The Philippines is … well … different - part five

Perhaps I have dwelt too much on the negative. The Philippines can be lovely. Taken some years ago, below is a bay, where I used to scuba dive, on the island of Leyte.

This film snap is of a carabao or water buffalo, also on Leyte.

Here - on film - are traditional houses in Maasin, a town in Southern Leyte.

Although in love with noise, Filipinos are also fond of something more to my taste - colour. The ‘jeepney’, descendant of the wartime American jeep, combines noise and colour. And some fairly frightening driving.

Filipinos have an ambivalent relationship with their former colonial masters. But they’re certainly grateful for liberation from the Japanese. At an impressive monument, General MacArthur returns to the Philippines.

Quite by accident, on a back country road, we stumbled on the spot Japanese forces on Cebu surrendered.

Farmers plow where the last fighting took place.

Language in the Philippines is a delight. I’ve already mentioned the Chocolate Hills. ‘Cake Me Home’ is a bakery near Gord’s and below is a street in Cebu.

A sign I’m sorry not to have taken at the time stands on one of Cebu's main streets - ‘Welcome to the City of the Dancing Tax Collectors’.

Speaking of streets, and, no surprise in a poor, tropical country, life is lived on the street.

At this funeral home, by the side of a northern Cebu road, you could virtually toss granddad from the back of a jeepney into his coffin.

Granddad’s funeral will most likely be in a Catholic church. Religion is central in the Philippines. Even on the ferry to the island of Bohol, there was a prerecorded prayer for safe passage as we left Cebu. Not a bad idea in a country where there are frequent shipping mishaps.

Here’s a little roadside shrine.

This cross is outside Cebu’s basilica. It is claimed to contain pieces of the cross Magellan planted when he landed in the Philippines in 1521.

But this Buddhist temple overlooking Cebu illustrates one of the things I like best about the Philippines, its tolerance.

A mainly Christian people, albeit with a large Muslim minority and insurgency, Filipinos are quite accepting of minorities. This is especially marked in the acceptance of gays, surprising in an often backward place with a highly conservative, Spanish heritage. It speaks well of the Philippines.

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Here are Gord and Lauren, just before she returned to Canada last week.

Twenty-four hours later, Gord and I were unexpectedly headed for the airport as it was clear Gord needed medical care and it was best to have that in Canada. We got home safely and, as I write this in Toronto, he’s getting the appropriate treatment.

The Philippines is ... well ... different - part four

My stay in the Philippines is over. Yesterday, we flew to Hong Kong as Gord has become quite ill and needs to get back to Canada.

I was expecting to be in the Far East another six weeks, so there aren’t many pictures; those I have are not particularly good as I’d hoped to return to some of the locations in better light. And I wanted to see a lot more. Anyway, I’ll try put the few shots in some order and will add some favourite film snaps from more than ten years ago to pad things out.

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In a country so poor - about a third of the population live on less than a dollar a day - the cheerfulness and resilience of Filipinos is admirable.

Even these guys - likely gang members - found it in themselves to be pleasant to an obviously privileged tourist.

I would not have wanted our encounter to be in the dead of night, but can’t imagine their Toronto counterparts being quite so friendly.

Here, Gord’s partner, Rowena, shops and an unknown woman’s smile lights up the background.

Filipinos have to be resilient, if not cheerful, to survive. They are ill served by their government and institutions.

Cebu City Hall was built by the Americans before the war.

That noble inscription that ‘Public Office Is A Public Trust’ goes against decades of misrule - national and local - after independence. A few days ago, a columnist in the Cebu Daily News wrote that about 20% of taxpayers’ money is ‘cornered by crooks’. Filipinos are ripped off by many politicians and much of the old landowning class. Not a few within the legal system are susceptible to bribes.

The Americans left infrastructure and institutions that, for their time, were some of the most advanced in the Far East. However, more than sixty years later, the early promise of a free Philippines has not been realized.

Not many kilometers from this well, and before I left, one person died and many were sick from poor water supplies. Cholera was later reported.

Of course, some live in considerable comfort. But, venture beyond the gated communities and walls topped with broken glass, and deprivation seems everywhere.

This was the view from my bedroom window. In the morning, I would waken to crowing. Stepping out of my ensuite bathroom, I could brush my teeth while idly watching people just beyond our wall sluicing themselves from buckets.

Trapped in what seems an interminable Cebu traffic jam, I found myself looking at commuters in open buses or ‘jeepneys’ breathing in the fumes.

Vendors - and beggars displaying terrible injuries - wove through the vehicles, pressing their faces and deformities against the heavily tinted windows of Gord’s van. I will only show the news boys.

I take my expensive sun hat off to those Filipinos with so little, but who, over the years, have treated me with such courtesy and generosity.

The Philippines is ... well ... different - part three

We’re just back from Bohol, an island to the west of Cebu. La Niña means there’s lots of rain, but it’s warm and the mist sometimes adds to the delightful scenery. I didn’t take as many pictures as usual, however, with two months here, there’s plenty of time.

The house below was just across from our small hotel. Part of the roof is palm and there are traditional designs on the walls.

These are capiz or shell windows, a holdover from the Spanish colonial period. They were less expensive than glass, but allowed for light.

Here we are at a suspension bridge and this is Mark, Lauren’s half brother, who goes to school in Cebu.

This really could be anywhere in the Philippines, but I liked the bright colours against the old buildings. You can see some more capiz windows on the second floor.

The Philippines is Asia’s most Christian country. Churches often date from Spanish rule when priests were a power in the land. Catholicism mixed with folk beliefs (an acceptance of ghosts is common) contributes to tolerance of authority, hardship and, some say, a sense of fatalism.

Bohol’s main attraction is the Chocolate Hills, more than twelve hundred rounded hills, some as high as 120 metres. In the dry season, they become brown and so their name.

Just to give an idea of how rounded they are, here's one hill on its own.

The Philippines is ... well ... different - part two

In the 1990s, on my first New Year in the Philippines, my host yanked me inside as midnight neared. I wanted to watch the fireworks, but he didn’t want me shot. Many here enjoy firing guns into the air, either not having paid attention in their physics classes or just not caring that bullets actually fall to the ground. Until recently, police were among the worst offenders.

Locals tend to favour fireworks with names such as ‘Goodbye Philippines’, ‘Goodbye Earth’ and ‘Bin Laden’. These are so powerful they can be considered bombs.

From early on the thirty-first, occasional ‘booms’ grew into one almighty, year-greeting ‘KA-earsplitting-continuous-BAM’. This surrounded the house and exceeded in intensity any real artillery fire I’ve ever seen. I would dash from under cover and quickly get a picture. Anyone who’s ever taken fireworks photos from a safe distance knows the problems, so forgive my shaking hands as I shot through the fence.

The smell of gunpowder wafted through the neighbourhood and reverberations continued long after midnight. Oh, by the way, the fireworks result from an old Chinese superstition that noise helps to drive away evil spirits.

Very early New Year’s Day, I wandered up the street to get the newspapers. I didn’t find the remnants of a ‘Goodbye Earth’, but did find fireworks that back home would only be allowed in carefully controlled displays.

Here’s newspaper packing from fireworks along the main road into our area.

Back home, Gord’s driver helped to tidy up.

The TV news last night showed graphic pictures of casualty wards filling with victims being interviewed as, dripping blood, they were wheeled in for treatment. Missing fingers galore. Hundreds injured, some killed, from fireworks and bullets. Most were under ten.

Still, the fireworks were spectacular.