The richest persons in the Philippines own malls (among their many other assets). That should be enough to give us an idea of how invested we Filipinos are in mall culture.

These retail mammoths are inescapable fixtures in urban cities (occasionally in underdeveloped ones, kind of a Prada Marfa thing but actually functional). That’s because its integration to the cultural psyche is a product of decades of influence which started in 1932 with the first prototype of an American mall (enclosed glass edifices with air conditioning) built in Escolta called the Crystal Arcade.

The biggest mall developer now, SM, made its first foray into such spaces only four decades in 1972, with SM Quiapo. But even before that, the very (humble) beginnings of its founder as a footwear shop operator is ingrained in Filipinos’ memory as a historical fact.

Today, malls are bigger and more complex than ever—intentionally so to literally make the shopper lose themselves and spiral into an endless cycle of purchasing. One simple explanation of the appeal of such spaces, apart from it being aspirational spaces that convey status, is the fact that they provide a cool refuge for people like us who are so used to a scorching tropical climate.

But after being closed for months because of the COVID-19 pandemic, malls are expected to reopen in areas where the situation has (somehow) stabilized with new protocols in place. This may change our relationship with this space.

“Bawal tambay, mahinang aircon”

The easing of enhanced community quarantine in places with low to moderate coronavirus infection rates beginning May 1 will prompt some malls to reopen, according to a Department of Trade and Industry recommendation to the Inter‑Agency Task Force (IATF) on Emerging Infectious Diseases, said Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque.

[READ: “Bukas na ba?” A list of services and sectors allowed under GCQ]

But stores allowed to operate are only limited to those selling hardware, clothing and accessories, and other necessities (non-leisure stores), and of course, groceries. Roque was quick to clarify that there will still be no cinemas and restaurants will still only be open for deliveries.

Mandatory temperature checks will also be done at entrances alongside the implementation of social distancing measures, and to stop people from lingering, higher temperatures for air conditioning systems will be set.

Will we ever go back to the mall?

One could argue that aircon may be the last straw for a mall-lucid nation. After all, isn’t it the reason why we have forsaken our local palengkes for slightly higher increments on mall counterparts because we are paying for convenience, for comfort?

But at the same time, did a clothing store’s broken AC ever stop you from rummaging through its shelves? Unlikely.

It may take longer to ease the public’s fear of being in an enclosed space with circulated cool air with hundreds of other people post-COVID-19. But hopefully, in the same timeline, this will spark a demand for open democratized spaces

Will reduced cooling capacities finally wake us Filipinos up from our consumerist dreams that have fueled so many mall developments? (Conversely, one can argue that such structures are intentionally imposed upon us, to arouse excessive shopping behavior—a more likely scenario given the capitalist nature of malls.)

That’s unlikely, too.

Because after all this is over, when the cure, as the president so feverishly calls for it, finally materializes and is made available locally and when lockdowns are lifted, all the more will we want a semblance of what we’re used to: the leisurely trips outside to grander retail simulacra far better than our isolation pods, the ability to freely spend again.

This though is assuming the worst, that we want to come back to our old habits after such hard times and even after the bombarding and romanticization of—and being subsequently desensitized to—the “new normal.”

Good for everyone

If anything, what COVID-19 has exposed is the lack of viable public spaces: wide, free, inclusive centers of socialization, the very antithesis of malls, where, in a post-pandemic fantasy we can have our own uninterrupted six-foot radius of personal space amid a crowded metropolis.

It may take longer to ease the public’s fear of being in an enclosed space with circulated cool air with hundreds of other people post-COVID-19. But hopefully, in the same timeline, this will spark a demand for open democratized spaces, which writer Jenny Odell describes—in contrast to a “faux public space” like malls—as those that ask nothing of us in return to enter nor to stay, public space where “you don’t have to buy anything, or pretend to want to buy something, to be there.”

At best, urban planner and landscape architect Paulo Alcarazen argues, malls are quasi-public spheres, where you “only behave in a way that’s only good to developers,” further reinforcing Odell’s argument in her book “How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy” that in a faux public space, actions are policed unlike in a public space where “you are a citizen with agency.”

“In a faux public space,” Odell writes, “you are either a consumer or a threat to the design of the place.” One can only hope that public spaces that emerge from the aftermath of this pandemic are good for everyone, too.

Header photo courtesy of Jilson Tiu/Inquirer

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