" It was then that it dawned on my great-great-great-great-grandmother that Avenida in Santa Cruz—with all its dark, dank, dreary alleyways, its patchwork of cheap cement, cheaper wood, and even cheaper corrugated iron that passed for houses, its ground littered with all sorts of scrap, including crumbs of goodies and morsels of meals to which they were never invited, its all-present humidity and intermittent rain, all its mud and flood on rainy days and all its dust on dry days, all its dirt, all its noise, and all the cruelty and fear and abomination and prejudice—was paradise. "

― A.A. Patawaran , Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official