Torn and frayed in Manila

Santa Ana Racetrack, RIP

I was expecting to be depressed when I cycled down to see the corpse of the Santa Ana Racetrack yesterday and that's how it turned out.

Luckily I had a chance to enjoy Santa Ana’s shabby glory before this remnant of the American era was bulldozed. The track and its grandstand appealed to me for so many reasons.

There was the sense of space; from your seat you had uninterrupted views across the Pasig and across Makati to Rockwell. Manila seemed a lovely city from Santa Ana at night.

Then there was the shady atmosphere; the touts with fags in their mouths, the old guys who had spent a lifetime at the track, the sense of collapse and decay.

Bringing all these together was the main grandstand, an art deco building from, I would guess, the 1930s, the same period as the Sy-Quia buildings in Malate and the former Jai Alai building on Taft (thank you Lito Atienza for destroying that particular historic monument). The grandstand really was quite grand and was an important historic link to a more elegant Manila. Nothing now remains of that impressive structure but a few stumps standing defiantly above the rubble.

It does not surprise me that the racetrack is being converted to more profitable uses. After all, it occupied a huge chunk of prime urban land on the border between Manila and Makati. Even if it the track had been a profitable venture (and the tiny entrance charges, small crowds, and insignificant bets meant it almost certainly wasn’t), the realities of property prices would surely have pushed the track outside the city boundaries sooner or later (just as happened with the beautiful Kuala Lumpur racetrack in the 1990s).

Still, I wish one of the architectural preservation societies in Manila had managed to save the grandstand, though such groups have had few, if any, successes in recent years. Couldn’t some imagination have been used to convert the grand old dame of Manila horseracing into something quite distinctive?

I wonder whether anyone even took any photos of the Santa Ana grandstand before they tore it down. Or whether anyone cares about these issues at all.

From this entry in WikiPilipinas it appears the Santa Ana site is to be a mall (what a surprise). It will be run, of course, by SM, who fatuously describe themselves on billboards as “the good guys.” Thanks a lot “good guys.”

For a good post on this destruction, see Ivan Henares.

There is another great post about the racetrack from Gogirl Cafe -- it has lots of atmospheric photos (the one above was borrowed from the site). It also has a number of poignant comments from people who either lived in Santa Ana or worked at the racetrack.

He’s nuts! Or is he?

There is still a huge stigma against mental illness and drug use, especially when they are linked to candidates for public office, so, while it is contemptible that Manny Villar should strive so hard to make capital out of a supposed psychiatric report of his rival Noynoy Aquino’s from 1996, it is not surprising. Of course it is beyond contemptible if, as the Aquino camp asserts, the document was forged by people working on the Villar campaign. A dirty trick like that would put Villar right up with Gordon Liddy, Chuck Colson, and the rest of the Watergate team.

We’ll have to see whether this will become just another speck of mud in an increasingly personal campaign, or whether it grows into something more substantial. I would think that the Aquino-Roxas campaign must be a bit concerned by this development since the image of the candidate that emerges from the document—depressed solitary drinker, heavy smoker of tobacco and marijuana, poor cognitive skills, sexually repressed—is not a reassuring presidential profile. Senator Eagelton's short-lived career as McGovern's running mate in 1972 is a good example of what can happen to a candidate once a previous history of treatment for mental illness is exposed.

The future of Gloria

The Inquirer has been quick to blame the collapse of the Lakas-Kampi coalition on the machinations of the First Gentleman. However, while Mike Arroyo’s clumsy interventions have probably hastened the disintegration of his wife’s support, the demise of President Arroyo’s congressional coalition was surely inevitable.

I have never believed in the doomsday scenario that has Congresswoman Arroyo controlling the largest voting block in Congress, getting herself elected speaker, and then forcing through constitutional change that would end up with her as an all-powerful prime minister.

For a former president to wield that sort of power, he or she would need at least two of the following:

1. A considerable personal following in Congress as a result of his or her achievements in office.


2. Significant influence in the country at large from the deep love and affection his or her countrymen hold for the ex-President.


