Philippines

Paper read to Joe D'amato's Writing Class at the Glendale Lyceum
Thursday, April 23, 2009

© 2009 F. Bruce Abel

“The Three “M”’s of Manila”

Wherever daughter Genny, who now works in Manila for the Asian Development Bank, goes, world events get refocused in my mind. And who am I to say that trouble on a vast scale doesn’t follow her? Witness: Genny’s last job but the current one, was in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 2007, and involved in part driving periodically into the countryside of the politically “frozen” area of South Ossetia, training farmers in the capitalist business of collecting milk for sale, checking on the milk collection centers and the dairy farmers, near the town of Gori, Stalin’s hometown. In the fall of 2008, of course, this area was overrun by Russians, cows lying dead in the fields. God knows what happened to “Madonna No. 1,” as we called her.

In the case of Lithuania and the Philippines the past was so cruel in so many ways. And I will not mention them here.

Of course the Philippines was a blank and innocent page in my book at first, therefore heavily-influenced by each new person, tour or event that occured. (I, say “blank page” and “of course” because I like to experience places that way. Unlike Eunie, I do not prepare myself for any event or person, or movie, not even about a country which I am to visit.)

In the case of the Philippines I spent the early days of February, 2009, in the awe of the humidity and the Far East and the traffic jams and pollution of this young (average age 21) but Catholic city and country.

Item: During our weekend trip to Corregidor, a trip within a longer visit to Manila, I was astounded to read that $150 million in 1912 dollars had been put into the fortification of Corregidor, that tadpole-shaped, three-square-mile island, so far away yet close to the "inscrutable Far East," and Ft. Mills, in and around “Topside,” built, -- Topside I mean -- among other things, for the training, play and enjoyment of the officers of the U.S. Army.

I hadn’t thought of turn-of-the-century American imperialism in the Philippines more than a millisecond, if ever, or what I will now and forever call “the three M’s” – 1912 American Money, or the MacArthurs, or the Marcos or the Philippeans for many years, but our daughter Genny, and this trip to see how she lived, drew us there.

Now as I write it’s just that we have taken two tours from Carlos.

Despite a two-week attempt to keep this paper in focus as a simple presentation of my achingly deep feelings but guilt-ridden “idyllic” weekend tour of Corregidor with Carlos Celdran and his “Walk With Me” website and Celdran tours -- by ferry out of Manila, I am now forced to give up, as the overall dramatic history of the Philippines swamps my thoughts.

Concrete, which we introduced, is the basic building block of the Philippines. Beautiful concrete. Supplemented with dark teak-like sliding wooden doors and floors. Concrete, which cures in perfect conditions in this climate, stays around for centuries, even after being dive-bombed by both sides in WWII.

The parade grounds of Ft. Mills, Topside in a perfect climate, can be re-seeded to be beautiful for centuries, even after bombings. Caissons, with five-foot thick bunkers, remain no matter what, with their awesome mortars. The jungle can be destroyed into oblivion on a three-mile island, but reseeding by helicopter can retrieve it for the tourists.

I’m not going to talk about generalities of Filipinos, but I cannot resist this line of thought: It has been said that Filipinos are the Irish of Southeast Asia in their universal goodwill – especially toward Americans.

There is also one stretched metaphor I must tweak you with, however awkwardly: It is correct to say that Philippine society under the American “protectorship,” was “stratified.” But on one important island standing at the entry to Manila Bay, stratification was figuratively and literally true during the long period of 1902 through 1942.

I refer to “Topside,” “Middleside,” and “Bottomside,” the three named layers of Army post, Ft. Mills, on the body of volcanic rock and jungle jutting 500 feet out of the South China Sea guarding the Bay of Manila, with the city 26 nautical miles to the south. This island has another name more familiar to you: Corregidor!

“Middleside” contained more cement barracks for the U.S. and Filippino enlisted men, and the Malinta Tunnel, which cut from South to North through the island, was perhaps as startling to me on that February, 2009 weekend as was my first view of the awesome Pennsylvania Turnpike tunnels of the 1940’s, on that first 1946 trip of the Abels to live in Columbus Ohio from Philadelphia, except wider.