Monday, November 25, 2013

The Philippines on two wheels - part fourteen


Manila International's departure lounge information signs don't work. My problems at Philippines airports aren't new. Lineups of memorable confusion and mad stampedes to board. A previous departure marred when a well loved, compact travel umbrella was confiscated as a potential threat (not even the security-obsessed Americans or Israelis worry about umbrellas). I swore I would never come back, but, of course, did. Today, the check was casual. Just as well as I'd inadvertently left a small pocket knife in my kitbag. Anyway, lacking a departure board to obsessively check every three minutes, I've hustled to the boarding gate to be safe. Time enough for writing a final post. 

I leave as the Philippines celebrates. The country's favourite athlete has again triumphed, lifting national morale. Everyone from the airline agent who checked me in to the immigration officer stamping my passport wanted to talk about Manny Pacquiao. The ‘security guards’ scanning luggage doubtless preferred to mentally replay the big fight rather than scrutinize monitors for dangerous umbrellas.


With few Filipino achievements in international sports, in an impoverished archipelago beset by natural and man made disasters, Manny shores up a fragile national ego. His success allows Filipinos, too, to boast of success. 


Gord and I found a Manila bar from which I'd be able to occasionally escape to monitor reaction outside.

Streets - normally worse than turbo charged bumper cars - were deserted.


Those unable to 'pay for view' craned to see or, at least, hear the broadcast. 


Manny grew up poor. Dad abandoned the family and mum washed clothes for a living. From an all too typical background, Manny is a Philippines 'everyman' not only idolized, but loved. Success in a brutal sport has made him rich, not arrogant. And he knew that Filipinos needed good news after two months - just two months - in which there was a bloody battle between army and rebels with two hundred dead; investigation of a political corruption scandal involving $250 million; the earthquake and then super typhoon.


Despite a stellar career, Manny's last two fights were defeats. Filipinos were anxious. They need not have been. 



It wasn’t an epic clash. Manny took control from the opening bell and pummeled his American opponent for twelve rounds. At the bar, confidence grew.



Outside, as unofficial scoring gave round after round to Manny, spectators pooh-poohed their former worries and prepared to whoop it up.




'Tacloban!' they screamed, ‘For Tacloban!’ But this is not just a moment’s respite from a litany of woe, from a city obliterated, towns no more and vanished villages. Not just a brief diversion from unburied corpses, political and bureaucratic ineptitude, homelessness, hunger, fear, grief. Manny allows Filipinos a sense of national self-respect. He gives them hope. Today they celebrate and I celebrate with them.

_________________________


It’s been awhile since I was in a plane in which I could watch the takeoff from a passenger seat. I thought this had been phased out because the pictures made some people nervous. It appears I was wrong. Good bye, Philippines.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

The Philippines on two wheels - part thirteen


By week’s end, I’ll be on the first stage of the long trip home. Gord’s accompanying me to Manila before I fly on to Hong Kong. So, some final pictures from Negros, a mélange of life in the Philippines.

Balloon seller on Dumaguete’s promenade.


Local election campaigning. Elections here are serious stuff: 25 died in the run-up and on polling day. However, this first day of campaigning, I came across a cheerful convoy supporting a candidate.

Man with loudspeaker: ‘What is your nationality, sir?’

Me: ‘Canadian!’

Man with loudspeaker: ‘Everyone wave to the Australian!’



Fish drying in Bayawan City.


Performers, ‘king’ and ‘queen’ in a Dumaguete festival.




Two cocks in Dumaguete being prepared for a December 19 ‘Christmas Derby’. Cockfighting predates the Spaniards and is highly popular. I can’t imagine anything less Christmasy. 



The father of Gord’s partner Mae, Welfredo Manlucot, a fisherman in Bayawan City.


In early sunlight, a Dumaguete cart with flowers and shells for sale.


‘HAIRCUT Brod?’ (Haircut, brother?) - a mobile barber shop in Dumaguete, splendid example of Filipino ingenuity. I looked for the proprietor, but not to be found. You can just see the barber chair and seating for the next customer. The bible reading appears to be: ‘Share in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus’. Presumably this doesn’t refer to what customers must endure.



An unhappy pig being taken for a drive.


 Knew exactly what the pig was thinking.


By the way, the pig should have been more cheerful. He was being taken to breed, not to the market.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

The Philippines on two wheels - part twelve



Yesterday, Gord and I left shortly before sunrise on a hundred kilometre motorcycle trip to a southern coastal city. Some of the pictures may be worth clicking on.

Our route parallels the Cuernos de Negros ...


... as people set off to work ...


... above paddies ...


... along the shore ...


... past fishermen ...


... farmers ...


... and householders tidying up. That overused 'peace sign' normally drives me batty, but even I can't argue with the smile.


Our destination is Bayawan City (Philippines towns yearn to become large enough to place an official 'City' designation after their name).  Offshore is a vision from Pirates of the Caribbean.



In different light, the fishing boats look less sinister.


Our journey is, in part, to check progress on a boat I'd seen a few weeks earlier. 


The Adomay is a traditional ‘pump boat’, essentially a very large outrigger canoe with links to the Polynesians who sailed vast distances in the Pacific. She will take four months to complete and should be ready for tuna fishing in late December. 



In charge is Juan who's built thirty-seven boats of this size and dozens of smaller ones.



Adomay is, bar a few tools powered via a dodgy cord, handmade



This is where I should extol the nobility of manual labour and skilled craftsmanship. However, given that, in my working life, I avoided anything more arduous than exercising vocal chords and pecking at typewriter keys, I am perhaps not best fitted to do this. Anyway, it’s all pretty impressive.



I'm sorry I won't see Adomay launched for, all being well, a life of fifteen to twenty years.

Along Bayawan's beach are other fishing boats being constructed or, in one case, virtually rebuilt after a recent storm. 





The Apostleship is owned by Domingo Barrientos, once an able seaman on freighters sailing between Canada and Europe. He shakes his head remembering winters on the North Atlantic, cruelest of cruel seas.



After years away, he saved enough to have a little fleet and and, by Bayawan standards. has become a man of some consequence. 
_________________________


We've just returned after a two-and-a-half hour, dawn ride, avoiding midday heat, if not suspect paving. I'm a little stiff!

One roadside structure, which made us stop, is the exuberant 'Ragay Residence', with its cheerful 'Welcome Home' on the gates. In Toronto, this would be condemned as vulgar. Here, telling of the owners' lives, it's proud family history - a horizontal concrete totem pole.


I particularly like the farmer and carabao watched closely by a hopeful bird.


Further on, a real carabao. Not especially friendly. 


This morning, Sunday, the road was mostly free of traffic, although dogs and wayward pedestrians presented the usual potential hazards. On the few straight, reasonably smooth stretches, I rediscovered of the narcotic effects of (relative) speed on two wheels, although Philippines roads are probably not the best place on which to experience this.


At one point, my speedometer read 85 kph, although Gord thinks 90. If, sixty-five years old, I'm stupidly tempted to open the throttle - and with so many potential hazards - small wonder at the  kids who kill themselves on these things.