The Philippines: Southeast Asia’s Grab Bag

I not surprisingly began my trip to the Philippines in the national capital of Manila. After a night of extremely sound sleep, I spent my first full day in the country participating in an “Old Manila Walks” tour. We began at the Manila Cathedral within Intramuros, a walled portion of the city that was among the only surviving section after Japanese bombings during World War II. Once we finished there we headed to the so-called “Chinese Cemetery,” a veritable city for extremely wealthy — but also extremely dead — Chinese immigrants. Akin in many ways to Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires, the Chinese Cemetery is punctuated by Buddhist art and architecture, something I knew was rare even after less than a day in one of the world’s most Catholic countries.

Once my tour was over I took to the city streets alone, beginning in the city plaza erected in memory of Jose P. Rizál, the country’s national hero, then heading south on Roxas Boulevard until I arrived back in Malate, the portion of the city where my hostel was. In addition to be extremely Catholic, the Philippines is also a very welcoming place. The Philippines are better-acquainted with the United States than just about any other country in the world, so I’m led to believe this how high school students there greet every visitor and weren’t just hamming it up on account of my American-ness.

The second stop on my whirlwind tour of the Philippines was Taal Volcano, an active volcano that sits inside a lake of the same name about an hour and a half south of Manila in Batangas province. After taking a boat across the lake for the better part of an hour, myself and the rest of the bloggers I was traveling with began scaling the volcanic mountain, bound for the rim of the crater, which also contains a lake. Of course, we couldn’t properly get on our way without first begin wished Merry Christmas by island residents.

Each years about a dozen residents of Pampanga province, located around an hour north of Manila, compete to see who can build the best “giant lantern.” I’m not sure exactly how to describe them, other than to say they don’t look like any lanterns I’ve ever seen. In any case before the festival began, students from a local high school performed a traditional dance, clad not surprisingly in traditional clothing. Although the big day was more than a week off at this point, I was beginning to see why Claire had been so insistent that I visit the Philippines during Christmas — Filipinos are festive!

Myself and the other bloggers returned from Pampanga well after midnight. Our late arrival back in Manila didn’t, however, delay our 5 a.m. deadline for arriving at the boat that would take us to Corregidor, a tear-shaped island located in the mouth of Manila Bay. Unbeknownst to many (including me, to a large extent, before the tour), the Philippines and its peoples’ resilience are most of the reason the Allies were able to win World War II — and the resistance on Corregidor Island was perhaps the most profound demonstration of this resilience. The combined American-Filipino forces hid for months inside a dark and dreary cave system now known as the Malinta tunnels, evading Japanese aerial bombing, the so-called “Death March” that took those who remained above ground up into Northern Luzon and of course, kamikaze attacks. The Japanese flag above, kept on Corregidor in the Japanese Garden of Peace, is a suicide note of sorts from kamikazes who flew to their deaths on Corregidor.

Like clockwork, I went from being on a muggy, tropical island learning about the history of international warfare to being in the cool northern highlands of the Philippines learning about different warfare — namely, the war the Philippine Tourism Authority continues to wage on residence of Ifugao Province in North Luzon. As if the region’s breathtaking beauty wasn’t enough, many local residents believe the government is purposely holding off on developing the region in order to maintain its rustic appeal for prospective tourists. As charming as the region is in its ramshackle, the practical implications of such policies are inhibitive to locals’ happiness and safety, as the picture above illustrates. Robert, the guide alongside whom I hiked to the Banaue Rice Terraces, said to be one of the oldest examples of human architecture at 5,000 years of age, claimed that there wasn’t a single school bus in the entire province.

My next — and for all intents and purposes final — stop in the Philippines was the fabled beach island of Boracay, mentioned frequently by friends of mine who got to visit the country before I was able to. Boracay’s natural beauty is almost fake-looking, the contrast between the stark white sank, cerulean skies and deep turquoise water too seemingly dramatic to be real. The catch? More Westerners (and obnoxious Western behavior) than almost anywhere else I’ve ever visited. I wouldn’t go so far as to say the extent of Boracay’s development ruins it — indeed, it’s still a perfect specimen from an ecological standpoint — but I couldn’t but imagine what it must have been like a century ago when I woke up there on Christmas morning.

Thanks to my dear friend Joel, I ended up spending my official last day in the Philippines doing something other than sitting at the airport waiting for the first of four flights that would take me back to Austin. A fellow travel blogger with a passion for documenting churches and other Catholic sites in the Philippines, Joel brought me to Laguna Province (located adjacent to Manila and Taal Volcano) to show me some of his favorite churches, as well as to an incredible restaurant he knows there. Before I knew it, however, we were on a bus back to Manila and just minutes after arriving back at Joel’s apartment, in a taxi to the airport. When I booked my trip to the Philippines, I assumed 10 days would be a good amount of time to get to know the country. It was indeed a good introduction, but it will take me several additional visits in order to truly understand and appreciate the complex tapestry of places, people and politics that define the Philippines — and how my country’s legacy first of colonialism there and then as a wartime alley relate to the bigger picture.