The Hermitage

Ermita, Manila

By Tommy Nagle

Once upon a time, Manila was dubbed 'The Pearl of the Orient'.

Within this city is a district named Ermita, from the Spanish 'La Hermita':

The Hermitage

Raging battles that the Americans fought against the Japanese in 1945 turned most of the city into rubble.

After Warsaw, Manila was the second most devastated Allied capital of World War II, and in many areas, including Ermita, it is still recovering.

When we found out we'd be living in Ermita for six months, we didn't know it was essentially Manila's red-light district.

It was a bit of a culture shock.

It certainly wasn't Makati, the ex-pat populated district, replete with fancy supermarkets and brunch establishments serving avocado toast.

Horrified? No, we're not snobs. But disappointed? Maybe.

We stayed nonetheless, since my wife's commute was, while not salubrious by any stretch of the imagination, short. A-five-minute-walk short.

INTERLUDE I:

" I enter the bank to pay our electricity bill. Uniformed guards stand both inside and outside the premises, sporting shotguns and frowns.

Tellers sit at tables behind a counter. As one of them riffles through a stack of pink banknotes, the full, uncensored, certainly not-safe-for-work version of 'Stan' by Eminem plays over his phone speaker to all and sundry.

One of the guards taps his index finger on the barrel of his shotgun along with the beat. "

We did visit the wealthier areas of the city occasionally:

Luxurious hotels, well manicured parks...

...and giant, sprawling malls.

An exhibition basketball game played in the atrium of one of these malls drew huge crowds, basketball being one of the Philippines most popular sports.

INTERLUDE II

Mamzer | mɑːmsəː , mamsəː, məmsəː | noun

The salutation of many a person in the service industry. A contraction of "Ma'am" and "Sir", it rings out everywhere you go. Well, everywhere you go if you're a woman and man walking together.

Such a situation might occur, again, in the mall, where employees outside stores ring little bells to attract your attention. It serves the dual functions of a) being beyond irritating, and b) making me sure to avoid said store forever for performing such a fatuous practice.

But we always had to leave the well-to-do places to go home to Ermita, where things were less... polite? Wholesome? In order?

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The two photographs below, taken four months apart on the same street corner, reveal the gradual evolution of a city.

The addition, subtraction (and destruction) of signs, posters, street furniture, paint, trash, people and their possessions often happens unnoticed.

Yet there are things you couldn't help but notice.

The noise.

The pollution.

The solicitation.

The abject poverty.

People lie on pieces of cardboard under the blazing tropical sun, sharing a post code with the slowly encroaching spectacle of shops selling Italian couture handbags and internationally owned hotels serving sushi and imported wines.

The contrast was heartbreaking at times.

INTERLUDE III

The Robinsons Supermarket, on the ground floor of our apartment building, had many quirks. When not advertising in-store promotions over the Tannoy with jingle-music pirated from the Back To The Future Soundtrack, it seemingly only had one CD to play. Said CD featured Sam Smith's 'Stay With Me', Taylor Swift's 'Shake It Off', Jason Mraz's 'We're Worth It', and Ellie Goulding's 'Love Me Like You Do'. That's it.

There wasn't one single occasion when I'd visited the supermarket that one of these four songs wasn't playing. It's like they stole it from a wedding DJ and played it on repeat just to taunt him.