/ stevenwarran's Library/ Notes/ October 13, 2003, The Philippine Star, Op-Ed, As if I never left, by Max V. Soliven,
October 13, 2003, The Philippine Star, Op-Ed, As if I never left, by Max V. Soliven,
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October 13, 2003, The Philippine Star, Op-Ed, As if I never left, by Max V. Soliven,
Returning from London yesterday morning aboard the smooth Air France flight from Paris, this journeyman journalist found our media growling and whining about the same things – the coming Ping Lacson "exposé" privilege speech (now scheduled for today), who's running for President next May, the coming Bush visit, the anti-terrorist fight, and the beefs of our own "terrorists" within the political establishment.
I wish we'd spend more time considering the really important problems, the work urgently required to be done, how to boost food production, and how to make our neighborhoods, schools and workplaces safe, secure – and happy.
For instance, as our AF jet went bumpety-bump towards the old NAIA-1 terminal, I noticed a Northwest Airlines plane moving towards take-off, another Northwest jet parked at the terminal, plus a Japan Airlines aircraft. By this time, all that activity should have been going on at the new Terminal-3, but it remains mothballed – a troubled White Elephant, looking more like a Beached Whale, unable to operate owing to the government's and the Supreme Court's delay in putting finis to the sordid PIATCO issue. Get that NAIA Terminal-3 going, for Pete's sake.
A government that can't get al-Ghozi (whom it allowed to "escape") or open that new Terminal, come hell or high water, isn't a government, it's a wishy-washy Dance Club, entitled Wimp International.
FLASH: Al-Ghozi was reported killed yesterday in Mindanao.
* * *
I was seated aboard our homebound flight beside the surprisingly witty and charming Mr. Tadao Chino, president of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). I had met Chino-sensei on a more formal occasion a couple of years ago, but a 14-hour flight enables people to chat and exchange friendly toasts and banter in a more relaxed manner.
The ADB head and ten members of his group were on their way "home" to their headquarters here in Metro Manila (the ADB stands on EDSA in the Ortigas center). The ADB officers, led by him, had just concluded a conference with representatives of donor countries and organizations in Copenhagen, Denmark. Mr. Chino had also taken part last week in a Bali cooperation summit which featured our President GMA, and Indonesia's President Megawati Sukarnoputri, Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, Brunei's Sultan Bolkiah. He's chief adviser to the group.
I found the ADB president has been actively traveling to the most unlikely and dangerous places to check up on the international bank’s projects and possible undertakings – like Afghanistan, the rebel-held north in Sri Lanka to discuss aid and investment with the leaders of the Tamil Tigers, etc. In short, he's no staid version of the traditional banker – he even looks like that deceptively meek-looking and wizened but swift chopping mentor of the Karate Kid, series 1, 2, and 3. Chino was born and grew up in a prefecture nestled at the foot of Japan's sacred mountain, Mount Fuji. We formed a pact to climb that storied mountain together and greet the sunrise with the traditional clap and prayer (in Japan, they clap their hands to awake the gods, and – may I say it? – sometimes drop a few noisy coins in the temple box, so that their attention might be called. This is not intended to sound irreverent. We do the same thing in our Catholic churches, come to think of it).
With regard to the Fuji expedition, I even suggested that we "cheat" a little and hire a helicopter to fly us halfway to the top before joining the other pilgrims in the final ascent to the cone. What a thing to propose to a banker – but, on second thought, some bankers must think about doing such things more than once a day. Present company excluded, of course, as one is supposed to say.
In sum, it was a good trip home, despite the double jet lag I'm now feeling. If I write something in praise of the wrong politicians in the following days, please ascribe the possible aberration to this jet lag.
* * *
I was glad to, once more, spend a few days in London. ‘A visit to London Town always exhilarates me, for it's a city full of life.
Do you know what I do, aside from trying to see one or two West End theatre musicals, when I go to London? Shop around for stamps about the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Battle of Britain – as well as stamps featuring the Royals, from Gibraltar to St, Kitts, the Grenadines, Bahamas, Fiji, and all over the planet. This gives you an idea of the reach of the former Brit Empire. Yes, I'm a stamp collector – since my high school days. (Others dumped their stamps to collect ... girls.) I get Hitler stamps from the strangest sources in the strangest countries. De Gaulle stamps galore (he's one of my heroes). Napoleon. I've searched high and low for stamps of old Joe Stalin – yep, Vissarionovich Djugashvili from Tbilisi. He's not one of my heroes, but he did put his stamp – pun intended – on his century, if not in throwing back Nazi invasion, in bloodily repressing his people and the scores of millions in Eastern Europe under his heel.
