CHAPTER 1: MEGAMANILA

As with any Survival Guide, we deal first with the terrain we are trying to survive in. More often than not, we will deal with the most dangerous terrain in this fair country called the Philippines: Standing on the rim of any of the volcanoes for a day in our country that straddles the Pacific Ring of Fire, and floats on its own tectonic plate called rightly the Philippine Plate, is a much-much safer adventure than stranding still on any corner for an hour in the megacity commonly known as Metro Manila.

Metro Manila is a conglomeration of, I dunno, 14 cities? From the top of my head Metro Manila is includes the cities of Valenzuela, Navotas, Malabon, Caloocan, Novaliches, Quezon City, San Juan, Mandaluyong, Marikina, Pasig, Makati, Taguig, Pasay, and Manila itself.

Manila City is not to be confused with Metro Manila. The name Metro Manila is what is officially known as the National Capital Region. It refers to all the cities within the NCR, which includes Manila City. Manila was the Christened the capital city of the Philippines in June 24, 1571 by Spanish Conquistador Miguel Lopez de Legazpi (yes, this city is that old). But it has been the hub of commerce for the Philippines long before that. Eventually when the towns around Manila evolved into cities, they were incorporated into what is now known as Metro Manila.

The Philippines is divided geographically into three separate areas, Luzon in the North, Visayas in the middle and Mindanao in the South. This is divided politically into fifteen Regions each ruled by a Governor, except the NCR which has not had a Governor since 1986 after the first EDSA Revolution (the first one because we've had three you see). But the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) and its Chairman stands in for the responsibilities and duties of the governorship. Taking out the trash and such, making sure we don't sink into the sea, assuring that there would be traffic to be dealt with.

We also have two autonomous Regions, the Cordillera Autonomous Region (CAR) and the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). CAR is ruled over by a coalition of the northern indigenous ethnic tribes and the ARMM speaks for itself.

I think I got them all. There are about 14 million people right now in the Metro Manila. If we include the transients and the commuters from the surrounding cities, it could blow up to about 17 million people going about each day in an area of so many square kilometers. This is where the Maharlika Survival Guide will focus mostly on, with some out of city stories every now and then, because if you don’t leave Metro Manila every now and then, someone will shove you out to make space.