The Buried Secrets of Manila

Part One

[ Part One ]

The clouds have been my home as I walked along the cold empty streets of Manila on one Saturday night, wondering around like a kid on a candy store while my feet brought me to a city way different than I imagined. Just like the wheat fields in our province, Manila was just another quiet place lurking in the heart of the so-called 'metro city', attracting people to be one of its fine visitors. I was one of those people. It's been almost four days since I've arrived here, and it was nothing like the harsh description I have been hearing from other people whenever they talk about the night life in Manila. There wasn't a noise on the cold streets of Sta. Mesa, no pick-up girls like the ones my brother talked about the first time he went here. An old abandoned university lies at the end of Teresa street, the fading red and white motif was enough to catch my attention. The sign became a bit unreadable for some letters on its name banner was missing. Traces of gun powder were all over the place, some bullets were scattered in front of the broken gate, trees all fell down and the electric wires hung carelessly on the roads. It was nothing but fallen debris, remnants of catastrophe, a memory of a tragic end. Chaos wasn't an enough word to describe the mess that it was. But I guess none cared, because if someone did, I guess I wouldn't walk upon decaying bodies of students and professors still wearing their neatly ironed white uniforms covered in faint blood and forms of dust just to see the entity of the abandoned gloomy six-floor building.

I was walking on a red carpet of dead bodies.

PO...VERTY OF THE PHILIPPINES

The name banner welcomed me with small sparks of blazing fire, the gates were covered by barbed wires signaling how this place now became a private property, but the opened gate suggested otherwise. I entered the place with second thoughts since there could be people inside and my uninvited presence would ruin the vibe, but the quiet eerie feeling attracted my feet to be its new guest. Now I regret it. Blood flowed on the cold floor, bodies hung up everywhere like lanterns on Christmas Eve, not a single noise can be heard except for the cold gush of air passing by. The facade of the building was spray painted with silver paint screaming out 'WHY SO SERIOUS?'. There was a huge bonfire in the field, it just made me wonder how long this place have been like this. Hundreds of different placards surrounding the barriers were there with words like 'god is dead' and 'a nation reborn'. Holy Bibles were used to fuel the fire, its pages scattered on the ground like our house's linoleum. If my mother was still alive, her religious self would probably scold every single person involved here, but for me, I knew better. I walked along and ignored whatever I saw, it wasn't the time to think about my religious beliefs if ever I even had one. This time, it is not about the individual people.

It's about Manila.

Smoke and fog covered the place, scents of burnt buildings and gasoline filled every corner of the university like I was another Anne Frank inside the concentration camp, wondering if I will turn into glittery ashes the moment Hitler met my eyes. But this was different. I'm not Anne Frank, and there was no Hitler wanting to eliminate me simply because he thinks he's better of a human being for being German. I was alone. The place was like a battlefield and I was a brave soldier walking along the fragments of skeletons of my comrades while I think about survival. Walking along the university was mental torture, suicide just became a word after I passed by the gates, pushing aside the electric wires welcoming me. Screams and whines echoed the moment I walked towards the obelisk that stood in the middle. The night was quiet that you would hear your own fresh blood running through your veins just like water running down the stream. There weren't any lights in the vicinity except for the faint glow of the moonlight caressing the corroding bodies lying on the cold grounds. And no farther than my position was the body of an indigenous boy wearing his tribe's precious clothing, his face was half-burnt and the other half was smashed by a rock up to that point that it was nothing but a small piece of ground pig meat. If I haven't watched gore movies before, I could've vomited my own body organs. Except that this time, it was not a movie.