I'm looking forward to the US post office issuing a George W. Bush stamp, not that I'm comparing Dubya to Stalin. Lenin stamps I already have aplenty. He was everywhere suckering everyone with his jutted jaw and his rhetoric, and he wasn't even an ethnic Russian.
I also visit London to buy some tin or lead soldiers (which the French call soldats de plomb). I had to get my Duke of Wellington figure in my favorite shop, Armoury of St. James, just off Jermyn street. You can't get a decent "Wellington", although Britain's Iron Duke was the victor there, in Waterloo, Belgium, where Napoleon and the effigies of his generals and marshals are sold all over the place.
At least, GMA, I may have hundreds of soldiers in my "corps", but I can't stage a mutiny or coup attempt, because my armies are made of lead. Call them lead-footed, if you will. I hope our new Counter-terrorist Task Force, of which there's already too much yakety-yak, doesn't turn out to be just as lead-footed.
* * *
What always excites me about London is the memory of what Britons accomplished when they were only 10 million strong, inhabiting a scatter of islands off the continent of Europe. Like us, they were islanders.
Yet, London, like ancient Rome, was once caput mundi, a leader of the world.
On my first night, my friend Roberto "Bobby" Ramos, who heads the Notting Hill Gate Office of Philippine National Bank Europe at Pembridge Road, accompanied me on a "walkabout" to my favorite places. Bobby, a PMA '80 grad and former Lt. Commander in our Philippine Navy (he opted for early retirement) is not a prissy banker-type, but adventurous and full of street-smarts.
We strolled over to Piccadilly Circus – all that boarding of the past years now removed – and the winged figure of "Eros" (actually a boyish statue originally representing the "Angel of Christian Charity") stands now revealed presiding over the landmark fountain.
Then we paid our respects to Lord Horatio Nelson, who's precariously perched on his 140-foot tall pillar in the center of Trafalgar Square. They've now banned traffic from the surrounding streets, so Nelson's up there, reminding everyone of his triumph over Napoleon’s navy in Trafalgar. At night, Nelson's on display full viewing – spotlighted in the darkness – and immune from the attacking pigeons which used to fart insolently on his head.
Then nearby you can also spot the Duke of Wellington himself, staring belligerently from his pedestal off St. Martin's—in-the-Fields. As we passed, the church bells tolled a greeting.
It was, in the past, no idle boast of Rudyard Kipling that Great Britain held "dominion over palm and pine", or constituted a collection of real estate on which "the sun never sets".
As far into our own time as 1940, with Winston Churchill and the doughty RAF defying Hitler's blitzkrieg assault on London from the sky, the British Empire had still covered one-fourth of the globe. Now the empire's gone – but its reign still holds sway in many hearts where once the Union Jack flew.
I shouldn't be saying such things. Our family has an Irish coat-of-arms with the Gaelic motto, lamh fois tenach abu (The Gentle Hand to Victory). The Gentle Hand, taking no chances though, holds a sword in the escutcheon. I sneer at the statue of Cromwell, whenever I pass Commons and the Houses of Parliament. My father used to good-humoredly remind me, always, that bloody Cromwell had driven our "ancestors" out of Ireland to Spain. Such is history. Full of cruelty, bravery and contradictions.
Which is why I love London. It's full of everything. Even full of itself. But in a pleasant manner.
I was seated aboard our homebound flight beside the surprisingly witty and charming Mr. Tadao Chino, president of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). I had met Chino-sensei on a more formal occasion a couple of years ago, but a 14-hour flight enables people to chat and exchange friendly toasts and banter in a more relaxed manner.
The ADB head and ten members of his group were on their way "home" to their headquarters here in Metro Manila (the ADB stands on EDSA in the Ortigas center). The ADB officers, led by him, had just concluded a conference with representatives of donor countries and organizations in Copenhagen, Denmark. Mr. Chino had also taken part last week in a Bali cooperation summit which featured our President GMA, and Indonesia's President Megawati Sukarnoputri, Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, Brunei's Sultan Bolkiah. He's chief adviser to the group.
I found the ADB president has been actively traveling to the most unlikely and dangerous places to check up on the international bank’s projects and possible undertakings – like Afghanistan, the rebel-held north in Sri Lanka to discuss aid and investment with the leaders of the Tamil Tigers, etc. In short, he's no staid version of the traditional banker – he even looks like that deceptively meek-looking and wizened but swift chopping mentor of the Karate Kid, series 1, 2, and 3. Chino was born and grew up in a prefecture nestled at the foot of Japan's sacred mountain, Mount Fuji. We formed a pact to climb that storied mountain together and greet the sunrise with the traditional clap and prayer (in Japan, they clap their hands to awake the gods, and – may I say it? – sometimes drop a few noisy coins in the temple box, so that their attention might be called. This is not intended to sound irreverent. We do the same thing in our Catholic churches, come to think of it).
