Philippines

We went outside of Manilla for a day to a lake with a volcano in it; it was more pleasant (weatherwise) out there. We had to walk through people's backyards (such as they were; the houses were makeshift, like an encapment) to get to the lake which was odd but everyone was very nice.

There is no vegetarian food, so we ate pizza at the mall pretty much every day.

There is a coin there that is exactly the same size as a quarter, but is only worth about a penny. We brought back hundreds of them and basically did our laundry for free for months.

can anyone recommend any good literature on post-marcos philippines?

it is interesting how strife in certain countries, and imperialist/moralist designs of other countries, can actually have benefits for 'unrelated' countries

Also: I'm in for Thursday but I need to askew a question.

just booked a flight. i'll be there for xmas -- 5 days, no plans. anybody been? what's good?

Just got back from a month long trip, with two weeks in the Philippines, along with Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. My gf has family north of Manila in a town called Bulacan, so we stayed there primarily, along with a trip to El Nido Palawan. Manila and its surrounding areas are for the most part very poor, with many squatter's shantytowns for miles and miles, it is really dirty and the air quality is very bad because everyone burns their trash and there are no emissions controls over the incredibly congested roadways. In contrast there are also very rich areas, including many giant megamalls (indoor rollercoasters) which i'm sure many visitors only experience.

Getting around manila due to its size and traffic can take a very long time. The roads are crazy with seemingly non existent traffic laws, combined with the interestingly decorated Jeepneys and Tricycles lends a very Mad Max feel. unlike in Bangkok where the Tuk-Tuks will try to hustle and scam you the Trycicles (motorcycle side cars) are a good way to get around.

The people are in my experience incredibly nice. walking around Bulacan and other outlying areas of Manila, many people wanted to stop and talk with me, some asking for money, but more just saying hi or interested in what i was doing there. passing by in Jeepneys or Tricycles guys would actually yell out "Hey Joe!" a holdover from ww2. Many speak excellent English, though this is dependent on class and education levels.

The food can be very good, but often not so much, as someone mentioned there is very little for vegetarians, and they don't really have cheese, bread or coffee as we think of them, though many good kinds of breakfast pastries and dynamite fruit. if you eat meat and have a somewhat adventurous palate you will love it. Great seafood chicken and Pork, bago-ong (fermented shrimp paste) is a primary condiment, Halo Halo is a crazy italian ice mixed with lots of strange unidentifiable ingredients.

Outside of Manila In Luzon there is lots of incredible nature, Someone was mentioning Tal Volcano upthread and that was cool, If you after beaches or diving, the other island i visited Palawan was absolutely Beautiful, as i'm sure the Visayas are as well.

Karaoke is very popular. as are cockfights, Catholicism and creative names such as: Bingo, Honey, Baby Ding Dong or Ping Ping.

The Philippines are extremely interesting, beautiful, sad and fucked up.

Have Fun!

i went last xmas w/the inlaws. i did not get my head chopped off. spent the entire time on the island of Sebu. beautiful resort beaches. we went snorkling once. super clear water. way way way cleaner than thailand which we went to a week later.

tons and tons of korean tourists. i guess they're sorta taking over the islands. learning tagolog and runnin things. peso not worth as much as won, obvs. and apparently it's tradition for newlyweds to wear matching clothes. it was pretty dorky.

but pretty much everything dsb says is true. it's terribly dirty, takes forever to get anywhere and their idea of fun is going to the mall. my idea of not fun is going to the mall on xmas eve with a family of like 9 and having to stay together and walk ridiculously slow the entire time. also being the only white guy there (and the tallest guy on the island) or in a packed catholic church in the front row on xmas eve. i actually got pointed at in the mall.

and the food is almost all fried meat and rice. not that many spices unless you consider garlic and vinegar spices. we ate lechon (fried whole baby pig) almost every day.

it was super eye opening though. i didn't realize how third world it was gonna be. we pretty much weren't allowed to go anywhere w/o family. we were driven everywhere. hotel. car. relatives house. mall. the security guards at the hotel do a bomb check on your car every time you enter the premises. didn't go too many other places. oh, and they live on latin time. they were always 2-3 hours later than they said they'd be.

uh, cebu

My brother-in-law moves to Cebu for a few months a year so that he can (try to) fuck nineteen year olds and get cheap household help. (He's 64, 400+ pounds and in bad health. And he watches the History Channel constantly and believes all of it.)

ugh, i think i saw that guy

Yeah, he's kinda hard to miss.

i thought it was gonna be outta control w/the old white guy, young thai girls (boys?), but it was way more disgusting in the philippines.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/31/quake-philippines-idINDEE87U0AR20120831

Seems like everybody's OK?

A few years ago I was in an anarchist bookstore and leafed through a photocopied book of strange news items in Asia. One of the items described an incident where a group of militant Jehovah's Witnesses, masquerading as Avon ladies, had successfully kidnapped-and-released a half-dozen rich kids. Eventually they were cornered by police and gunned down without a trial. The story sounded so preposterous, I told it to my Filipino bf but he just shrugged and said, "sounds about right."

its a crazy country

Depressing lack of updates from the areas hit by Haiyan.

