From Intramuros, with love

Sometimes, you’ll find love in the most unfamiliar faces. You’ll walk past it on the street— unassuming, bursting with color. You’ll wait as it cooks meryenda, tired eyes and all. You’ll even see it in statues, on the symbols carved by those whose breath has long become air, but whose heart is preserved in the relics of their art.

They say love has no face, but if it did, it certainly wouldn’t have just one.

In Intramuros there exists a marriage between past, present, and future. Once you’re here, it’s hard to not feel a sense of magic in the streets. Here you are, standing in a fortress seemingly untouched by time. Lovers walk hand-in-hand, children hurriedly chase after each other’s bicycles, and friends build their own kind of home under the rubble of centuries. 

Here, love is a gentle creature, roaming the land with claws unclenched. Love is the kind of laughter nestled between old lamp posts and modern convenience stores; between two hungry mouths, hanging in wonder. It is in the architecture of a café, the cross of the cathedral, and the unabashed smile of the manong sa kalesa. 

For every pedestrian with flowers in their arms and every worker with blisters on their feet, there is the comforting thought of the thousands of romantics and revolutionaries that came before them. The ones who believed that even against the harsh, unforgiving backdrop of the metropolis, there is softness to be found. That the love shared within these walled cities survives, even if the people do not. 

The real magic of Intramuros isn’t just the place, but with the people we share the streets with.