FRENCH LIVING IN THE PHILIPPINES

Boracay sans les Chinois … cela n’est pas plus mal ! Après Hong-Kong,  ce sont maintenant ceux de la ‘’Mainland’’ qui boycottent  Boracay Island. The territorial row between the Philippines and China has taken its toll on Boracay Island, which lost around 200,000 Chinese visitors after travel agencies from Beijing suspended travel packages to Manila last May. Aklan Gov. Carlito Marquez noted that Chinese tourists constitute around a fifth of the visitors of the world-famous tourist spot. “The ban imposed by China was a setback somehow,” Marquez told reporters in a press conference here last Thursday. “Some carriers had to cancel flights. We lost a big chunk (of visitors). The Chinese represent 15 to 20 percent of tourists,” he added. Marquez said about 986,000 visitors passed through their province’s ports last year. Hotel bookings, however, reached about 1.2 million as it included those who did not travel by sea. About 60,000 Chinese tourists visit Boracay ev...

VIRÉS PAS EXCOMMUNIÉS L’Église et les Universités sont-elles compatibles ? La Doctrine peut-elle limiter, voire interdire le droit au savoir et à la vérité ? Deux questions que l’on peut se poser après les déclarations de certains prélats philippins. It’s not exactly an inquisition but 159 members of the Ateneo de Manila University faculty may face investigation for heresy, and sacked—not excommunicated—if found guilty. Bishop Leandro Medroso, in an interview over Church-run Radio Veritas Monday, called for an investigation of the Ateneo faculty members who signed a statement declaring support for the controversial reproductive health (RH) bill being pushed by the Aquino administration in Congress. Medroso, the permanent council member of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) and chairman of the Episcopal Commission on Canon Law, said the university should make sure that the teachers who endorsed House Bill No. 4244 were not teaching conce...

Le troisième plus haut sommet des Philippines et le plus haut de luzon,  est-il en danger du fait d'activités humaines illégales ? THE DEPARTMENT of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) revealed the fast degradation of the highest mountain in Luzon prompting the agency to appeal to the public to help preserve Mt. Pulag. DENR Protected Area Superintendent of Mt. Pulag, Emerita Albas, presented various illegal human activities happening in the park to the Provincial Board during its regular session last Monday.  This is to stir officials to coordinate with concerned parties to create measures to stop these environmental abuses. Albas also revealed the presence of illegal settlers in the area. She added these residents allegedly do extensive and indiscriminate farming and gardening within the national park. Moreover, the superintendent said that mining has been introduced in the area.  She enumerated residents are allegedly involved in illegal lo...

Personnellement je ne serai pas aussi optimiste que les officiels du gouvernement. Reloger plus d’un million de personnes, cela demande à la fois de la place et des fonds. De plus les conditions de relogement sont assez draconiennes, je ne vois pas de solution à court ou même moyen terme. De plus des pauvres, toujours attirés par le mirage de la grande ville, continuent à affluer sur la capitale … Metro Manila Squatters The squatters’ colonies blocking major waterways in Metro Manila will soon be but a bad memory. Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo said on Tuesday the national government was planning to relocate some 100,000 informal settlers living near danger zones in Metro Manila. He said shanties and other illegal structures built along creeks, canals and other waterways would be dismantled to allow the construction of flood-mitigating systems. Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson said as much on Monday, saying government would “blast” the houses of informal s...

MANILA, la Venise du Sud-est asiatique ? Si le projet proposé par l’architecte Daniel Burnham au Président Manuel Quézon en 1905 avait été approuvé, il se pourrait que Manille soit devenue la Venise du Sud-est asiatique, sans les gondoles. Malheureusement la priorité a été donnée à l’irrigation des terres agricoles, le projet de Burnham n’a jamais vu le jour et le problème des inondations de certains quartiers de la ville n’a jamais été réglé. If Manila were like Venice, aside from the possibility of gondolas, maybe floods would not be as frequent. Urban planner Felino Palafox said a century-old plan of modeling esteros in Manila and the metropolitan area which sprung around it after the famous canals of the Italian city could have prevented urban floods--such as that caused by the southwest monsoon rains last week. "[W]hen Manila was being designed as the country's capital in 1905, the architect, Daniel Burnham hoped that its waterways would be similar ...

C’est un problème que j’ai soulevé à de nombreuses reprises, il y a une profonde méconnaissance des conditions météorologiques sur l’archipel. Les Philippines sont très souvent décrites comme ayant deux saisons. Une saison dite sèche et une saison dite humide avec, sur le nord tout du moins, le passage de typhons. Ceci est vrai pour une partie du pays, pas pour l’ensemble de l’archipel, j’y reviendrai dans un prochain post.  NEGROS Occidental would always boast that it has only dry and rainy seasons. Dry season is from January to May; rains come in June and last until December. The recent developments brought about by climate change bring in environmental disasters that affect tourism industry not only in our province but in the entire archipelago. Tourism officers are not only event organizers but they are also weather forecasters. We experience heavy rains during the dry season and we have two weeks of no rain during the rainy season, and for that we must be ...