4 things that are notoriously hard to come by in Metro Manila

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In Metro Manila, some things come easily, like broad smiles, great home cooked food and good friends. Some things, however, are notoriously hard to come by. As SMART launches its #HardToGet campaign to promote Smart Bro 4G Pocket WiFi (more about that later), we take a look at a few things we struggle to find in our city.

Traffic-free roads

traffic free road, Manila

Yep, we might as well start with the obvious one: in Metro Manila, traffic-free roads are particularly #HardToGet. John Forbes, an official from a foreign chamber, estimated earlier this year that Metro Manila could become “uninhabitable” within four years if the current traffic conditions worsen, which, unfortunately for all concerned, they’re likely to do.

While many of us pride ourselves on our social media savviness and the amount of stuff we can get done during our commute to work, if we’re completely honest with ourselves, that’s really only because a journey that should take mere minutes can take hours at peak traffic times. We have to utilize social media because meeting our mates in real life is getting harder and harder.

If you don’t know the stats, cop an eyeful of these: Metro Manila is home to 12 million people, a population that swells to 15 million on weekdays. Each day, more than 2.2 million vehicles cram themselves onto just 5,000 kilometers of road, equating to 440 vehicles for every kilometer. Studies say the traffic drains our country of PHP2.4 billion a day.

Check out this Coconuts TV mini documentary on the problem if you fancy being depressed further.

 

Your own island

Philippines beach

Despite the Philippines being home to around 7,500 islands (no-one can be bothered to count them too accurately), of which 2,000 are uninhabited, it’s a commonly held misconception that buying your own island here is easy. It’s not, especially if you’re a normal Filipino with a normal job. Sorry!

Buying your own island could cost you anything from USD100,000 to many millions of dollars, and on top of all that, there’s a whole lot of hoops to jump through along the way. You might think you can get around the old “ain’t got no money” problem by securing a loan from the bank, but unfortunately, this is seldom the case. Banks are usually pretty wary about shelling out cash for such ventures, as private islands are hard to appraise.

And even if you do manage to get a bank on board, buying your island is only the start. If it’s remote and uninhabited, you’re likely to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars setting up basic amenities such as electricity, water purification and cell towers. We won’t mention the lawyer fees.

 

Zero sweat patches

Just like much of South East Asia, Manila has been burning up of late, with temperatures ranging from a scorching 32ºC to a hellish 37ºC in April alone.

In that kind of heat, it doesn’t matter how slow you go, what clothes you wear or how much deodorant you slather on, sweat patches are the stray dog you’ve been feeding, i.e. they’ll follow you everywhere.

A life without sweat patches in Manila’s summer is a life we can only dream of!

Fast and reliable internet

Unless you’ve been living under the proverbial rock with absolutely no internet whatsoever, you’ll know that internet connections in Manila tend to run about as fast as the traffic, with files taking forever (and then some) to download.

With SMART Bro’s hottest summer offer yet, however, you can snap up 4G Pocket WiFi for just PHP888 with PHP150 preloaded until June 30. Best paired with SurfMax 85, which gives you two days of all-day internet up to 800MB, #SmartBro888 is anything but #HardToGet.

Not only can you now enjoy super fast internet on up to 10 of your devices, SMART Bro 4G Pocket WiFi also allows you to share the love (and the WiFi) with friends and family, wherever you are.

At least that’s one less thing that’s #HardToGet!



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