Advancement Of The Philippines

There is a joke in the Philppines that goes something like this: If you see a nice house in the Philippines, it either belongs to an OFW (overseas foreign worker) a politician or a drug lord. From just where I sit writing this, I can see about four houses that seem new since we were here last and one that is being built. There is so much more prosperity, new construction and the signs of growing wealth since our last visit. Internet access, spotty before, is good enough for me to write this as well. 

 There are many news stories about how the OFW's are transforming the Philippines and exacerbating the already extreme divide between rich and poor. The difference with OFW money is that it is (like us) bringing a spot of prosperity. It is not perfect, but the money brought home from OFWs like my wife is targeted to directly helping and is not diminished by corruption as other forms of aid are. The best form of foreign aid is workers in places like the United States sending money home to their families, because nothing is more direct. Immigrants, currently being demonized in the U.S. not only fuel the American economy and pay taxes, but send an invaluable form of targeted pro-American foreign aid back to their home countries, unfortunately that rarely makes the news. 

We are currently awaiting the arrival of two meter square boxes called Balikbayan sent from the United States in March that are supposed to arrive this week. Filled with goods that in the strange economics that favors rich countries, we can buy better quality at lower prices in the U.S and send them abroad. The strange juxtaposition is that most of the things we ship back were made a few hundred miles away from where I sit now in China. Sometimes, we have even bought things made in the Philippines to ship back which is the height of bizarre. For example the 3 and 5 dollar t-shirts  we buy from Walmart are better quality and lower cost that the t-shirts available in most stores here. To quote the title of an old book it is "Freakonomics".

Nothing highlights the divide to me more than the poor who often hang outside the ubiquitous fast food restaurants either asking for a few pesos or hawking something. The other day, a young boy probably about 1st or 2nd grade came up to me and wanted to give me what looked like a piece of junk mail in trade for a few pesos. I gave him a 50 peso note which is roughly a dollar, though the peso is now at a historic low of 59 to a dollar. I told him to keep his card.

Most of these fast food places like Mcdonald's, Jollibee, Chowking and Mang Inasal have 99 peso deals where you can buy a meal with a drink and side for what is a little over one American dollar. Though this kid can see the sign advertising those treats in the mix of English and Filipino that peppers advertising and would love a cold Halo Halo, I'm sure he knows he can get a better deal for his dollar elsewhere. I give a little when asked, but the amount of need here is greater than one can imagine. Another time recently, a woman sat with her children outside Jollibee and we gave to her as well.  The need is endless, and unlike the U.S, social safety nets don't exist.

Another time recently my brother in law bought some cooked quail eggs from a poor hawker standing outside the door of Burger King. I dislike Burger King, preferring the more Filipino style fast food of Jollibee, Chowking or Mang Inasal, but we went there for the kids. Though, I am adventurous with food, my caution against food poisoning kept me from trying random eggs from a guy outside Burger King.

In another twist of extremes, a food in the slums is the refried, discarded chicken bones that rich consumers like us throw away in places like Mcdonald's and Jollibee. It is called Pag Pag and in the slightly disturbing, but awareness enlightening poverty porn of YouTube, you can learn more about it. Nothing symbolizes the inequality here more than people digging in restaurant trash to recook the half eaten food of the well off. I still remember the odd juxtaposition during our last visit when we stayed at a hotel in glitzy Makati, the financial hub of Manila, and I could look down from our shiny steel and glass hotel at a makeshift hut and some chickens in a vacant lot below. This is a country of extremes that defy solutions. Of course in present America you can easily look down on the tents of the homeless from tall buildings in major cities, so we have our own challenges

Another change I've noticed is the decline of jeepneys. The Philippines has a mostly informal public transit made of small business people running Jeepney busses and motorcycle sidecars.The small bus-like Jeepneys seem to be more rare and the roads filled with more personal motor bikes and cars. The government is actually trying to phase out the polluting jeepney in favor of newer more efficient ones (but not as artfully creative as jeepnyes are the high symbols of Filipino folk art), but like so many things that have the goal of cleaner air and dealing with climate change, it puts people in traditional businesses like jeepney owners out in the cold. The new style jeepneys are ugly, but in time, hopefully Filipinos will bring their artful twist to these as well.

The epitome of the increase of the excessive personal vehicle is rise of the American style pickup truck and SUV. I was shocked at just how much things had changed in six years. Is it OFWs who are driving the trend or is it internal prosperity?  The roads were so full in places and we had a couple close calls with fancy pickup drivers that thought they owned the road. Narrow roads here are no built for massive American sized vehicles and it becomes awkward having to pull over or back up a street to allow a giant Ford pickup right of way. Vehicle sales are hitting record numbers as people buy into the middle class and personal freedom in a country without great formal transit. Trucks, like the Toyota Hilux pickup, which was second in sales after a Toyota sedan last year, continue to sell in high numbers. Like in the U.S. vehicles are not just transportation, but status. Marketing makes people think they need that truck.

Here in the Cordilliera mountains a pickup truck makes sense because even the paved roads can be rugged and plagued by landslides and debris on the road. For unpaved roads, nothing but a pickup will do. Advertising has proliferated too with some of my favorite vloggers from here sporting big F150 and Toyota style trucks. They are symbols of extreme privilege since their cost is just as much or (again in the weird economics) even more than in the States. 

It is the height of my arrogant, rich world white man privilege to say anything to criticize people in the developing world doing what we have done for a century, but the climate and environmental implications of more owners of big gas guzzling personal vehicles is easy mathematics. Even if they are electric or hydrogen, the resources required to build a vehicular behemoth for all 8 billion people to live like Americans can never happen, because if it does, the world is done. So what is the answer?