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| Marcos Highway - Photos taken out on way to mountains on the Marcos Highway showing typical traffic chaos. Note brave the cyclist group on right in centre photo. They finally made all the way up into the mountains. | ||
Greetings from the Philippines
Life continues up here. Making the adjustments necessary to stay alive up
here. I.e. remember that traffic drives on the other side of the road, that
pedestrian crossings are target zones as nobody will stop for you until a big
enough group gathers to cross en masse, traffic is always in deadlock, air
quality is chronic, you get bags checked and are frisked when you enter any Mall
or shops and armed guards are everywhere. Still the weather is quite mild and
the people are very friendly and we have no imminent coups or uprisings
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| Marcos Highway - Photos taken out on way to mountains on the Marcos Highway showing typical traffic chaos. Note brave the cyclist group on right in centre photo. They finally made all the way up into the mountains. | ||
The scandal involving the World Bank blacklisting of contractors rumbles on
with fairly strident attacks by the Congress on the World Bank for daring to
suggest that corruption and graft could happen here. The newspapers continue to
report fighting with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the New Peoples Army.
The three Red cross workers who were kidnapped earlier in Mindanao continue to
be held and there is background low level of political killings or police shoot
out with criminal gangs. In other words life continues as normal.
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| Street Scene - Typical road side shops. Clothing for sale, Furniture made of site and LPG for sale. Up in the Sierra Madre Mountains | ||
I had the opportunity for a trip out towards the east of Manila and into the
Sierra Madre mountains with Litoy Losario one of our Philippine staff here with
GHD. Traffic on the way out on the Marco Highway is faily congested but once you
get up into the mountains the traffic drops off and it is a very nice drive on
good roads. We had our lunch in the Sierra Madre Resort and then travelled on to
have a look around the former estate of Joseph Estrada the former president of
the Philippines. On the way back we stopped off at Litoys house, met his family
and had lunch with them, which was a real privilege.
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Fighting Cock Farm - Cock Fighting is a national sport and good birds will cost many thousand Pesos |
Travelling Comfort Philippine Style. - Could not resist taking this photo (Actually transporting a mobile bus shelter) | Litoy Family- Taken in Litoy's house |
Joseph Estrada became President in 1998 on a platform that he was one of the
common people from a poor family. He had been an actor and film director. During
his tenure as President allegations emerged of graft and corruption which
finally lead to impeachment proceedings involving plunder of some 4 Billion
Pesos. He was on the verge of getting off scott free when a People Power
Rebellion got rolling in 2001, the Army and Catholic Church withdrew support for
him. He was then deposed in favour of his Vice President Gloria Arroyo.
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He was subsequently convicted of Economic Plunder (which used to carry the
death penalty) and was subject to house arrest at the country estate. When you
look at the photos I guess you can gauge that it would not have been a real
hardship. He was finally pardoned by President Gloria Arroyo at the end of 2007.
You might also question how he could acquire such wealth coming as he did from
humble beginnings.
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| All taken around the Joseph Estrada estate. He had a separate
house (on left) to store his wines, two swimming pools, A museum complex built to record
his glory, guest houses, a zoo, and extensive landscaped gardens. |
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On the weekend of the 21st to 22nd of February 2009 a group of from GHD travelled up to the Hundred Islands National Park about 5 hours north of Manila
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We travelled up on the Friday Night and stayed at the "Hundred Islands Resort" a fairly rustic hotel at Lucap near Alaminos City. Still the dawn next morning was nice
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| Main Street Lucap | Peter & Grace negotiating the seawall to board our boat | Could not resist photographing this young lad, son of our boatman |
To get out to the Islands, (Actually more than a 100) we hired a local boat for the day and got around as many as we could
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The next day we headed down the coast road toward Subic Bay and visited the Capupangan Caves. Ithe caves are fairly remote and not exactly overwhelmed with visitors. We had fun trying to get special effects with shafts of light coming through holes in the roof of the cave.
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