This is the view of the Iloilo City Hall from the pier at 5:30 in the afternoon, which I think is the best time of the day. The night’s about to begin but there’s still a little sun out.
I look at this view and I think my childhood days when we lived near downtown, along Muelle Loney Street. Back then, pump boats would dock along the Iloilo River coastline right across our apartment building. Now, the river is free of pump boats and shipwrecks. A fresh, new river esplanade lines its coast.
I think of the memories from the Rotary Boys and Girls Week back in high school. For a week, a number of high school students from around the city skipped class to experience City Hall life. That was some week.
I think of this city, its people and its problems. It’s not perfect but I’m proud of it. Life here is slow—sometimes too slow—but it works. And over the last decade, you can feel it building momentum. I think of the city’s potential for development. Sometimes I wish it would grow faster, but I’m not sure we’re ready to let go of this current pace just yet.
I think of all the times I’ve left the city for Manila—for school and then for work and now for school again. It’s always the flight without a return ticket that pulls on the heartstrings. I’d readily give a limb up for unlimited teleportation powers back to this city from anywhere around the world.
I think of the times I took this place for granted. One message to the group chat and the crew arrives at the designated meeting place with less than a day’s notice. Everything is 10 minutes away. The seafood is as fresh as your favorite rapper’s bars. It’s really hard to hate it here.
I think of one of my favorite lines from Seneca: “To be everywhere is to be nowhere.” Iloilo, like most sometimes-slow-sometimes-fast provinces, is a place best enjoyed when you let go to its pace. There is no forcing speed in this city. There is only being here.