Month: August 2014

Sleeping Beauty

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For years, the sleepy town of Anda in Bohol, 100 km from the capital city of Tagbilaran, has been dubbed as “the NEXT BIG THING.” A well-known, well-travelled Filipino weatherman and scion of a political clan in Manila even declared Anda as one of the two most surprising gems he found in the Philippines—a country that does not lack for island jewels—and expressed his intention to someday retire there. Anda has all the ingredients for a premier travel destination: long stretches of fine, white-sand beaches, clear, turquoise waters, year-round diving weather, friendly locals, and comfortable, family-run resorts. Add to that a sprinkling of caves that tell a rich history and voila, you have a tourist favorite. So why isn’t it Boracay by now? My quest for an answer to that question was the only thing that roused me from the king-size bed in our tastefully designed 60-square-meter suite at the new wing of Amorita Resort—my new favorite place in Panglao—where life consisted of perfect little moments and beautiful mornings with hot chocolate. It was SO tempting to …

GKonomics: The Business of Restoring Dignity

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With their lunch waiting on the table, a family in Baseco, Tondo, sat still and prayed: “Panginoon, ang bait-bait Niyo sa amin. Kulang ang aming mga kamay para tanggapin ang lahat ng biyaya na ibinigay Niyo sa amin (Lord, you are so good to us. Our hands are not enough to receive all the blessings from you).” Pinky Velez Poe, the special guest at that lunch, did her best to hold back tears. “You look around, and you think, ‘what biyaya (blessing)?’ There’s nothing by our normal standards—it’s a 20-square-meter house for eight people and they say ‘kulang ang mga kamay para sa biyaya,’” she said. “Where I come from, in the village where I live, families are fighting over money when there’s so much more where that money came from… It makes you realize that peace and joy really cannot be bought.” That day, Pinky ate from a basin (the family had no extra plates), and had feeding supplement for main course and burnt rice crust or tutong with evaporated milk for dessert. And she …

Shanghai-Spotting

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What a difference zero makes Two little hours Brought the sun and the… No, there were no flowers, just buildings—an endless row of buildings that occupy block upon block of this industrial and eerily quiet part of Shanghai. It was our first day in what is supposedly a swanky, cosmopolitan world city, but I have yet to find traces of that—or of anything modern, or even English-speaking—at the moment. And it has been over an hour. My friend and I were walking along Guiqiao Road in Pudong in search of Shanghai United Cell Biotechnology Co. Ltd., where we were supposed to drop off a package before we toured the city. We passed the offices of international brands like Coca-Cola, Ricoh, Kodak (apparently, the legendary-but-now-bankrupt company still has its graphic communications group, with its Asia Pacific headquarters in Shanghai). But there was no biotechnology office in sight. After finally being able to connect to the Shanghai mobile number of my friend’s colleague, we realized what went wrong: the taxi driver had dropped us off at 115 Guiquiao …