Keep scrolling down here to see a comparison of Haiyan to Katrina

Super typhoon Haiyan: One of world’s most powerful storms in history from space

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/philippines-fears-massive-death-toll-after-typhoon/2013/11/10/2bd314f4-49dd-11e3-b87a-e66bd9ff3537_story.html?hpid=z1

Some Fil-Am friends are urging those making donations to consider NAFCON: http://nafconusa.org/

I fear that in those countless coastal towns many of the bodies will never be found.

And from this NY Times excerpt, it seems it will be hard to get to either the living or dead

As Monday dawned, it became increasingly clear that Typhoon Haiyan had ravaged cities, towns and fishing villages when it played a deadly form of hopscotch across the islands of the central Philippines on Friday. By some estimates, at least 10,000 people may have died in Tacloban alone, and with phone service out across stretches of the far-flung archipelago, it was difficult to know if the storm was as deadly in more remote areas.

Barreling across palm-fringed beaches and plowing into frail homes with a force that by some estimates approached that of a tornado, Haiyan delivered a crippling blow to this country’s midsection. The culprit increasingly appeared to be a storm surge that was driven by those winds, which were believed to be among the strongest ever recorded in the Philippines, lifting a wall of water onto the land as they struck. By some accounts, the winds reached 190 miles an hour.

As aid crews struggled to reach ravaged areas, the storm appeared to lay bare some of the perennial woes of the Philippines. The country’s roads and airports, long starved of money by corrupt and incompetent governments, are some of the worst in Southeast Asia and often make traveling long distances a trial. On Monday, clogged with debris from splintered buildings and shattered trees, the roads in the storm’s path were worse, slowing rescue teams

Wonder which group to send $ to

Upthread suggestion was this:

http://nafconusa.org/category/typhoon-relief-efforts-haiyan-yolanda/

or maybe to this one also

Ninety-one Doctors without Borders field staff are already on the ground in the Philippines with fifty more arriving in the coming days, including doctors, nurses, surgeons, logisticians and sanitation experts.

gen can't go wrong with Drs w/out Bs afaik

yeah MSF/DWB is always a good bet for donations, they put a very high percentage into the field compared to other orgs.

The Philippines are extremely interesting, beautiful, sad and fucked up.

― dsb, Tuesday, 8 December 2009 17:18 (6 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Having been here for three days now, I'd say this was pretty much OTM.

This is bizarre and astonishing:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-37172002

Ahead of his election, he promised to kill 100,000 criminals in his first six months in office.

o_O

I saw a Filipino movie last year about convicts getting day release to execute gangsters and drug dealers. I can't recall the name of it but it seems it wasn't quite as far fetched as it seemed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Job_(2013_film)

this one

I watched Duterte's inauguration speech live on TV while I was out there, and apparently there was no crime reported for the duration of that speech. Everyone was watching it. He is proving to be very popular.

is the philippines as intense as it looks?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-37515642

At what point are people going to start talking about economic sanctions / kicking them out of ASEAN. I appreciate that Duterte's currently the chairman of ASEAN but...

From two weeks ago:

Obama's deputy National Security director Ben Rhodes told reporters the U.S-Phillippine relationship remained "rock solid." Rhodes said "people should certainly expect that our very close working relationship with the Philippines is going to be enduring."

Alex Tizon passed away a couple weeks ago but this cover story is one hell of a parting gift... very highly recommended:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/lolas-story/524490/

Wow.

Cooking was Lola’s only eloquence.

This thing is horrifying, this dude is horrifying, and I am horrified by the reactions saying this piece is touching rather than monstrously manipulative.

I've been trying to parse the story ever since I read it yesterday. It is 'well written' but as Dan notes -- and as my girlfriend was even more vehement about -- the question of deep complicity here seems glossed over at best.

In lieu of the fact that all the principals (parents, Lola and the author) are dead, the best I've been able to do is try and get in the guy's head -- the most I can think of is that he didn't want to see either Lola or his mother potentially arrested/deported due to immigration status and potential fraud, thus his notes about the 1986 amnesty (and the fact Lola wasn't legalized until, what, 1998?). But that's hardly an excuse.

read as far as the point where the guy's mother had lola take her punishment and peaced out

filing this story then dying seems like a wise move on tizon's part tbh

Yesterday's earthquake in the Philippines emptying a skyscraper's rooftop swimming pool in Manila. Incredible.https://t.co/RbVLvUEAzK pic.twitter.com/ljvKFNwiIH

— Irène DB (@UrbanFoxxxx) April 23, 2019

is the philippines as intense as it looks?

― F♯ A♯ (∞), Friday, August 26, 2016 7:04 PM (two years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It can be, yes! You kinda get weirdly used to it, though.

In Tarlac now for work. Going to Manila next week.

It's nice! Everyone is super friendly , lots of hospitality.

I am still working Eastern hours so I am working overnight.

Everything is inexpensive. I got a McDonald's combo meal (only place open near the office) for $2.50 USD.

I miss home but mostly cos i am fighting depression. Starting to get used to things though.

There three more weeks.

Just drove past a Kenny Rogers Roasters