3. A guarantee that congressmen would receive short-term rewards for their support in terms of pork barrel allocations and straightforward brown envelope bribes.


4. A guarantee that congressmen would receive long-term rewards for their support in terms of an anticipated return to power of either the ex-President or perhaps one of his or her children.

In Arroyo’s case, not one of these conditions is present. Given both the congressmen’s strong instinct for survival and the overriding follow-the- money imperatives of Philippine political life, it has been clear for months that the rats would soon be leaving the Lakas-Kampi galleon, which was itself a makeshift craft cobbled together by Arroyo in order to merge her own minor party (Kampi) with the larger Lakas, the political organization representing the post-EDSA consensus (see Manuel Quezon's historical analysis of the formation of Lakas-Kampi-CMD and of the party's current crisis).

Given the bleeding of her support, shortly to turn into a full-on haemorrhage, Congresswoman Arroyo seems certain to become a marginal figure in the next Congress, perhaps not even attending many of its sessions.

Love at the Test Match

Anyone who thinks that cricket is an unromantic sport should have seen this pair at the first Bangladesh—England test match a couple of weeks ago.

Various blokes in military and quasi-military uniforms accompanied the England fans and usually hovered around at the back, but towards the end of a quiet afternoon session these two came and sat down at the front of the “VIP stand.” That in itself was a bit unusual, but then they started to flirt with each other in the most flagrant way, touching each other and almost kissing. Obviously they were just madly in love and couldn’t give a damn what anyone thought. Cute.

When will Erap withdraw in favour of Villar?

Despite his typically bombastic claim that he will never drop out of the presidential election—“I will have to die first before that happens”—I am sure that Erap is only too aware that the price of his withdrawal will have increased significantly after the latest SWS survey.

The sudden increase in Aquino’s lead to 9 points (from 2 points in the February poll), reversed a worrying decline in his support from 46% (5-10 December) to 42% (21-24 January) to 36% (24-28 February). The widening gap between the two frontrunners in March had less to do with Aquino’s shoring up of his support (his share was basically the same—36% in February and 37% in March) than with the surprising drop in Villar’s support (34% in February turned into 28% in March) and the equally unexpected increase in Estrada’s share (from 15% to 19%).

Look at it from Erap’s point of view. He surely knows that this little fart of support will not be enough to propel him back to Malacañang. He doesn’t have the funding to sustain a serious challenge in the home stretch and, despite his overwhelming sense of grievance, he must know that coming in third is not going to prove anything. On the other hand, while the role of kingmaker will not gratify his vanity in the same way as the victory he craves, it will allow him to influence the destiny of the country again. And if he is sincere about his desire to improve the lot of the people, he will surely be able to add some of his policies (if he has any) to the Villar platform. Finally, there is the potentially huge financial pay-off he can demand (especially if the deal includes him campaigning for Villar). Erap has always had his price.

Meanwhile, Manny has had a tough couple of weeks and desperately needs to regain momentum. It has been an open secret for months that Villar and his ally Mike Verlarde have been trying to persuade Estrada to drop out and to avoid splitting the “pro-poor” vote. A survey earlier this year indicated that, if Estrada were to drop out, his vote would be split roughly equally between Aquino and Villar but I find that a little hard to believe. In any case, Villar’s masa credentials will surely be enhanced if Erap can be “persuaded” to prostitute himself on the Villar campaign.

Let’s see what would happen if two-thirds of Erap’s vote were to go to Villar and one-third to Aquino, based on the March survey.

Aquino: 37% + 6.5% (one third of Erap’s vote) = 43.5%

Villar: 28% + 12.5% (two thirds of Erap’s vote) = 40.5%

That’s an easily bridgeable divide.

Manny is bound to look at the cruel economics of elections from a business point of view. If he loses, he has just pissed away billions of pesos for … nothing. Absolutely nada. As Macbeth said:

“I am in pesos stepped in so far that should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er.”

Manny can’t stop wading now. Purely from a business point of view, he has no choice but to pay Erap to carry him to the other side (and to bill the Filipino people when he gets there).

I’m betting that the greasy fingers of the Erap and Villar camps are stitching up a deal as I type this.