Manila Travelogue: 27 May – 3 June, 2010

A glance of Manila at Holiday Inn hotel Makati

Manila’s Face after Ten Years

End of May 2010 I visited again Manila for a week attending the Asian Public Intellectual Aniversary in Ateneo de Manila University. This is another visit after a year and I going back to Manila is like going home for me. I used to stay for two and a half year in 2000 – 2003 for taking my Master and conducting Asian Public Intellectual research. I was pretty at home staying at this 12 million population city. Well actually it is not correct to call the city with Manila, as the name is referring to old Manila city which is only one among 17 local government units/ cities of Metro Manila.

Physically Manila today is not much different with a decade ago. We can still see colorful Jeepneyes run along its dense roads. Hundred years of old churches around the old city of Manila are still well maintained. There in front of the churches, women and children sell candle and beautiful sampaguita, a necklace weaved from Jasmine flower, as an offering for the patron lady. In a more modern part of Metro Manila, Makati, we can see sky crappers rise around the area left only a small portion of the land for gardens and threes.

Ateneo de Manila University parking lot in Quezon City

Well my API gathering was fun. We had series of lectures from Dr Krisina Krisantu from Thailand whom did amazing humanitarian work in Africa. After spending 20 years as professional doctor and invented some medicine in her own name. She decided to work a year voluntarily to Afrcan countries, helping their government to produce cheap massive medicine production so that people there could fight HIV/ AIDs and malaria effectively. Her lecture was indeed very inspiring, so that I was also thinking what can I do to help people in this world.

We also have other wonderful lectures from KS Jomo, a prominent Malaysian economist whom now working in the UN head quarter in New York. We also have Ben Anderson whom book Imagine Community was used by many as references in social theory discourse.

Asian Public Intelectual Community - Indonesians group

 The API fellows also have their intelectual works exhibited. Some fellows have great pictures taken from their photography work as such Cholin Nicholas and dave Lumenta.

At University of the Philippines

Visiting a galery at UP

My favorite picture: representing Filipino character which are cheerful, outspoken, and religious, look at the rosario in his hand

Art perfomance lead by Motohide Taguchi from Japan, they created their own music and dance compsition

 Later at the the end of the gathering we had art perfomance directed by Dhany Reyes. It was wonderful: we gave appreciation to the API initiators and people whom work for it in an Oscar award style.

Indonesian fellows Krisnadi, Heru and me take a picture with father Jose Cruss of Ateneo

Art performance which was all directed by Danny Reyes

There was fashion show from each country, and I was lucky because Yanti brought this piece of batik so that I can have an indonesian culture flavor  

 Incidentally when I was there last May, the country had just finished conducting national election. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, the son of late President Corazon Aquino won landslide number of vote for the position. However the elected vice President, Binay, does not come from the same party with Noynoy. It is interesting that President and Vice President are selected separately not as a package, through this way it is very possible that the President and Vice President would not go along in deciding country matters. However the President is certainly have more power as he is the one who responsible to select member of his cabinets and run the administration.


Together with Presidential election the country also elected 22 senators and 277 congressmen. Senators are elected nationally. The first 12 senators with highest votes will occupy the position for 6 years, while other 12 senators with least votes will be in office for 3 years and have to run for another election to extend their term in senate. The senate has very important role as the body is responsible to pass the laws. The 277 congressmen were also elected at the same time with the presidential election. They represent area and has crucial function in preparation the state budget.

The Philippines is divided into layers of Local Governments with province as its primary unit. Currently there are 81 provinces in the country. Provinces are further divided into Cities and Municipalities, which in turn divided into villages (Barangays). Province is headed by Governor, City/ Municipality is headed by Mayor, village is headed by Barangay Captain. Governor and Mayor are directly elected and have 3 years term in office while Barangay Captain is assigned in for 5 years term. All provinces are grouped into regions, currently there are 22 regions in the country for administrative convenience. Most government offices establish regional offices to serve the constituent provinces, for instance the Department of Defense has Office of Civil Defense (OCD) in the region. The regions themselves do not possess a separate local government, with the exception of the Muslim Mindanao Region and Cordillera Administrative Region.

