The Philippines was never on my short list, but I found a cheap ticket from Tokyo to Manila and I’m glad I had a chance to visit. The people here are very friendly and relaxed. I’m staying in a beautiful neighborhood full of parks, high-rise commercial buildings, and great restaurants. The Philippines seems underrated as a tourist destination — among its 7,641 islands are a lot of gorgeous beaches and it’s very cheap to travel here.

Of course, it’s not all leafy neighborhoods and beaches. Most of us have read about the troubling governance here, which is surely responsible for a lot of the country’s problems. President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs resulted in an estimated 30,000 extrajudicial killings between 2016 and 2022 and one expert here believes the problem was mostly manufactured for political reasons. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/04/rodrigo-dutertes-war-on-drugs-in-the-philippines-explained-in-30-seconds-ntwnfb. The son of famously-corrupt Ferdinand Marcos, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, is now in power. I’ve heard him described as “corrupt” and “useless,” which is probably a common view. Power and wealth are very concentrated here, at least partly related to the ways resources were allocated during the country’s occupation by Spain (1521-1898), the United States (1898-1946), and Japan (1942-1945).

Politicians aside….I learned a little more about the Filipino people from tour guide, Floyd, who is also a police officer and attends medical school at night. Floyd took me through some very crowded, struggling neighborhoods. He explained that most Filipinos work long hours just to get by but they have strong traditions, generally avoid conflict, and are very family-oriented. They are also very Catholic. We visited the National Shrine of San Lorenzo Ruiz, the first Filipino to be sainted.

On our walk, we sampled a very yummy bread called “babingka.”

And rode in a metal bus called a jitney, which, along with the tuk-tuks, are a mainstay of public transportation in traffic-clogged central Manila.

There’s a huge community of Chinese in Manila and this week they are getting ready for Chinese New Year (January 29). This young woman was selling red-ribboned decorations that bring good luck.

Surprisingly, the Philippines connects me to some of my family. My Uncle Roy was stationed in the Philippines during the 1950s and his kids, my cousins, loved it. And I learned recently that my great uncle Charlie survived the Bataan Death March, a brutal 60-mile trek made by more than 70,000 Filipino and American prisoners during World War II. An estimated 10,000-15,000 prisoners didn’t survive the brutal conditions imposed by their Japanese captors.

When Uncle Charlie was rescued he was 80 pounds and probably suffered from trauma for the rest of his life. He returned home to Southern California and became something of a hermit in the Mohave Desert where he collected desert tortoises. He gave my family one of them and we named him Charlie. That tortoise adored my mother, even after she ran over him with the car.

I found a connection here to the other side of my family as well. At the local public market a food stand was selling an Armenian pizza called “lahmajoun.” This is a special food from my childhood and I’ve never seen it anywhere except in the US and Armenia.

My short visit to the Philippines reminds me that we have connections in many places, including unexpected ones.. And those connections make us all some kind of very large family.

Kapag binato ka ng bato, batuhin mo ng tinapay.

“When someone throws a stone at you, throw back a piece of bread.” Filipino proverb.