Philippines Books

I recall the dark days in Ermita in 1993 and 1994 when the then Mayor of Manila, Alfredo Lim, closed down all the bars on Mabini St and M.H. del Pilar St. I was even in one when it was raided and the girls rounded up and taken to the police station. The official word was that Lim was cleaning up Ermita of prostitution and protecting Filipina womanhood from the ravages of tourists on sex holidays.

I also heard at the time he was cleaning out the area so his Chinese-Filipino friends with money could buy it up cheap but lost out when the 1997 crises hit and with no tourists spending money in Ermita anymore the place just died. Meanwhile, again according to the gossip of the day, Lim himself owned bars with GROs in Pasay, which is not part of the City of Manila itself.

Now it seems that he is back as mayor and up to his old tricks. The L.A. Cafe on M.H. Del Pilar has for several years been a place where foreigners can eat and drink and mingle with local girls. The fact most if not all are free lance prostitutes was never an issue. Now someone has complained and alleged underage girls are being employed there and so the business has been raided and closed down.

If they knowingly hired underage staff to work in the bar or restaurant then that is not good at all but methinks the likelihood is the underage staff (if they exist) would have produced faked ID to get their jobs. As for the prostitution, no matter how much some might try and claim it doesn’t go on or if it does then blame the Kano, the truth is that there are more prostitutes catering to locals than foreigners and plenty of officials getting back handers out of it, too.

While I applaud any moves made to fight people trafficking and under age prostitution, being hypocritical about it is wrong. There has always been prostitution in the Philippines and while the country remains in such dire economic straits due to the semi-feudal reality of the society it will never go away. I am a firm believer that prostitution should be legitimate, licensed, policed and taxed as it is in many more enlightened and far less catholic countries around the world.

Proper licensing and health checks along with rigid policing will help fight the people trafficking and the use of underage sex workers and the tax revenue will fund all of these measures and add more to the public purse. But this will never happen while the cardinal rule is that the cardinals rule.

Editor’s Note: We now have a another contributor, Dennis Horner, who would like to respond to some of the points raised in Konrad’s post on the recent elections and democracy, Pinoy style. Dennis now lives in the UK but was a resident of the Philippines for many years until 2009. He has a new (second) Filipina wife, three grown kids scattered across the Philippines and Europe and restores old British Seagull outboard motors for fun and profit!

Once again, the views expressed by the writer are his own.

What About King Noynoy?

Why do we all seem to think that democracy is the only valid and viable form of government for everyone on this planet? Some races/cultures/ethnic groups actually prefer a more autocratic style of rule and respect a strong leader rather than enjoy being ruled by committee.

While we often lampoon the Philippines election circus they do try hard to emulate their previous American masters in style if not the actual spirit of things. But is a democratically elected (just bear with me for now, ok?) government the best answer for Pinoys?

Given they are only Filipino once they leave their country and until then they are Cebuanos, Bicolanos, Pampangans and so forth… is it right to expect them to all agree on one leader, one party and one ideology? What about a federated republic like Malasia or even the USA? Or a Constitutional Monarchy like the UK and Australia and I think, Canada and New Zealand? We could lend you our monarch but her successors are probably more attractive to Filipinos given the way they carry on in the media like telly novella artistas some times.

How about a benevolent dictatorship? Many old timers still feel they had that with Marcos but those snatched off the streets and hurled into Bilibid Prison might not share their view. Martial law and military junta’s have worked in some countries for limited times such as South Korea, Thailand and various South American locales with varying degrees of success.

Or what about a socialist state? Democratic socialism allows free enterprise and private capital but ensures everyone in the state gets a share of the wealth. This would upset the catholic church as the poor would finally be properly looked after and the rich would have little to whine about other than having to actually pay taxes for once.

