Impressions

Impressions from a Grand Tour of the Philippines
January 31-March 8,2010
by MimanMetty

Tourism is taking off in the Philippines. Its development is one of the “proyecto” of the GMA administration. The beaurocrats in tourism overall is doing a great job laying the infrastructure for tourism, with the building of roads, airports and refurbishing docks and ports, identifying and restoring historic sites, constructing tourist facilities like clean toilets and rest areas, credentialing hotels, travel agencies, transport and taxi services, tour guides, and streamlining arrival and immigration procedures. Terminal 3 will soon open to all international carriers and the Skyway will take you to Makati in a breeze. Many local festivals have been retooled to appeal to tourists. What I found most appealing are the heritage shrines and the museums. I did not find many tourists here, and I think they will hold little appeal to most except the history and anthropology aficionado, and the native or expatriate searching for the intangible.
There were none of these museums when I left the Philippines in 1967 and during my several visits since, there was no opportunity to check these out as the visits were for specific purposes of seeing family and friends or burying parents. I haven’t really seen the Philippines so this time I have devoted 5 weeks and devised an itinerary that took me to Batanes to Davao and points in between.
I started in Cebu and booked a Korean Air flight, which had the lowest fare from Atlanta, directly to Mactan International Airport. The flight carried mostly Koreans. They can be seen in all major centers in the Philippines, in hotels, in malls, in tourism venues, in golf courses, in schools, in business. In Boracay, the masseuse and hairbraid girls on the beach solicit patrons speaking Korean. Koreans travel in their own group, gathered together by their own travel agency with their own guide, they are billeted in Korean owned hotels, and eat in Korean owned restaurants. They do not employ Filipinos or leave profits in the Philippines. The taxi drivers avoid picking them up if they can manage it. They are vague about their reasons. I am somewhat put off by them myself. First they are intimidating with their numbers and because of that and interacting only among themselves they seem to be oblivious to how they affect others. They are noisy, they jostle, and cut in front of a queue, they don’t apologize when they bump into you and they don’t smile or offer eye contact for a friendly greeting to a fellow traveler. In the golf course they hit the fairway before you can get out of range. But Korea’s economy has gotten prosperous, and more and more of them can afford traveling and studying abroad and the revenue they generate is welcomed. There are many students enrolled in Philippine schools, because it is cheaper and because they can learn English closer to home. Are they the new Chinese?The Chinese build malls and condos and gambling resorts, and sell them to the Filipinos who buy them with money earned overseas, that then is circulated away from the Philippines into the Chinese mainland. Our Ilustrados, the Spaniards and mestizos descended from our conquistadors were enriched by exploiting the natural resources and grabbing the lands of the Indios, remain on top of the food chain. They still rule in politics and industry, the higher the status the whiter it gets. They too hold themselves apart, and send their profits back to Spain. The successful Indios send their profits to Swiss banks and with the politicians continue to hold the Philippines in colonial clutches. However we can cultivate the Koreans for we can learn a lot from them. I think we have very similar histories in that they were under imperial rule and they too have just emerged from a devastating war even more recent than us.
Though elections is not until May and campaigning is not official until this month, Villar is closing the gap fast with Noynoy and would you believe that Erap is pulling 13% in the polls? Only in the Philippines can a convicted felon and raider of the national treasury run for President again. Because he received presidential pardon, technically he’s squeaky clean again, but such gall. In Ilocos Norte Imelda is running for congress and her son is a senator. My pride and sensibility is so insulted, and I'm dismayed by the masses who have very short memory and deny these plunderers’ ignoble past for unrealistic expectations. I asked a calesa driver why he’d vote for Erap, and in his simple understanding he recalled that in Erap’s time he had an easier time feeding his family. He has no awareness that there is global recession and high unemployment, and graft and corruption by his leaders did not figure in his decision. Erap’s promise is rice in every pot.The papers also report that a senator fled the country to avoid murder charges, and karaoke bars have stopped playing Sinatra's My Way because the song apparently had stimulated assaults and 6 killings so far. There is so much concern expressed about implementation of the first electronic voting in this election. There is fear of communications being jammed to prevent electronic transmission of votes for counting, whether the masses can operate the machines correctly, never having any experience with computers, and GMA is threatening to extend her reign if the elections cannot be declared properly counted, etc., and of course she is running for councilor in her district, says there's nothing from the constitution barring her, so that she can be elected as Speaker of the house and continue to wield influence. Of course she'll win, she has showered the district with pork barrel projects and her picture is attached to all these.

I've started in  Cebu and Bohol, where the Spaniards first landed. It is rich with historical landmarks of the colonization, but the tour commentary only address the arrival of the Spaniard and the colonization. It missed the opportunity to educate about our rich pre-Hispanic heritage, that the people the Spaniards encountered were not savages as described but had their own civilization, art, government, religious beliefs,government,politics,etc.