Politically dynamic, the Philippines was experienced a number of coups. Two of its presidents (Ferdinand Marcos and Joseph Estrada) were also forced down by people power. The strong resistance by leftist group and the big number of civil society encourage a strong control to the government. These days the legislator is discussing to pass the freedom of information act.

Hachiendas and Political Familism

Economically, the Philippines is considered as a middle income country – rank 47 on GDP by World Bank 2008, with USD 166,909 million). However the poverty rate is quit high, around 20% with more than 50% of its people are vulnerable to poverty. The country economic situation was obviously visible if you go out to the provinces. People who mostly work as peasants or fishermen live in poor condition. These people normally have a big number of children due to pro live stand they have as a Catholic county. Statistical data said that the country has 2 percent population growth since 2004 - 2007. No wonder here we can see children working to help their parent earn money.

Some of these people work for local rich landlord who own large portion of farm in the province that locally called as Hachienda. Their peasants and landlord relationship has taken form of patron client relationship. This landlordism is actually inherited by Spanish that at once ruled the country, and many of these landlords indeed have Spanish blood. Some old landlord families, for instance the Ayala family, are transformed into successful businessmen base in Manila. These people are frequently appeared at the lifestyle pages of Manila newspaper and magazine, either for party events or charity works. This obviously shows a big gap between the poor and the rich. The Gini coefficient for the country overall fell from 0.49 in 1997 to 0.47 in 2003, but this is still higher than the 0.45 measure for the late 1980s and 1994, and very high for the region overall.

The Hachienda system is deep rooted in the country, one social culture inheritted from Spanish’s 300 years colonialization. Now it even strengthens because many of the rich families are also hold powerful position in politics. The governor, mayors and congressmen are normally circulated among the strong family members. Once the father hold a strong political position, their wife and children will follow suit. We can see this for instance from the Marcos family that still powerful in their province. The son of later president Joseph Estrada was also won the second as congressman. And the new president, Noynoy Aguino also comes from the strong Hachiendos family.

Rosalie Hall wore her Phillipines traditional culture which strongly influenced by Spaniard

The country performance of good governance is not yet satisfactory by corruption cases indicator. In 2009 Transparency International’s CPI survey the Philippines was ranked 139 from 180 countries with score 2,4 (0 – 10 with 10 as the least corrupt).

This social and political fact has actually triggered strong opposition from the leftist group. The leftist group opposes the government through underground guerilla fighting through New People Army (NPA) as well as political activities through its various front line organizations to change the social system of the Philippines. The strong influence of leftist group has been coloring the dynamic of the country’s NGOs which mostly very critical to the government.

When almost all part of the Northen Philippines was strongly influenced by Spanish culure, this Igorot culture was still maintained their local cuture due to their remote location 

The US Legacy
Aside of strong Spanish cultural present, we can also see the US legacy in the country. The US used to govern the Philippines for about four decade since 1898. The US occupation has strongly influenced to the country’s political system and has established a strong tie to its economic relationship that obviously apparent to this day. English has been taken as second national language and widely used by the Filipino in their public arenas so that people used to speak mix Tagalong-English that they named as Taglish. Nowadays this English fluency has given Filipino migrant workers more advantage in competing for work abroad.


Nice Places to Visit
We can visit many good places in the country. In Manila we can go to old city with many of its old building with Spanish Architecture. At this part of Manila we can also see many old churches show their elegant western architecture. During Lenten season, we can see people do a sacrifice procession to remember Jesus Christ pain. Some people let them self to be crucifixes to represent him.

Moslem visitors like me would like to visit the Moslem community and its Mosque in Quiapo. In the area they can get halal food and buy some cheap gifts to bring home.

It is good that last year I have chance to visit Tagatay in Cavite province. Tagatay is a beautiful tourist destination that has cool air and green environment. There is a beautiful lake in the top of the mountain as the most valuable piece of the place in which nobody wants to miss.