#smdm

The Six Million Dollar Man

This is almost exactly how I imagine the seafront area of Santa Maria Del Mar to be, only more raucous.

A row of stately, near empty mansions and ancestral homes front the wide boulevard. Occasionally, an ancient gardener or perhaps his younger incarnation will undo the multiple padlocks on the tall steel or iron gates and diligently attempt to tame the grass and the yucca palms. In between the expansive lots and high walls of these manses are garishly modern —and often cheaply made— concrete boxes of varying sizes and heights with a few grudging attempts at glass windows here and there in their facades. The power and telephone poles are heavy with tangles of black wire, some of which fall into the busy street. In the days of steam and sail ships this location offered the masters of these homes a vantage point from which to watch for their cargo coming into port, and made it easy for their clerks to walk to where these vessels are docked and take count as they were unloaded.

Nowadays the boulevard is both tourist trap and locals' hang out. It's interspersed with watering holes, small hotels, apartment buildings, the odd bank or accountants' offices, cafes and local and chain restaurants, some of which occupy the first floors of those mansions. The more enterprising owners chose to utilize the entirety of the sprawling old houses, turning them into office spaces or renting them out (pawnshops and money lenders and transferrers are common as sand on the islands, and good steady businesses that can more than easily match the exorbitant lease for such a location. Their success and ubiquity is only matched by the gotohan and 24/7 outdoor burger joints). Lately someone has dared to open a coworking space on the second floor of the old Rivera house. Bets have been placed on how long it will stay open. Other houses lay empty save for a caretaker, while their owners have left for presumably better lives overseas or in Manila or Cebu. One mansion occupying an enviable placement on a corner lot has, for years, been up for sale at a large but not unreasonable sum. It remains unsold, because, the Marianons say, people are waiting for the elderly owner to pass and for the estate to sell at a much lower price.

Street food vendor stalls hug the side of the boulevard closest to the port. Their trade is bustling despite the flies, roaches, rats and various other pests, and the ever present smell of ocean, urine and trash, as evidenced by the crush of motorcycles parked nearly onto one entire lane of the street and the smiling, chewing masses of locals (and, always, a handful of bewildered tourists) nearly doubled up on the squat, narrow, red plastic chairs. At nearly all hours this strange throughfare is haunted by street walkers, thieves, lay persons handing out pamphlets and harassing diners for donations, gangs of aggressive, barefoot beggar children, traveling vendors selling everything from fake rolexes to model sailboats, candy and cigarette sellers, drug dealers, students, travelers on their way to other ports of the archipelago, the local intellectuals at their usual cafes, bemused and enchanted foreign visitors, enebriated and belligerent foreign residents, vagrants both mad and not and well-to-do locals out for an overpriced seafood lunch or dinner. The boulevard is only ever almost empty at three in the morning, in the sullen orange glare of the street lights, and only on non feast days.

How would law enforcement be structured during the militant post-civil war regime? I would like the anti-insurgency special forces unit (an effective and brutal weapon against the guerrilla separatist forces in Mindanao) to be partly absorbed, or formed into the new Philippine Constabulary (different name?), the primary task of which would be dealing with organized crime and the war on drugs. Why is the war on drugs important to this administration? 1. a war on drugs always looks sexy when politicians trot it out as part of their policy. Makes for good press, you can pose commandos in front of bales of methamphetamine and give serious press cons, 2. it really is a problem. Political dynasties are often involved in human trafficking, prostitution, arms dealing, theft, kidnap, drugs, control entire provinces bc they've owned large tracks of land for generations and are actively involved in politics, often passing a governorship from grandfather to sons, to grandchildren. The peasants on their land are completely beholden to them, and they have a key place in provincial and national economies. It's an attempt from the central government to take back control and establish some peace by finally incarcerating (or killing, they're not picky) the leaders of these families.

This kind of war would destabilize cities and provinces of course but no one ever seems to know what might be a better solution so. Anti-cartel policy it is.

Would the regular police forces still exist? Would they be subordinate to the Constabulary? Likely yes. Might result in some interesting inter-agency conflict because the regular police forces would be corrupt and receiving kickbacks from the local drugistas, while the PC is pro-regime, well paid, and are a tight knit group after having been through a war together.

bet I’m on my way babygirl ;)