The City has a total land area of 18.50 square kilometers of which 5.5050 square kilometer is the City proper, 9.5 square kilometers is being occupied by the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) complex, which include the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) and the Villamor Air Base and the rest of the reclamation area with 4.00 square kilometers. Thus, among the local government in the region, Pasay has the greater area devoted to utilities covering 51.35% of its total land area or 9.50 square kilometers. The City is known for its entertainment - businessrestaurants, coffee shops, and clubs, particularly those located along Roxas Boulevard, facing Manila Bay. A large part of Metro Manila’s “tourist belt” is located in the City. Pasay is composed of seven (7) districts, divided into twenty (20) Zones, with a total of 200 Barangays. Zone 19, Covering Barangays 178 and 191 is the largest among the zones with an area of 5.10 square kilometers. Zone 1, on the other hand, is the smallest covering Barangays 1 to 3 and 14 to 17 with an area of 100,000 square meters (0.1 sq. km.).

In the middle of 1997 Vice Mayor Wenceslao “Peewee” Trinidad took over the reins of government from an ailing Mayor Pablo Cuneta. Cuneta has been in the driver’s seat for thirty-seven years. Between 1949 when he was appointed city mayor by President Elpidio Quirino, and 1997, only twice - for a total of about eight years - was the incumbent at City Hall, Pasay’s repository of political power, a man other than Cuneta.

Dr. Jovito O. Claudio assumed office as Pasay City’s Chief Executive in 1998 after winning the local elections. He carried out his duties and responsibilities as City Mayor until it was cut short due to failing health. His term of office lasted for only two (2) years. And because of this a Recall Election was held in the City where Mr. Wenceslao “Pewee” Trinidad was proclaimed as the City Chief Executive.

Trinidad has established himself as a political force to reckon with. As the leading player in the drama of statecraft in his political turf, he is aware that the key to his performance rest in what kind of act he can put together. The nature and power of the mayor’s office are determined not only by law and custom but by the personality of the man who occupies it. He can be, both in laws and in conscience, as big as he can be. Only his capacity will set the limit.

Providing the basic necessities alone of the swelling population is a huge task. Pasay has long exceeded the limits of its ability accommodate the influx of migrants. In terms of meeting the people’s health requirements, Pasay has been up to the task. The Pasay City General Hospital, founded in 1977, has been in a progress leap -- from a simple two-story squat building on P. Burgos Street into an imposing people’s health caretaker at its new building. In line with the national government’s policy, Pasay City places education first on its list of priorities. In pursuit of the national goal of nation building, it maintains a local educational system that promotes a close tie-up between the public and private sector. As for their safety and security, there are more than three hundred policemen to render assistance to Pasayeños. Pasay has all the recognized ingredients for an appalling situation yet the crime rate - in terms of robberies, muggings, kidnappings, and murder - is astonishingly low.

When everybody seems to be pitching in to help, there is reason to believe that all be well for the future generations. The children of the twenty-first century can look forward to a world that will be in many ways a beguiling realm.

From a pilot’s vantage point, one sees the sprawl of Pasay’s usual urban landmarks: multi-story structures of glass and steel towering over low-level houses, amid pockets of tropical vegetation.

Height and distance of course lend enchantment, Prowling around on foot, however, reveals a city that seethes and hisses like a cauldron, enmeshed in a labyrinth of streets and anguished with the ills that perplex most cities-population pressure, housing shortages, slums, smog, juvenile delinquency, crime, inadequate water supply, and the curse of the automobile. The pace of life is so unremitting and the sense of survival so unrelenting that one gets overwhelmed by the sheer volume of human commotion and mechanical motion. And yet not far from the chaos can be found a way of life (opposite page) essentially unchanged for centuries.

On the surface, Pasay looks modern, without a trace of the past, at least as far as there is any visible, tangible evidence of it. But the harrowed earth and the fish traps (page 12) speak of past datus and dayangdayangs. Where the city now spreads, small villages once thrived, and in some parts, still for (opposite). Rice was once cultivated in fields now under cement and shrines dedicated to gods of fertility and abundance stood among groves now buried under high-rises. But perhaps without knowing it, the farmers of today are drawing upon these deep wellsprings from which a great part of their cultural - not just their religion - flows. Pasay still has roots that run deep into its past. Beyond a cluster of trees, people still tend their chickens in coops, grow fruits, water their plots with sprinklers (opposite below, ) and sow and reap according to the dictate of nature. Village life remains resilient and ancestral.

But the people who wake up to the crowing of cooks are a vanishing tribe compared to the swelling numbers of those who jar themselves from sleep by click, phone, or the racket of radio. They leap out of dwellings of various sizes and costs, rush through doors and gates, and burst forth onto the streets, causing a huge ceaseless rumble and tumult all through the day. Cars and buses rush by like grunting, charging bulls, and then groan to sudden stops to load or unload. The avenues are choked with the metal flow of vehicles (above). The streets whirl like a vortex of frenetic activity. Jumbo jetliners sheiks down like giant seabirds, not quite two hundred feet above the light railway trains, or LRTs hurtling from one turbulent station to the next. One can only imagine the flaring tempers that arise from this chaos. Crowded street in Pasay subject its citizens to stress in many forms, not least in the agile competition for elbow room, which calls for a series of bumping, halting, and quick sidestepping any which way one is inclined.

Everywhere in Pasay one confronts the salary man culture: the never-ending pursuit of middle-class security and status symbols; the new religion of “my home,” “my car,” “my children’s school.” But it is this driven sector, this vast rather homogeneous, and uninspiring mass of commuters, who are largely responsible for keeping the wheels of the economy turning relentlessly forward, filling and emptying its cornucopia of goods and services.

he ways to go around are varied. Most public transport is by bus, jeepney, LRT, and tricycles. The Traffic is an agony. Parking is a headache. The city is always a street behind, a flyover short. There is catching up to do. On weekdays, congestion at rush hour keeps speeds on Pasay’s main arteries down to 11 KPH - about as fast as a bicycle. The lowly two-wheeler would have a somewhat more auspicious setting on a village’s main street but it is an appropriate symbol of the past when pitted against the soaring future in the form of a jetliner, parked within spitting distance from it (opposite page). This is just one of so many striking contrasts that collide with each other at every turn in this city.