Philippine Travel Notes

Literally! This broke my heart. Promise! We just came from a visit to the La Trinidad flower and strawberry farms and were driving our way back to Baguio City when I chanced upon this girl. I initially thought that was a Tagalog romance novel or a ‘songhits’ she was busy reading. Fortunately, my companions got attracted to the carrots in her stall. So we stopped and crossed the road (and I took this pic). When we got to her, she immediately closed the book and attended to my companions. I glanced and saw that it was a high school book on something like ‘social studies’ or something. We asked if she was a student. She replied that in fact she was getting ready for an exam at 1 o’clock that afternoon. Just waiting for her mother to finish lunch so she could start off for school. Ah! It was exactly 12:12PM when I took this photo. Oh well, the way it is to study in these our times…

The title of this article is a verbatim excerpt from a non-Filipino friend's email that I opted to quote since it is very representative of the state (of management and/or handling) at which our airports are in, right now! Oops, okay, let us qualify that… as far as we the passengers are concerned! My response to that email: "I agree to the nth degree! The reply: "Can't you the taxpayers bring this up to the government authorities?" My next response: "Of course we can. This is a free country! But there is a BIG twist! Instead of trying to address the concern pronto, the airport authorities - even the president of this archipelago - will spend the people's money researching and trying to find who I am, then get even busier trying to discredit me on media or elsewhere and try all they can to invalidate my concern or isolate me from saying anything else anymore! Perhaps they will even run a senate or congressional investigation and imprison me! Meanwhile,...

Iloilo City and its nearby environs is a progressive (or fast progressing) urbanity that probably in a few years would become another metropolis. But this place still teems with histories and many things to experience (good and bad) that one does not commonly encounter in Metro Manila or Metro Cebu! Its not necessarily culture, but this place has a nice past, an interesting “today”, and a “heavens-knows-what” future! How did I know about this place? Well, who would not know about Iloilo City anyway? It’s touted as one of the more progressive cities in the Visayas area. I have friends who come from the place but are mostly scattered around the globe now. And those who are there, (as I see it) are too busy, I never want to bother them with my royal presence J Shssss, don’t tell them I think this way. If they discover, they will be mad like hell for having visited their city without telling them. Ilonggos are one of the most hospitable lot in this country, and they’ll be all to...