Jeepney

Jeepney, originally uploaded by Raphael Borja.

At least one resident of Manila is sick of his city's portrayal in popular media. Carlos Celdran, a tour guide in Manila, expressed his anger at outsiders who come to the Philippines in search of only poverty, slums, and desperation. In response to a photographer searching for Manila's "bat people" he wrote,

" I have always been so confused about why is it that the negative side of Manila is what a lot of photographers and journalists are interested in. My request to these people in the past to show a balanced picture of Manila (a good side, as well as a bad one), has always been met with confused stares. It's as if Philippine middle class values, arts, heritage, and beauty in the "normal" sense isn't beautiful to them or worse, it won't sell. To many, the Philippines has become the cliche/easy picking for the grotesque and I will not enjoin this cause. Once again, my apologies if I offended you or seem a little politicized or upset, but poverty and bat people is NOT ALL that we are about." (via MetaFilter)

The photograph above is a "Jeepney." At the end of World War II, the American military abandoned hundreds of jeeps on the main island of the Philippines. Lavishly decorated and often crammed full of passengers these vehicles act like buses on the streets of Manila.

The name "Manila" derives from the Tagalog word "maynilad", a reference the white mangrove-like plants named "nilads". Spanish conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi took over Manila in 1570 ousting the Muslim Sultanate that originally settled it. Since that time the city had been under the control of the British and Americans before gaining independence in 1946.

Two Tiny Rocky Islands: Nauru and Hashima

Some people might call them ecological or economic disaster sites. I like to think of them as little tragedies stranded out at sea.

Nauru has strip mined phosphate for the past 100 years. The eight-square-mile island achieved independence in 1968 only to face complete economic dependence by 2003, when the mining operation had dried up entirely. There is not a single square mile of arable land left on this dot in the Pacific which is 400 miles from its nearest inhabited neighbor. The cost to restore Nauru to its once-tropical luster is $230 million over the next 20 years.

Hashima claims to have the title as the most densely populated area on earth. Now the rocky outcropping near Nagasaki is uninhabited. Mitsubishi operated the tiny island like the "company towns" of mining operations in West Virgina or the U.P. - all the residents worked for the mine in some fashion. Unlike Nauru, Hashima's population and economy vanished with changing energy demands: coal was out, gas was in and the company closed the mine. (Found on Things)