, the man on the street. Why this book is not being reprinted periodically is one of the biggest questions I have, and may account for the prevalent lack of knowledge of the city's history, even by the very citizens themselves.
Loving what is, however, only makes me adore even more the source of these riches - the wonderful, tumultuous, insane history of Manila. And this love also make me militant against any future moves to undermine, subtract or tamper with the precious little that remains of our legacy. But I leave the actual fighting to the ones who are better equipped for it. My professed role is to transmit whatever knowledge I have acquired, and as long as there are people in the city to keep these stories alive, then our beautiful city herself lives on, regenerating and beautifying herself once more to a new generation of lovers. Take your pick of parallels - the bridgemaker, that is, the Pope as vicar of Christ, who is Himself the greatest bridgemaker, pontifex maximus; or the asog or bayoguin, cross-dressing and effeminate priests of the ancient Tagalog religion, one of whose functions is the memorisation and conduction of epics and legends to the next generation, thereby preserving racial memory - I am happy to play the role to the hilt.
Never will I lay claim to presenting a complete and accurate history, historiography being very dynamic. I invite others to use my views as diving boards from which we can go off to explore other areas of our past, or to add their perspective to what I said, spicing up and rendering irresisitible the rich brew that we both labour and enjoy.
"Races and empires and religions have washed over it; the warlike have used thunder to claim it and the city, smiling, has allowed them their foolish moment. Age after age, its lovers have hailed its rebirth or bewailed its perishing, while outside continued the traffic for strange webs with Eastern merchants." - Nick Joaquin, "Manila, my Manila"