But whatever system of governance is applied, the system is only as valid as the people applying it and the people it is applied to accepting and obeying it. An unpopular system will result in civil disturbance worse than we have seen in nearby Thailand recently. It would be wrong to impose a Burmese style of military rule and full blown socialism has proven to be lacking in the argy-bargy world of free market capitalism.

There are lots of factors to consider but the main one is would a different form of governance make any difference? Or would the same people who rule now, rule then albeit with a different title in front of their names?

Here are the official COMELEC election results for the recent Presidential elections in the Philippines.

PRESIDENT

1. Benigno Aquino III: 12,233,002 / 40.19%
2. Joseph Estrada: 7,749,597 / 25.46%
3. Manuel Villar, Jr.: 4,329,215 / 14.22%
4. Gilberto Teodoro: 3,243,688 / 10.65%
5. Eddie Villanueva: 916,543 / 3.01%
6. Richard Gordon: 431,954 / 1.41%
7. Nicanor Perlas: 42,205 / 0.13%
8. Jamby Madrigal: 37,119 / 0.12%
9. John Carlos de los Reyes: 34,833 / 0.11%

VICE PRESIDENT

1. Jejomar Binay: 12,025,429 / 39.51%
2. Mar Roxas: 11,213,563 / 36.84%
3. Loren Legarda: 3,259,963 / 10.71%
4. Bayani Fernando: 847,100 / 2.78%
5. Edu Manzano: 593,653 / 1.95%
6. Perfecto Yasay: 295,558 / 0.97%
7. Jay Sonza: 50,722 / 0.16%
8. Dominador Chipeco, Jr.: 40,335 / 0.13%

The total registered voters is 50,723,733 with a turnout of around 55% – 57%

Our new contributor and commentator, Konrad Hille, has submitted this opinion piece on the election results. Konrad has lived in the Philippines since he left his native East Germany shortly after it ceased to exist in 1989. He speaks Tagalog, Pampangan and English fluently as well as German and Russian. A former Intelligence Officer in the DDR army, Konrad is married to a Filipina, has several children and a very definite point of view. We hope his comments will provide food for thought. His opinions are purely his own and do not represent the views of the management of this site.

Democracy At Work?

Only getting half the registered voters off their lubots and into a polling place is a bit sad until you remember people get killed during elections in this country. What is really tragic is that Erap Estrada managed to come second with nearly 8 million votes! This is the same ex-President who was impeached for stealing millions from the public coffers. He spent a few years in comfortable house arrest before GMA pardoned him.

This highlights a tendency of the Filipino to forgive and forget rather than perhaps embarrass anyone by remembering the nasty, dirty, impolite truths. It also shows how they like to vote for someone they feel sorry for, NoyNoy Aquino III is the son of the dead Cory Acquino who was voted in because people felt sorry for her being the widow of the assassinated Benigno Acquino Jr.

The whole family is filthy rich and that is because they own vast amounts of land and other businesses and ignore their own land reforms. They have exploited the poor people, the masa, just as have all the other rich oligarchs in politics. Nothing has changed and nothing will change in this country. The rich, ruling ‘elite’ of fair skinned mestizo and Chinese-Filipino families will continue to plunder the country and live well with their real estate holdings in the US and hidden overseas bank accounts. Meanwhile the people they are elected to serve suffer, pay more for basic necessities and too many starve or die from lack of enough money to get proper medical attention.

It would make me very angry except for one thing, the Philippines is a democracy and I know about democracies. After all I spent the first forty years of my life in the German Democratic Republic. Of course it was easier for us as we only had the one political party to vote for. As they say, in a democracy, the people get the government they deserve and if 45% of them can’t be bothered to vote and of those who do 25% vote for a criminal who has plundered and raped his country once already… then they deserve everything they get.

The US has jailed Donald Mathias, 64, a pedophile, for 20 years after he entered into a contract with the mother of two Filipino girls, aged 11 and 12 and then had her film him having sex with the two children. The mother is being prosecuted by Philippines authorities whereas the American was nabbed after his return to the USA.

