“SIXTEEN stories, sixteen cities…and the Filipino in all of them.” This is what AA Patawaran’s collection of short stories, Manila Was A Long Time Ago (Anvil Publishing, 268 pages, 2018), is promising readers, but they may be hard pressed to find the “Filipino” in it. He may have dedicated the book to Manila, which he professes to love and hate at the same time, but what readers mostly get is the latter.

Don’t let Patawaran’s elegant language and Love Marie Ongpauco-Escudero’s (a.k.a. Heart Evangelista) art distract you from the largely unflattering portrait he paints of the country’s capital. It is a city you leave, and even when you do, you can never leave it enough.