Postal code 1017-1235
Makati, one of the big business districts in the Philippines, has played a huge part in both my childhood and adulthood. These parts of my life offered different lessons to me, but one thing’s the same: they all came from the same place.
Let’s go back in time and look at my young self, staying with my cousins during summer vacations.
Summer was my favorite time due to this—the “probinsyana” getting a taste of the city once more. Aside from that, having my cousins around is always nice since I’m an only child.
They first lived in Cembo, where we played tag and Chinese garter in the afternoons. When they became more well-off, they moved into a gated community along Kalayaan Avenue.
Sometimes, I’d join Richelle, the youngest daughter and cousin closest to me in age, for swimming or voice lessons. But most of the time, if we weren’t in Glorietta or Rockwell to watch movies, we stayed at home playing Guitar Hero, making halo-halo, and watching Richelle’s brothers play 2K or Final Fantasy.
The Ignacio family’s house became a vacation house of sorts for us. When my other cousins, who also live in Bulacan joined me, we watched horror B-movies my cousin Renz downloaded. Nothing much fazes me anymore, thanks to that guy.
During those times, I would think about what it’d be like if I lived there permanently. I daydreamed about going to the mall every day and watching cable TV instead of soap operas and dubbed anime. I imagined not being afraid of being chased by cows or bitten by a snake. Like a lot of kids, I wished summer would last forever.
But then, reality would come in the form of my parents, picking me up and taking me back to school and cows and silence.
I spent my summers in Makati until my freshman year of high school. That was the ultimate reward for the 10 months of schooling and suffering.
But that stopped as we got older. I’m grateful to my aunt and uncle that we got to stay with them. I can’t imagine how tough it was to house and feed lots of kids, especially when most of them weren’t yours.
College brought me back to this city.
I walked around Makati CBD to apply for internships. My friends and I got lost in the labyrinthine streets a lot. Greenbelt became our oasis in the gray, sparse desert. In the end, I got an internship in a production house along Jupiter Street. I didn’t get lost that much—the path to and from the office to Buendia MRT Station was more straightforward.
After graduation, I came back to Makati CBD, specifically to Dela Rosa Street, as a writer for a digital marketing company. I was officially a Makati girl. This is the closest one could get to working in New York or San Francisco without leaving the country.
The Makati of my adulthood was Rada Street sisig, cigarette breaks under a tree, and alcohol-fueled Friday nights on Malugay Street or Makati Avenue. The Makati of my adulthood was getting coffee in Perea Street, cooing at the resident cats in Greenbelt, and staring at the Christmas lights in Ayala Triangle. The Makati of my adulthood was staring at the long lines at bus and jeepney terminals. Seeing loads of people who, like me, just wanted to go home after a tiring day.
When I was a kid, Makati held so much charm and excitement. It was where I spent my summers going to the mall, watching movies, and spending time with my cousins. It was an oasis for a probinsyana.
When I started working, those rose-colored glasses broke. My glitzy outlook dimmed, replaced by its reality. Makati is gray, smoggy, and crowded. Makati is hordes of people trying to get through the day. Through life. Makati is gleaming skyscrapers, shiny lights, and posh places attempting to conceal suffering. Makati is shanties and the homeless co-existing with the exclusive subdivisions and the rich, but never mingling—a barrier, both physical and societal, keeping them apart.
Makati, to some degree, is fake. Hypocritical.
So after four years of college and a year as a Makati girl, we moved back to Bulacan. Back to the cows and grass and silence. I was thankful for it because as always, you miss what you can’t have. Or, in my case, what I had before I got the noisy, fast-paced life I wished for.
Now, I get a taste of the city in small doses. I sleep over at the Ignacios’ every time I venture into the city. During those times, the rose-colored glasses always attempt to return. But the empty feeling and the hellish commute remind me why they broke in the first place.
Makati has been and will always be a big part of my life. This city witnessed some of my childhood and gave me a short taste of city life in the summers. Years later, this city gave me a taste of, well, everything. It will always be a part of me—any city I weave into my stories will be patterned after it. Every city I visit will have to live up to it.
Even though I really can’t say that I love this way, I also can’t say that I hate it. What I know is that I’m grateful—for the stories, experiences, and even the hardships. I wouldn’t be the person I am now without it.
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Jo Galvez, 28, has been writing even before she knew what she wanted to write.
