I suppose it is better if you do not know me well. I am a city afraid to be explored more. Everything that I keep hidden are things I hated about myself. What you see in front of me is far different compared to what is happening within me.
I wonder how much you know about my entirety: of the skyline that you used to fascinate without knowing when viewed up close the paint is already peeling away. How come strolling across my streets for plenty of times and not noticing the cracks stretching across my ground?
But all these ugly scars are smaller compared to the labyrinthine pathways of my acrid-stenched sewer. Inside this darkened chamber, I hide the rot in me, unseen except until my murky waters have to meet the sea, bringing along the floating debris I have been accumulating.
You think my back alleys are cool because of the painted graffiti on the walls, not knowing that when the night falls I become a place for stray animals scavenging leftovers from the garbage bags piled by store owners.
In some places I am a pure neglect. My overflowing dumpsters with the lids ajar are buzzing with flies. Rusting machineries are unmoved along with the piles of scrap metal and old tires that remained stacked in heaps. In here I smell like a faint metallic tang of industrial pollution.
Filthy and unhealthy.
Later you will discover the absence of safety that when you roam in some of my streets in the night with the lights in perpetual blink is like walking to your own deathtrap.
You see despite my beauty, the rot is there. The danger is there.
Words: Charles Jaojao | The Josephinian
Photo: Saimar Joseph Basong | The Josephinian
Graphic: Jenny Magbago | The Josephinian