International agreements between many nations  make it an offense for  citizens of one country to have committed such a crime in another. They can be prosecuted and punished in either the country where the offense took place or upon their return home. While this legislation has been in force for several years it hasn’t been enforced a great deal, possibly due to evidentiary reasons.

This time though, they got one! These evil, selfish, arrogant monsters need to be caught and punished. They will hopefully suffer severely in prison and perhaps begin to understand how horrific their own assaults were upon those poor defenceless children.

The mother who sold her kids to this beast, and signed a contract acknowledging they were his ’sex slaves’, deserves everything she has coming to her. Poverty is no excuse. My inlaws were poor farmers all the time my wife and her five siblings were growing up and such action would never have entered their heads. They would have preferred to die together of hunger than to contemplate such a thing. In fact, I have mentioned this to them and they simply refuse to believe anyone would do it for money, surely they do it because they are possessed by evil spirits?

Perhaps they are because I can’t think of any temporal reason. Poverty is no excuse, do not accept it. Protecting children, even those of parent’s that willingly sell them to fiends such as this one, is everyone’s duty. Use common sense and discretion but never turn a blind eye to this despicable behaviour.

Read the online report here.

It’s fun and games time in the Land Where The Bong Tree Grows, otherwise known as the Philippines. In some areas they are predicting brownouts, which is Filipino spin for a blackout. It started back in Manila in the early 90s as they shut down power in some areas on a semi regular schedule to conserve power. Of course it never happened in the rich suburbs. Since it was done on purpose it wasn’t a blackout as such, which is something that just happens. It was a brown out and everyone knows brown isn’t as dark as black! Pinoy spin at work!

Now they are predicting power shortages in some areas. No coincidence they may be areas where GMA isn’t as popular. After all, if the electronic balloting system doesn’t have electricity it can’t be used. That means ballot boxes and those have a habit of walking away and losing a lot of opposition ballots in the journey. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so obvious and so harmful to the elections.

Not only that there are droughts and water shortages in some places, including wide areas of Mindanao. You can’t mention this on some expat forums because it gives a bad image but the fact is, there are water shortages, power outages and so on.

The main concern is keeping the beer cold enough. Luckily you can buy generators to keep the fridge going. If you have a freezer it will usually keep things frozen for hours without the power going in. So make your own ice. You can always put the ice in the beer glass Pinoy style… or use it to chill the bottles western style. Up to you!

If you run a business over here one of your biggest headache creators will be staff. I used to think it very cruel and neo-colonial, the way many Pinoy and Chinoy (Filipino and Chinese-Filipino) employers treated their staff. Like a cross between recalcitrant children and indentured slaves. Now I can appreciate why.

I have learnt if you give them a fair go as you would back home, too many will take unfair advantage of you. Our last IT staffer started out like a nipa hut on fire. As she realised we were decent blokes she took advantage, turning up later and later, missing whole days and eventually not even bothering to apologize. She’s gone now.

Looking for a replacement has been a challenge to my Angeles City based partner. Our office there is in residential premises so we usually meet clients at their offices or somewhere neutral like Starbucks at the Mall. Seems too many Filipinos must feel the job isn’t legit if we have to meet off site. Of course back home we do that if we want to interview in a neutral locale or if there is still someone in the role who will soon be fired.

Eventually my partner used his network of business contacts to hunt down some hopefuls and, with an introduction from someone they trust, we had several actually turn up to be interviewed. One will start monday and hopefully be able to hit the ground running, as they say. It’s all fun and frolic in the Philippines!

The anti-discrimination regulations in force in most western countries often seem like a politically correct joke in many ways. Especially as we know that even if they don’t specify X in the ad, if you don’t have X then you won’t get the job. Yes, they have just discriminated against you but then we all ‘discriminate’ every time we choose one thing over another, when we buy this brand over that and so on.

