Blogs from Philippines, Asia - page 317

One of the reasons for coming over here was to get some new experiences in the world of work. There will be some big new experiences! The basic situation is: The Local Government Unit (LGU) (similar to a county council) has responsibility for livelihoods, health, education, land use etc. Most of the normal government responsibilities with a few additions such as water supply. While the responsibilities have been devolved to a local level resources have not. The problems are not just financial - in the Municipality of Lanuza LGU where I am based the land use is 80% forest but they have had no forester or forestry graduate on the staff and have had difficulty in recruiting these skills. To further erode the local control the central government is responsible for operating and approving Timber Licensing ... read more

Tuesday evening we left Manila at about 8pm for Marinduque the birth place of Eleanor's Grandfather. The trip involved a 3 hour car trip to Lucena and a 2.5 hour Roll On Roll Off ferry (RORO) ride to Marinduque. The traffic was pretty bad but we still made it in plenty of time for the 2am boat. When we arrived at the port eveything seemed to be chaotic, no one seemed to know the correct procedure for purchasing tickets and booking the car onto the ferry. After asking around and lining up in four queues we were finally able to book the car onto the ferry, we then joined a long line of other cars. Things went pretty slowly from here and it appeared that cars were pushing in, Maribel was getting pretty irate about this ... read more

Being the only Catholic nation in Asia, the Philippines observe the Lenten Season religiously. The eight-day celebration starting from Palm Sunday until Easter Sunday is filled with spiritual and religious rites commemorating the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Visita Iglesia Every Maundy Thursday, the Visita Iglesia is being practiced by devote catholics. The traditional Visita Iglesia is said to be the commemoration of Jesus Christ’s journey through the streets of Jerusalem to the hill of Golgotha. Supposedly, as there are 14 Stations of the Cross, 14 churches should be visited. But as far as I can remember, we only visit 7 churches. This year, we visited the churches along our place in Pampanga - our Parish in Mexico, Sto. Domingo, San Jose, Chancery, Dolores, San Agustin, and lastly in St. Jude. As we go ... read more

After my last update in a Davao shopping mall last Friday I did some shopping and then went back to Joey's for a rest. That night GI and her husband Joel took Mummy and I out for dinner. We went to a restaurant that specialises in baby back ribs, they were really good but my favourite was the seafood kurri kurri (similar to satay). It had big pieces of crab, prawns, squid, fish etc. After dinner we went to a place called Jack's Ridge for coffee, it overlooks Davao and has restaurants, bars, the coffee place we went to and a hotel. Saturday I was up early for white water rafting on the Davao river, Nino accompanied me. There were about 35 on the trip including a group of 17 Koreans and a group from the ... read more

I always wanted to go to Puerto Galera after going to Boracay of last year. To know why the place always been compared to Boracay for a beach destination during summer. So when my cousin invited me to go with them I immediately said YES! The day was set... we will go to Puerto Galera 3-days prior holy Thursday to avoid the usual holy week hassle. APRIL 9: We leave Manila around 5:00 in the morning boarding a Tritran bus to take us to Batangas port. I'm with my wife and daughter and our usual travel mates... my cousins. We arrived in Batangas port around 9:00am. The port was already jam packed with travelers resulting to a little bit chaos at the ticketing booth. Luckily my cousin managed to squeeze in to buy tickets. The ferry ... read more