Mike Wootton
Mike Wootton

OFFICIALLY Metro Manila has a population of about 12 million. We should note, though, that the official census doesn’t include people without any formal residence, i.e. people who have no alternative but to live on the streets as best they can, so we can bump up the official census base figure to probably at least 15 million. That’s a lot of people. What’s more, it is a big retail market, as SM and other mall developers and owners are well aware. There are lots of malls but there are literally thousands of small street-side businesses selling stuff or trying to, with varying degrees of success.

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