Since I was here just a few months ago, there has been a lot of construction going on in the area of the hotel where I stay. One of the new arrivals is a McDonalds. It’s in a small facility that houses several other fast food restaurants as well as a 7-11 store. While the McDonalds is interesting, the 7-11 is delightful as that store has a good array of soda, cookies, and candy. Note the row of motorcycles. McDonalds delivers! Place a call, or even just send a text message, and they deliver to your door. I haven’t had the courage to have them deliver to my hotel room, though.

It’s been a very quiet Saturday. I spent a couple of hours at the Festival Mall and took some video with my little Sony point-and-shoot camera which I intend to put up on YouTube when I get back home at the end of the week. People might find it interesting to see what a mall experience in the Philippines is like. I’ve also had time today to read through several newspapers. A newspaper shows up in front of the door of my hotel room every morning just before I leave for the day, so I don’t have time to look at it. I had time to look through them today. And, of course, I have a few observations.

1. It’s election time in the Philippines. I think the elections are next month in late May and electioneering is in full swing here in the Philippines. The newspapers are quite full of different ways that the government is spending tax dollars in an effort to win votes for the upcoming election. The newspapers are quite gleefully publicizing all of the pork projects that are going on and the associated graft and corruption. However, talking to the people I work with here in Manila, they all agree that it doesn’t matter much who gets elected as nothing will change. As one colleague put it, “bad grass never dies”.
2. The traffic seems to be getting worse and the roads along with it. I had some meetings in downtown Manila in Quezon City on Friday. Getting to and from the hotel was quite miserable for a trip of about fifteen miles. We needed an hour and a half to get there and two and a half to get back. In an effort to reduce congestion at major intersections, several of them have been dismantled and blocked. The cross street no longer goes across. The driver has to make a right turn, go several hundred yards to a U-turn, come back the other way, and make a right turn to continue. That, of course, has only changed the problem rather than solving the problem. The solution set includes (a) significant road and infrastructure investment, (b) a good public transportation system, and (c) taxing vehicles off the road by charging tolls to enter downtown. I expect if I were to come back in 5 years, I would see no improvement but rather a significant degradation.
3. It is noisy in Manila. I think I’ve said this before, but everything is noisy. The vehicles are noisy. The traffic is noisy. Stores play very loud music. Malls play very loud music. People talk loudly (probably to be heard over all the noise).
4. The Bellevue Hotel has gone into cost cutting mode. There’s a whole bunch of little things that are different. For instance, all the light bulbs have been replaced with much lower output florescent bulbs. Now the rooms are dimly lit at night. Today at the mall I bought a couple of higher-output florescent bulbs for my room. It’s amazing the difference that a little light makes. On the other hand, the somewhat threadbare carpet is more visible!
5. There is construction going on all around the hotel. In addition, the hotel has started building a second tower to double the capacity of the hotel. There seems to be a lot of people staying here, so I expect that the hotel is fairly full. Maybe the cost cutting is to help pay for the new construction? Most of the new construction is for call centers. Three new ones are being built across the street. Convergys was already here. HSBC (a bank) has a big call center in operation here. So does General Electric — in a new building that was just beginning construction the last time I was here. The call center business is growing rapidly here. Because of some pictures of Convergys that I took a couple of years ago, I’ve met a person who works at Convergys across the street from the Hotel. Elreen provides Sprint customer services, working from 3 a.m. in the morning until noon so that the US afternoon and evening hours are covered. I can understand why customer support would be coming from the Philippines because the Filipinos want to be very helpful, are very polite and soft spoken, are well educated, and the labor rates are much lower here. Much of this customer support work is migrating from India to the Philippines because of the Filipino personality and the bill collection work is migrating to India because of the insistent nature of the Indians.
6. For some reason, the Philippine Peso is going up in value to the US dollar. It had increased from 52 pesos to the dollar the last time I was here last fall to 47 to the dollar now, almost a 10% change. It is unclear to me why this big change in value, particularly for a currency that is not very convertible. Most banks outside of the Philippines will not take or convert the Philippine Peso for some reason.
7. The air is quite a bit cleaner than the last time I was here. I don’t think it’s because anything extraordinary has happened; probably the wind patterns this time of the year blows the pollution away better than in other times. There are a number of high mountains to the south of town that normally aren’t visible through the smoke and haze, but they have been all week this week. I like the cleaner air!
8. There is a lot of health-related advertising here. Big signs proclaiming ways to manage blood sugar. Big signs advertising milk supplements for children to bring out the “gift in the child”. Big signs advertising nutrition products. These campaigns must work. Every Filipino I know carries a toothbrush with them and they brush their teeth faithfully after eating. It’s almost a ritual thing … everyone heads for the restroom after a meal to brush their teeth. Nothing bad about that; it’s just different.

There are probably more, but that’s enough for now. The trip is more than half over. Next Friday morning I’ll be on an airplane flying back to Pocatello and to my own world. It’s been fun getting another glimpse of the world from a Philippine perspective.