MANILA FORTUNA

All Manila Girls are true daughters of old-time Manila, the city is like a mother to them, both kind and cruel ans spirited, and her most special gift to them is their independence and determination to survive, or should I say their inventiveness and guile ; both vital gifts for any survival, for they live by their wits one day at a time. The pattern of their lives is set from the time of their birth and their locations are in the poorest baranguys scattered between the more salubrious neighbourhoods on the outskirts of the city, or buried between new developments where only luck and good fortune brings occasional relief from their poverty. And as they grow up they discover that the whole their city works the same way, a macrocosm of their own lives, that there are barren times and times of plenty, and they learn how to ask and cajole and enchant and to squeeze, and negotiate even the smallest transactions, always with an "addition" which their merchandising culture necessarily demands as `profit`. For every embryonic Manila Girl understands this as the basic rule of business, from selling their own candy to their school-friends to the ubiquitous sari-sari stores and beyond, and ultimately to the times when they sell themselves,