LONG before I become a resident here, Malate to me is just a passive host to many rowdy bars and restaurants stretching up to nearby Ermita district, and a perfect place for people who love to chill out, hang out and have sex.
During my first year in the metropolis in the early 90s, I only heard of the place from news reports about its famous mayor Alfredo Lim, the former chief of police who became the city mayor, became a senator, and now mayor again, padlocking bars and restaurants in Malate-Ermita area which the city council believed were havens for prostitution and lewd shows. Years after, the Supreme Court ruled that the good mayor and his council had acted beyond their power when they padlocked even those legitimate businesses; but even then, some of the bar-owners, entertainers and bar patrons had moved to other red districts in the metropolis.
Mayor Lito Atienza, who succeeded Lim, initiated the rejuvenation of old districts including Malate, along with city squares and mini plazas around the city. New resto bars and KTV joints, most of them now owned by Koreans, were opened. And a motley cluster of new businesses came in, sprucing now that once deserted (at least during Lim’s first term) Nakpil-Adriatico-Orosa stretch, near the Robinson’s Place which is just a few blocks north.
I first came to see Malate closely when I frequented the place to visit my girlfriend whose family resides in one of the remaining pre-war wooden houses along Remedios St., just about 500 meters from the Malate Church. It was 1996, three years after I left Ilocos, and I was then working as a proofreader in a publishing house and a bed spacer in an old house in Quezon City. In that same year, I married my girlfriend in Malate Church, and since then, or from January 1997 up to the later part of 2001, when my family moved to Bulacan, I have been a resident of Barangay 697 of Malate District, and a registered voter of the same barangay a year after that, and the succeeding elections even up to this time.
But even though I am now residing in Marilao, Bulacan, the old district of Malate to my family is always a home. My three children were born in Philippine General Hospital, in nearby Ermita, and all were baptized in Malate Church. When they were babies, we would bring them to the barangay center near San Andres market in Malate for free medical checkups.
We go to Malate during the feast day of its patron Our Lady of Remedies, celebrated every third Sunday of November. We go to Malate when one my kids or my wife is sick and needs a check up (their doctor is in Singalong), or when my wife has to do some important business in the metropolis. Malate is always a home, a stopover point, a watering hole.
But one important thing that gravitates my family to Malate is New Year's celebration, because it is a perfect time for a reunion for the Gundran family (which means my mother-in-law, my wife’s two elder brothers and two elder sisters, plus their kids, in-laws and grandsons). We will welcome New Year watching fireworks just outside the gate fronting Remedios St., and feasting on spaghetti, ham, and pork or hotdog barbecue after that, and exchanging gifts (we do this on the 31st, not on the 25th).
So for the past twelve years, except once where my family went to my hometown in Ilocos Sur in 1999, I would celebrate New Year in Malate. And the first day of the year would be spent usually with my family strolling and taking pictures in the baywalk area along Roxas Blvd. Or we attend a mass in Malate Church, visit Manila Zoo, shop or do funhouse games in Harrison Plaza or Robinson’s Place, or run/play around with the kids in open spaces in Remedios Circle or in Paraiso ng Batang Maynila, along with street kids, some of them running around half naked.
And after every holiday season, we leave for Bulacan with the hope that anytime soon, we’ll be back to old Malate district, to be with my wife’s relatives, and see her birthplace, her city, and her home again. Meaning no matter where my family goes or how far we have been gone, we still go back to Malate if we have our way. And indeed, there’s no place like this one I also consider home for the past 12 years now.
Here are some snap shots I got from Malate this New Year:
During my first year in the metropolis in the early 90s, I only heard of the place from news reports about its famous mayor Alfredo Lim, the former chief of police who became the city mayor, became a senator, and now mayor again, padlocking bars and restaurants in Malate-Ermita area which the city council believed were havens for prostitution and lewd shows. Years after, the Supreme Court ruled that the good mayor and his council had acted beyond their power when they padlocked even those legitimate businesses; but even then, some of the bar-owners, entertainers and bar patrons had moved to other red districts in the metropolis.
Mayor Lito Atienza, who succeeded Lim, initiated the rejuvenation of old districts including Malate, along with city squares and mini plazas around the city. New resto bars and KTV joints, most of them now owned by Koreans, were opened. And a motley cluster of new businesses came in, sprucing now that once deserted (at least during Lim’s first term) Nakpil-Adriatico-Orosa stretch, near the Robinson’s Place which is just a few blocks north.
I first came to see Malate closely when I frequented the place to visit my girlfriend whose family resides in one of the remaining pre-war wooden houses along Remedios St., just about 500 meters from the Malate Church. It was 1996, three years after I left Ilocos, and I was then working as a proofreader in a publishing house and a bed spacer in an old house in Quezon City. In that same year, I married my girlfriend in Malate Church, and since then, or from January 1997 up to the later part of 2001, when my family moved to Bulacan, I have been a resident of Barangay 697 of Malate District, and a registered voter of the same barangay a year after that, and the succeeding elections even up to this time.
But even though I am now residing in Marilao, Bulacan, the old district of Malate to my family is always a home. My three children were born in Philippine General Hospital, in nearby Ermita, and all were baptized in Malate Church. When they were babies, we would bring them to the barangay center near San Andres market in Malate for free medical checkups.
We go to Malate during the feast day of its patron Our Lady of Remedies, celebrated every third Sunday of November. We go to Malate when one my kids or my wife is sick and needs a check up (their doctor is in Singalong), or when my wife has to do some important business in the metropolis. Malate is always a home, a stopover point, a watering hole.
But one important thing that gravitates my family to Malate is New Year's celebration, because it is a perfect time for a reunion for the Gundran family (which means my mother-in-law, my wife’s two elder brothers and two elder sisters, plus their kids, in-laws and grandsons). We will welcome New Year watching fireworks just outside the gate fronting Remedios St., and feasting on spaghetti, ham, and pork or hotdog barbecue after that, and exchanging gifts (we do this on the 31st, not on the 25th).
So for the past twelve years, except once where my family went to my hometown in Ilocos Sur in 1999, I would celebrate New Year in Malate. And the first day of the year would be spent usually with my family strolling and taking pictures in the baywalk area along Roxas Blvd. Or we attend a mass in Malate Church, visit Manila Zoo, shop or do funhouse games in Harrison Plaza or Robinson’s Place, or run/play around with the kids in open spaces in Remedios Circle or in Paraiso ng Batang Maynila, along with street kids, some of them running around half naked.
And after every holiday season, we leave for Bulacan with the hope that anytime soon, we’ll be back to old Malate district, to be with my wife’s relatives, and see her birthplace, her city, and her home again. Meaning no matter where my family goes or how far we have been gone, we still go back to Malate if we have our way. And indeed, there’s no place like this one I also consider home for the past 12 years now.
Here are some snap shots I got from Malate this New Year:
San Andres market fruit stands & Paraiso ng Batang Maynila
Remedios Circle & Remedios St. front of Royal Plaza
Malate Church & Rajah Sulayman Park
Manila Baywalk fronting Malate Church & Adriatico St.
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