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.
