The pollution in Manila is awful, especially when there’s no wind. There’s a perpetual brown haze hanging over the city, so thick you can not only smell it in the air, but feel it, clinging to the skin. When you enter Makati, central business district, the sunlight turns sickly amber, and when I go out in the streets to travel, the itch in my throat and lungs leaves me with a painful cough.

And it’s getting worse.