May 26-27: Preparation for Flight Home

We went to the mall yesterday. I just realized that in my trip, this is the only time I had gone out with my wife. We went to eat at a Chinese restaurant where they hand-pull the noodles. A friend told me that one of his friends boasted to his uncle from China that he would take his uncle to a fancy restaurant. When he brought the uncle to the restaurant, the uncle asked what was so fancy about the restaurant. The guy said, they hand pull the noodles.



To this, the uncle laughed and said, in China, hand pulled noodles is common to sidewalk food stalls because the owners could not afford to buy noodle making machines. So what is common in China and called a "poor man's food" is a luxury food in the Philippines.

We went to buy some stuff to bring home. Undoubtedly, food is cheap compared to what it costs in Victoria. No matter how good the food it, one thing that frustrates me is the service and attitude of people.

There is no sense of pride in one's work. There seems to be an attitude of 'whatever'. People do things for the sake of doing it. I went to a retail store and their credit card validation system has to be typed and receipt had to be printed. The problem is the system was not working. I had to wait for half an hour before the clerk finally was able to get the system to work.

Another thing is bank services. We went to exchange money and had to stay in line for half an hour and were told they do not exchange money for non-customers and I needed a Philippine ID. Why did they not put that clearly in their form?

Drivers - well, it's been that way. They park where they want. They drop passengers off and pick up passengers wherever they want. They do this in front of the traffic aides. It makes one wonder how they can do that? Are these aides on the take?

People cross the streets wherever they want. Imagine the costs to put up the fences only to have them torn down because people are just too lazy to walk a few meters to the cross walk.

The World Economic Forum was held a few days ago. There were a lot of accolades for the steps it has taken to take it to grow up to 7% for the past year. But this should be sustained. It cannot be sustained with the current infrastructure and attitude. The culture of "getting away with what I can" should stop. No discipline, no structure in what we do. nothing to hold up the progress that has been achieved.

President Noynoy has done a lot to curb corruption, but it has to trickle down further. The mastermind of the pork barrel scam worth hundreds of billions of pesos wants to be a state witness. She who benefited from this wants to go free without consequences. With millions of people living in poverty, it will be an insult to the Filipino people if she does get away with it. Let's pray it does not happen.

The hottest issue is the pork barrel scam. One of the senators caught in the scam was complaining on why he was singled out. Well, you were singled out because you were greedier and probably arrogant than the rest. Just because others were doing it does not mean you are not liable for your crime. You still need to be punished. The sad thing is these crooks may go free without facing the consequences.

What made the trip worthwhile are the people I met. Those who were generous with their time and their resources. I pray God will reward them abundantly for their generosity.

We fly today (May 27) back to Victoria. I hope it will be a good flight. It is going to be a nightmare to go through the worst airport in the world. Whoever is the manager needs to be fired.