With regard to the Fuji expedition, I even suggested that we "cheat" a little and hire a helicopter to fly us halfway to the top before joining the other pilgrims in the final ascent to the cone. What a thing to propose to a banker – but, on second thought, some bankers must think about doing such things more than once a day. Present company excluded, of course, as one is supposed to say.
In sum, it was a good trip home, despite the double jet lag I'm now feeling. If I write something in praise of the wrong politicians in the following days, please ascribe the possible aberration to this jet lag.
* * *
I was glad to, once more, spend a few days in London. ‘A visit to London Town always exhilarates me, for it's a city full of life.
Do you know what I do, aside from trying to see one or two West End theatre musicals, when I go to London? Shop around for stamps about the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Battle of Britain – as well as stamps featuring the Royals, from Gibraltar to St, Kitts, the Grenadines, Bahamas, Fiji, and all over the planet. This gives you an idea of the reach of the former Brit Empire. Yes, I'm a stamp collector – since my high school days. (Others dumped their stamps to collect ... girls.) I get Hitler stamps from the strangest sources in the strangest countries. De Gaulle stamps galore (he's one of my heroes). Napoleon. I've searched high and low for stamps of old Joe Stalin – yep, Vissarionovich Djugashvili from Tbilisi. He's not one of my heroes, but he did put his stamp – pun intended – on his century, if not in throwing back Nazi invasion, in bloodily repressing his people and the scores of millions in Eastern Europe under his heel.
I'm looking forward to the US post office issuing a George W. Bush stamp, not that I'm comparing Dubya to Stalin. Lenin stamps I already have aplenty. He was everywhere suckering everyone with his jutted jaw and his rhetoric, and he wasn't even an ethnic Russian.
I also visit London to buy some tin or lead soldiers (which the French call soldats de plomb). I had to get my Duke of Wellington figure in my favorite shop, Armoury of St. James, just off Jermyn street. You can't get a decent "Wellington", although Britain's Iron Duke was the victor there, in Waterloo, Belgium, where Napoleon and the effigies of his generals and marshals are sold all over the place.
At least, GMA, I may have hundreds of soldiers in my "corps", but I can't stage a mutiny or coup attempt, because my armies are made of lead. Call them lead-footed, if you will. I hope our new Counter-terrorist Task Force, of which there's already too much yakety-yak, doesn't turn out to be just as lead-footed.
* * *
What always excites me about London is the memory of what Britons accomplished when they were only 10 million strong, inhabiting a scatter of islands off the continent of Europe. Like us, they were islanders.
Yet, London, like ancient Rome, was once caput mundi, a leader of the world.
On my first night, my friend Roberto "Bobby" Ramos, who heads the Notting Hill Gate Office of Philippine National Bank Europe at Pembridge Road, accompanied me on a "walkabout" to my favorite places. Bobby, a PMA '80 grad and former Lt. Commander in our Philippine Navy (he opted for early retirement) is not a prissy banker-type, but adventurous and full of street-smarts.
We strolled over to Piccadilly Circus – all that boarding of the past years now removed – and the winged figure of "Eros" (actually a boyish statue originally representing the "Angel of Christian Charity") stands now revealed presiding over the landmark fountain.
Then we paid our respects to Lord Horatio Nelson, who's precariously perched on his 140-foot tall pillar in the center of Trafalgar Square. They've now banned traffic from the surrounding streets, so Nelson's up there, reminding everyone of his triumph over Napoleon’s navy in Trafalgar. At night, Nelson's on display full viewing – spotlighted in the darkness – and immune from the attacking pigeons which used to fart insolently on his head.
Then nearby you can also spot the Duke of Wellington himself, staring belligerently from his pedestal off St. Martin's—in-the-Fields. As we passed, the church bells tolled a greeting.
It was, in the past, no idle boast of Rudyard Kipling that Great Britain held "dominion over palm and pine", or constituted a collection of real estate on which "the sun never sets".
As far into our own time as 1940, with Winston Churchill and the doughty RAF defying Hitler's blitzkrieg assault on London from the sky, the British Empire had still covered one-fourth of the globe. Now the empire's gone – but its reign still holds sway in many hearts where once the Union Jack flew.
I shouldn't be saying such things. Our family has an Irish coat-of-arms with the Gaelic motto, lamh fois tenach abu (The Gentle Hand to Victory). The Gentle Hand, taking no chances though, holds a sword in the escutcheon. I sneer at the statue of Cromwell, whenever I pass Commons and the Houses of Parliament. My father used to good-humoredly remind me, always, that bloody Cromwell had driven our "ancestors" out of Ireland to Spain. Such is history. Full of cruelty, bravery and contradictions.
Which is why I love London. It's full of everything. Even full of itself. But in a pleasant manner.
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