even if cities would vanish, we will remain

"I'm tired of feeling so small in the city. I can't always hide under the shadows of lampposts, and come out only whenever I feel safe," my boyfriend said. We’ve been together for almost a year now yet we haven’t seen each other. He’s a thousand kilometers away from me and we don’t speak the same language. So he had to adjust to learning mine—a vernacular that’s centered in the capital—almost losing familiarity to his own. We met on a weird platform, a place where you don’t see each other’s faces nor know their names. You’ll just hear their voices, talk to them about whatever you want. Then if you vibe, you take them outside hoping that the connection would last. Virtual relationships seem absurd to some, but to queer like me, it’s comforting. You’re behind this unknown persona, inside this space that makes you all anonymous and on equal footing. They don’t know who I am. They just hear my voice—one thing that I like about myself the most. I’ve always found myself pretending behind this voice and longing for a lover who’ll treat me like his own princess.

With countless guys I’ve met online and in person, I had this irrational fear of being attached again, and when my boyfriend and I met, I wasn’t expecting anything. That time, I was talking to different men each night and multiple men at the same time—eventually losing my interest in them or the other way around. I was too particular with something, realizing that idealizing someone would do no good.

It was in the middle of December and January. I’ve always found this season traumatizing, something that would pass by, that’s when I met him. I knew there was something in him that I was willing to take risks for. I wanted to commit myself to him. I talked to each guy I was flirting with that time, saying goodbye—except to him. I was ready for something new.

This film is a special gift for him. I want him to know me more through my hometown. Manila, how dirty it may seem, there’s something special in it that’s just inside me. Just like the poem, he’s a visitor who I’ve been waiting for to come—hoping that he’d find a home just in my existence. I don’t expect him to feel safe in the capital. We weren’t supposed to find comfort in it. The city is the crossroad of evil, transactions, and indifference—the core of capitalism. It is where structures of corruption are built, bridges of oppressions are made, and aggressions of masculinity exist. A space where queer like us won’t ever feel safe, except in the hidden spaces where no one knows: in the corners of the public bathrooms, in the bushy empty lot of a reclaimed bay, and a small space where no light seeps through.

maglaho man ang lungsod, tayo’y mananatili attempts to map queer struggles across the capital. This attempts to make the viewers feel the questions: why do we have to hide? Is there something wrong with us? We just love each other, why treat us like sinners? This will also see the queer body as something similar to the geography of the places where we find comfort. With the looming body horror I experience every time, as my body balloons into something I don’t want. My skin stretches, leaving marks I never imagined I would have. I associate these images with the city. A vast space that rapidly changes because of industrialization. Like my body, it’s a map to navigate, to explore, even the narrowest streets, and the dirtiest alleys. Despite feeling dirty and ugly, he tells me that he loves everything about me—even things that I don’t like about myself—even my sudden desire to not identify as a man nor a woman. At least, in this unlikeable place called Manila, we have each other. I have him who’ll make this wilderness bearable—a home I could call.