Building the confidence to reimagine Metro Manila

Originally published in Manila Bulletin

I still remember the hush of the Aldwych library at 11 p.m., my only companions the low hum of fluorescent lights and the reassuring creak of ancient floorboards. Back in Diliman in Quezon City, as an evening student at the Malcolm Hall – College of Law, I was accustomed to the evening chorus of jeepneys winding through University Avenue, the lively banter of street vendors outside the campus gates, and the ever-present sense of urgency as communities pressed against infrastructure that was never quite enough. There, every conversation was a negotiation over access—how to reach the nearest clinic, how to find secure housing, how to create space in a city built for everyone else. In London, I found myself alone at a long desk, surrounded by towering stacks of architecture journals and planning treatises, wrestling with questions I’d never dared to ask back home: Could I, a product of Metro Manila’s sprawling patchwork, learn to design coherence? Could I translate ideas from ivory-towered texts into real change for the people I left behind?

My first weeks at LSE Cities were a crash course in humility. Seminar discussions leapt from Jane Jacobs’s street-level activism to Equitable Transit-Oriented Development, from sanitation frameworks for informal settlements to high-tech smart-city visions. I sat there, scribbling notes furiously, trying to keep pace with classmates who hailed from Bogotá, Saudi Arabia, London, São Paulo, Accra, Nairobi, and Toronto—each bringing examples I’d never heard of, each speaking with the confidence of someone who believed a well-placed park bench could alter a city’s destiny. I realized that my fieldwork in Diliman, as visceral and immediate as it was, needed the scaffolding of comparative theory and tested methodologies. Yet, I also questioned: would these global models ever fit the messy tapestry of Metro Manila?

Late-night study sessions became my crucible. I’d pore over GIS maps of London boroughs, cross-referencing them with satellite imagery of Metro Manila’s barangays. When fatigue set in, I’d wander out into the empty streets, past the Strand’s ornate facades, and remind myself that the same principles—walkability, mixed use, equitable access—were universal; it was the context that differed. One evening, I bought a battered volume of Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities, underlining passages on sidewalk ballet, pedestrianisation, and pocket parks. In the margins, I scribbled "Metro Manila, parks, corridors, community centers, serendipitous encounters" until the pages overflowed—notes that marked the moment when theory stopped being an abstract exercise and began to feel like a lifeline for real communities.

My confidence truly took root in Ye Olde White Horse, a cosy pub tucked into LSE’s campus where the entire class would gather to drink, laugh, and debate long after lectures ended—sometimes ruefully—about the gulf between high theory and street-level reality. In the warm glow of that pub, surrounded by oak paneling and the murmur of international accents, I realized that urban design is as much about building relationships as it is about blueprints—that true confidence comes from forging community, one shared idea (and one shared drink) at a time.

By the winter term, I was co-leading a workshop on "Inclusive Mobility" alongside a group of urban sociologists and transport engineers. I brought to the table my firsthand stories of elders struggling to navigate uneven sidewalks in Diliman, of single mothers juggling commute costs with childcare, of students risking their safety to catch overcrowded buses. My anecdotes grounded the technical models in flesh-and-blood reality—and my classmates greeted them not as curiosities, but as essential data points. In that moment, I felt the full force of transformation: I was no longer the wide-eyed outsider at LSE Cities, but a bridge between worlds, translating the language of lived hardship into the dialect of design and policy.

When I return to Metro Manila, I will carry with me more than pages of notes and powered-through dissertations. I bring the conviction that rigorous research and heartfelt empathy are two halves of the same coin. In shaping Reimagine Manila, I envision ensuring that every community gathering is informed by those late nights at Aldwych and the spirited debates at Ye Olde White Horse or The George IV Pub—proof that true change grows from collective conversation and action.

One day, as I walk through newly transformed corners of the metropolis—a traffic-calmed street lined with shady walkways, a bustling community center co-designed with local elders, pocket parks alive with serendipitous encounters—I hope to glimpse the echo of my London years in every thoughtful detail. Those solitary library hours taught me that confidence isn’t born from knowing all the answers; it’s forged in the willingness to learn, to question, and to collaborate across borders of culture and discipline. London showed me that my most powerful tool isn’t a blueprint or a fancy rendering—it’s my own voice, amplified by research, steeped in empathy, and ready to champion a Metro Manila where late nights in distant libraries translate into tomorrow’s breakthroughs at home.

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