Personally I think the rules for advertising jobs are a good indicator of where political correctness can get it wrong, but then I read the job ads in Philippines newspapers. Here are a few taken at random:

Admin Assistant Female, 5′4″ in height, excellent in oral and written english, keen to details and able to work independently, knowledgeable in microsoft word, excel and powerpoint.

I thought English, the language, deserved an upper case E? Maybe why they need someone ‘excellent in oral and written english’. But why 5’4”?

Japanese Speaking Guest Service Associate for Front Office Female, 27-35 years of age, 5′4″ in height, fluent in japanese and english with strong customer service skills, willing to work in shifts, With at least 2 years experience working for a 5-star hotel is an advantage, college graduate.

At least they are consistent and leave out the J along with the E. What if the best candidate is 26 and 5’3”? No point sending in the resume as they will ask for a birth certificate and do a height check. OK, same employer (a five star hotel in Cebu);

Media Communications Manager Female, college graduate at least 5′4″ in height, preferably single, related working experience in marketing, advertising, or journalism is an advantage, has established contact and linkages with counterparts in the city, excellent in oral and written english, customer service oriented.

And this one:

Banguet Sales Executive Female, college graduate, at least 5′4″ in height, preferably single, preferably with 2 years relevant experience with a reputable hotel, excellent leadership, selling and communication skills.

Four out of eight job vacancies require females 5’4” in height. Why? Low doorways to the Ladies toilets? Only one uniform size? Of the other four job openings, one didn’t specify gender, two allowed the candidate to be either male or female and the last one wanted a female for the role, height unspecified but she had to be between 21 – 30 years old.

Trawl through any job listings for Filipino positions and you will be told how old they have to be, what gender, marital status, age and even that their personality must be ‘pleasing’. In some cases they even stipulate ‘attractive’. That means light skinned by the way.

That is the way it is here and just one more thing you will have to accept if you plan to live here. It is their Rome, they are doing it the ‘Roman’ way and you know what they say about ‘When in Rome…’

A recent court case between the mother of a premature baby and the hospital that refused to let the baby go until her bill was paid, found in favour of the mother. A Writ of Habeas Corpus (Produce the Body) was served on Cebu Doctor’s University Hospital to release the baby to the mother, even though the unpaid portion of the bill is P503,000 (US$10K)

Not letting the patient or the ‘watchers’ (patient’s family) leave is a common tactic in hospitals across the country. I waited in agony on a gurney for an hour while my wife looked for an ATM to pay the deposit before anyone would even triage me at Perpetual Succour Hospital, Cebu. That was just to get admitted! Both Cebu Doctor’s and Perpetual Succour are owned in whole or part by the Sisters of St Paul of Chartres, a Catholic order.

My wife’s father was held a virtual prisoner in Cebu Doctor’s Hospital in 2002 until I promised to pay his bill. The body of my sister-in-law was detained along with the Death Certificate until we had paid her bill in full at . She died in Cebu (Velez) General Hospital, a ‘public hospital’ but the mentality is the same. Doctors are mini-gods, nurses do nothing and the rats have the run of the place when the cats are sleeping. I kid you not.

The hospitals in Cebu are a paradox in many ways. They do have some first class hospitals yet the attention to detail is lacking, to the point where the cleaners only clean where you can see leaving dirt and dust behind hand rails and under sinks etc. They have some fine medical professionals also. My cardiologist was trained at Cebu Doctor’s but now practises in Australia.

Try also to see the hospital’s position. They are a business and have their own bills to pay. Until the societal changes necessary to make it fairer for all occur, only those with the ability to pay will be able to access the best treatment.

Read the article by clicking on this link to the SunStar Cebu.

This is my favourite Filipino song, Mr Suave, pronounced Mister Swabby. Click the link:-

OK, this is a classic KTV song. If you don’t understand it then you haven’t been here long enough. If you do understand it then you have been here way too long! Don’t try to analyze it, just enjoy the fun value, it’s very Pinoy! Just click on the link:-

Otso Otso