Anniversary time

The Western press loves a good anniversary. Nothing proves this more than the 20th anniversary of "people power," the mass uprising than ended the Marcos dictatorship. Here are a few of that stories that examine the Philippines 20 years later.

Glory Days, Time Asia, Feb. 27, 2006
Filipinos wonder what's changed 20 years after Marcos, AFP, Feb. 22, 2006
In 20 years since Marcos, little stability for Philippines, Washington Post, Feb. 24, 2006

Living the good life in the afterlife

The Chinese cemetery in Manila is, at the same time, fascinating and absurd. It's its own city with paved roads, small alleys, and mosoleums larger than the homes that the living of Manila inhabit. There are tombs and alters like the one above. I would consider that to be one of the more modest tributes to a former Manila resident of Chinese descent. And then there's what my fellow urban explorers and I dubbed "Main Street" -- a street lined with small mansions with air conditioning, glass windows, and well groomed yards.

We found one mosoleum bigger than a large church, apparently the resting place for an entire family. Some of the graves had clearly been visited recently.

Some looked forgotten -- like their families moved away long ago -- left to decay in the tropical humidity.

After the landslide

My biggest complaint about the breaking news coverage on the landslide in Leyte was that no one mentioned that the entire area had basically been declared a disaster area for weeks before the landslide. In other words, people (and in this case I mean "the government") knew this was going to happen, but didn't evacuate the area. It's unthinkable.

Then a story in the New York Times comes out saying the government has known since last May that the village was in "grave danger."

Policies were even in place to avert a pending disaster: Area villages were evacuated late last year, and a logging ban, to address the deforestation at the root of the problem, had been adopted more than a decade ago.

But reality was another matter. According to government officials and environmental groups, problems ranging from government corruption and ineffective laws to a lack of money and the political will to enforce the laws contributed to the collapse of the mountainside here in the first instance, and allowed it to become a large-scale human tragedy in the second.

I feel one of those lists coming on -- you know, the ones that say "You know you've been in the Philippines too long when..." Well, this list would start with, "You know you've been in the Philippines too long when the above statements do not shock you at all." It seems the key is to maintain a sense of outrage and injustice, and to not let the constant stream of tragedy, disaster and human suffering caused by corruption make you cynical.

Love in a time of call centers

The Inquirer today has a story about office romance at Manila's many call centers. First, congrats to the PDI for keeping my attention through the entire story. I think it may be the first time I've read an Inquirer story from start to finish. Second, whether this is true or not, it is an interesting concept: call centers contributing to an increase in extra-marital affairs.

Angel, who currently has a boyfriend not working in a call center, said she herself was being courted by an older married coworker.

His wooing, she said, comes leeringly with some kind of assurance that “it’s supposedly a natural thing in call centers to have a lover while you’re inside and another one outside, both at the same time.”

“Para lang daw masaya (Just for a little happiness),” she told the Inquirer. Asked what she thought made her call center prone to such indecent overtures and liaisons, Angel said: “When you’re in one, you tend to spend more time with your coworkers than with your family or partner. You practically have a life nowhere else but there.”

The parts about keeping a relationship going on the nocturnal hours of call center employees also makes for some interesting reading.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Long-delayed post

It is ridiculous that I haven't posted anything about the stampede in Manila that killed more than 70 people. It's even more ridiculous because I work in the news industry, and I've heard about every single development since the stampede a little over a week ago.

Thousands of people were waiting in line on Saturday, Feb. 4 to get into the first anniversary show of Wowowee, a game show produced by my host institution. So far some have noted the inherent tragedy of the stampede -- that the people who died were the poorest of the poor, that the gameshow may have represented hope in what may have been an unhopeful world.

Still others have talked about how the stampede reminds us of the problems of the Philippines. It reminds us that there are many who live on practically nothing.

I can't help but feel like all the talk is, well, talk. In the end, there will be many investigations with many "answers" about what went wrong. We will hear, from many viewpoints, who did what and who is to blame. But the real question is, will things change? What has to happen before we do something about the poverty here in the Philippines, and the poverty that touches every corner of the globe? Or are we too comfortable in our airconditioned homes to really know what it's like to live day-to-day searching piles of garbage for food or for a glass bottle to recycle in exchange for a few coins? I am as guilty as the next person of inaction. I hope that by acknowledging the problem, we (myself included) can at least imagine a world where stampedes like last week's don't kill dozens of people, and where people don't have to count on a gameshow to live out their dreams.