However in Manila, I had a week to steep in its art and cultural/heritage scene and am very blown away by the creativity, pride, and patriotism expressed by our artists intent on  re"righting"  and retelling our history. Though this scene does not yet reach or  interest the masses, who continue to swarm in shopping malls and movie houses, and watch wowowee on TV, the movement is there and we can hope that some financier with a vision will underwrite a popular movie or TV show or something someday and spread the message incubating in this small and elite group. Grudgingly I credit the Marcos regime and Imelda for setting herself as patroness of the arts, with the laying of the infrastructure for showcasing our art, history and culture. The Philippine National Museum is rich with the display of our patrimony, its current movable exhibit is about the review of Philippine-American relations during the Philippine-American War years, 1898-1915. It’s only recently that the designation was changed  in the Library of Congress catalogue from the American-given label of the Philippine Insurrection. It is a revelation, and every Filipino and America should be educated so we can see each other more clearly and deal with each other with mutual respect and equality. It has made me curious to inquire how the history of the American occupation of the Philippines is taught in US schools.The rich here are also starting to give back and sharing their largesse, not unlike the robber barons of the US, through their museums that have opened to the public. The Ayala Museum is world class, and so is the Lopez and the Yuchenco Museum. The latter has a wonderful exhibit of Santiago Bose, a multimedia artist from Kalinga, and the historian and journalist Carlos Quirino. The Metropolitan Museum of Manila likewise has a large collection of modernists. THe Cultural Center puts up superb productions. I saw Rody Vera's adaptation of Chekhov's 3 sisters, Tatlong Mariya, directed by Loy Arcenas, it's 2 1/2 hours long but you forget the time, it's that good and absorbing. The ballet is presenting avant garde works, like Neo-Filipino, productions using Western medium but imbued with Filipino spirit . I was engulfed with nationalistic fervor in the Aguinaldo Museum and wept. The heroic battle at Tirad Pass and the sacrifice of Gregorio del Pilar is the stuff of epic novels and compares with any great stand for independence in the history of the world. These heritage tours are made available to schoolchildren but I don't think in a systematic fashion. Unfortunately, there are very few visitors to the museums and the cultural center.

In Ifugao, the rice terraces are all over the mountains, wherever there is a water source there are rice terraces, big and small to spectacular, the most amazing are found in Batad, which are panoramic and amphitheater-like but the access requires a 2-hour hike over difficult uneven and steep terrain, and in Banaue which has a comfortable easy access view point. They are over 2000 years old but the saddest images are the once magnificent mountains, which are now 90% denuded of virgin forest and covered entirely by cogon grass, one could weep. The birds no longer sing in these mountains, and the Kamagong is endangered, the deer is gone and few wild boars roam. All the grand mountains and forests of the Philippines have been raped and looted for centuries and the abuse continues with unchecked logging, commercial development, settlement, mining, corporate plantations, irresponsible leaders and politicians, you name it, and the indigenous peoples driven from their habitat and forced into begging, and to give up their life style, identity and traditions to work for survival in low paying jobs in the general community or succumbing to the enticement of profit from cultivating marijuana on behalf of lowland crimelords.The rice terraces and the life style that created it must be preserved to remind us all that mother earth must be taken care of for if we destroy her, we destroy ourselves.

Perhaps it’s not all lost.In Puerto Princesa in Palawan they have a strong and effective mayor feared and respected by everyone.This mayor, Edward Hagedorn had been mayor since 1992, and supposedly ineligible to run for office in the 2010 elections having reached term limit, however one term was disqualified for counting because his election then was a recall election and does not qualify as a term, whatever, it's all legal reasoning, anyway he's running this year, but before his election in 1992 he was a gambling lord, running jueteng and his family had been big loggers denuding the Palawan forests. As Mayor however, he cleaned up the city literally, it has won awards as the cleanest city, banned gambling, stopped illegal fishing, got rid of crime, relocated squatters into permanent housing, started a reforestation program, etc, but most of all he was the vision behind tourism and conservation happening now. And he's not even native, he's from Paranaque and his grandfather was German. He runs the city like a benevolent despot, with Christian platitudes in his speeches, he's GMA's darling because he's popular and investors and banks like him. He does have style, like he started a Festival for the Forest, for the reforestation efforts, and every Feb 14 he officiates in the Mangrove Love Festival, a mass wedding that is held free for the couples, including reception, in exchange for the couples planting mangrove trees in the swamp and maintaining them to sustain the environment balance. I didn’t know it but poor people in the rural areas have very little money to get married properly. Many couples who have lived together for years got married in this way. So a man with a vision and with a past can be a savior. Perhaps one will come along to save the Philippines? And restore its allure, "Perlas Ng Silangan"?

There is no question that the allure of Batanes lies in its remoteness, isolation, purity, simplicity, unsophistication, authenticity, and unspoiled landscape and people. A bucolic scene is displayed as you drive in the countryside. A man knee-deep in the receding tide casting his net, a young boy tethering his goat, the farmer in the field, the basket weaver at her craft, a family group laden with produce in baskets on their backs, leading their carabao to their destination, a 103 year old man weaving a fish net, children playing in the school yard, a man taking down coconuts, undulating pastures, cows and carabaos on hills and ridges grazing, surf breaking on the shore, or exploding against volcanic cliffs, a calm blue lagoon, bright orange pandanus fruit, azure sky, warm sun, gentle breeze, dollars in your pocket. Is this paradise?