Ziggurat ruins

Not as tall as the abandoned building behind Quezon City Hall but in a more prominent location, this terraced eyesore stands on government property at the corner of one of the roads which radiate from the Quezon Memorial Circle. When the land was still empty many years ago, the rumor going around was that Ayala Land was negotiating to lease or buy it so they could build a mall there, which would have been their first in Quezon City. When this terraced structure went up, the rumors became even fiercer. Then construction stopped completely without any explanation, as is quite usual in my country, and the thing's been standing there since. Ayala Land did eventually build a mall in Quezon City and I don't know if there's any truth to the old rumor, but the design of certain parts of Trinoma sure look very similar.

CEIS UGLY BNC

Inappropriate

I have featured many of the beautiful buildings and ruins of the historic walled city of Intramuros, which used to be the city of Manila during the Spanish colonial period. Now let me show you the most glaringly out-of-place structure in the district. Called the Clamshell, it is a huge airconditioned tent used for commercial and tourism exhibitions and trade fairs. It stands on the corner of Santa Lucia and Anda streets, which used to be the location of the Ateneo de Manila University when it was still in Intramuros. To come upon this tacky structure, especially when it's screaming with promotional banners and streamers, after seeing the elegant Spanish architecture of the rest of Intramuros, is jarring, to say the least. I really hope that the Intramuros Administration and our Department of Tourism decide to take it down in the very near future.

No room…

to run,

Tiger (Panthera tigris)

Lion (Panthera leo)

Double-wattled Cassowary (Casuarius casuarius)

to crawl,

Albino Burmese Python (Python molurus bivittatus)

or to fly

Kalaw or Rufous Hornbill (Buceros hydrocorax)

at the Malabon Zoo. :'(

Don't blame the rains

Because of the long and wide Pasig River, which connects Manila Bay on the west and Laguna de Bay in the northeast, many cities in Metro Manila are crisscrossed by its numerous estuaries and tributaries. Unfortunately, with the fast and uncontrolled growth of this largest of the Philippines' urban centers during the sixties and seventies, the river system was completely neglected. The esteros of the cities of Manila, Makati, San Juan, Mandaluyong, Pasig, Taguig and Marikina are little more than open sewers. This particular garbage-choked estuary is in Binondo, Manila. It will take much more discipline and political will than we have shown so far to rehabilitate this very important resource. And people wonder why we always get floods during the rainy season.

Open invitation

A demolished building with the walls left standing is something that no graffiti 'artist' can resist. This is at the corner of Katipunan Avenue and Aurora Boulevard in Quezon City. Before the demolition of the low structures for another high-rise residential condominium, which is now suspended because of some legal dispute, it had the last mini-golf course that I knew of in Metro Manila. My husband and I used to play there before we were married.

Bored

Caught in slow-moving traffic one rainy morning, I finally noticed the graffiti-covered buildings under the Katipunan Avenue flyover. They're not abandoned but are still being used as offices of some kind. And no, I wasn't driving.

Natural or man-made, take a refreshing dip in Watery Wednesday.

Across another street

A view of the front of the Quezon City Hall compound from inside the Quezon Memorial Circle. I call this 8-lane road the wild, wild west (imagine trying to cross it!) and is the reason why I love Mayor Sonny Belmonte for creating the pedestrian underpass which links city hall with the memorial park. Of course, there's no way to hide that huge eyesore of an unfinished building behind city hall. Architect Reena of Reena's Thoughts said that she heard that the developer has a pending case in court over this building because Quezon City has a law which states that no structure at a given area around the Quezon Memorial should be taller than it. I've looked at the memorial, city hall and the eyesore from afar and I think she's right. City hall's tallest building is shorter than the memorial but the unfinished building is definitely taller than the memorial. Now I want to know who in city hall gave the developer a permit to build in the first place.

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I recently found out that My Manila made it as a finalist in the Best Photo Blog nationwide category of the Philippine Blog Awards! Whether I win or not, I'm just happy to have made it that far, especially considering the fact that many of the finalists are professional photographers or serious hobbyists. For me and my itsy-bitsy camera to be counted among them is a great honor.

I hope you can visit all the finalists but if you only have time for one, then I highly recommend the blog of Dennis Villegas, my favorite among the ten (yes, including mine—if I were a judge, he'd be the winner). I don't know who he is or what he does but his photo essays are an amazing, though very gritty, look at Manila.