The Philippines - "My Tropical Paradise"

Happily, our March 17 article entitled “Our beautiful, bountiful nature” elicited a number of reactions from certain readers.

 Cebuano scholar, Dr. Lawrence Liao, who is now in Japan, wrote “your recent piece about Mother Nature made my day. It’s a good and timely reminder to the present generation about what the older generation used to cherish and enjoy.”

 We also would like to share the following lengthy reflective message of Mr. Al Watts, who gave us his permission to print his message. He wrote:

 “It would honor me a great deal if you choose to use my ideas and views in your column; so yes, please do so, and you may use my name if you wish.  This would be a great birthday present for me: my 82nd birthday will be on March 22, the day of your column!”

 Happy God-blessed 82nd birthday, Mr. Watts, and thank you for your honest views and sincere concern for our country and our people!

 Mr. Watts wrote:  “Greetings from Cebu City.  If I may, I would like to offer a few thoughts and observations to your March 17 column inThe FREEMAN.”

 “My very first visits to the Philippines were in the late 1940s and early 1950s as a serviceman in the US Navy. Today I live here in Cebu as an expat with the love of my life, my Filipina bride of now some 31 years. Immediately after we were married, we were able to visit such places as the Banaue Rice Terraces, Camiguin and Bantayan islands, Badian Falls, Mayon Volcano, Pagsanjan falls, and Palawan to mention only a few ... all the places a visitor to the Phils. would want to explore. As we traveled from place to place, my observations and experiences didn’t stop with the obvious attractions; I found the mountains and beaches and meadows of the Philippines to be a near paradise on earth, a treasure worth preserving, and as my memory serves me, up to approximately the early-mid 1900s, there was enough bounty for everyone, poverty was at a minimum, and the Philippines was indeed, the ‘Pearl of the Orient’.”

 “Today, I see a place appallingly over crowded; poverty is a too common situation, too many people for the available supply of food, space and goods. Don’t misunderstand me; my heart goes out to the poor, but I loathe poverty. Poverty in the Philippines need not be; some modern, constructive thought, some political will, coupled with a program of humanitarian attrition could, in time, solve this problem.”

 “‘Sustained Development’. What a joke that is! Consider the so-called reclamation projects; to ‘reclaim’ a site, we must destroy a mountain, which entails obliterating a forest, displacing and/or killing off wildlife, then placing the spoil on a beach front in order to further kill off more wildlife and screw up a perfectly decent beach or mangrove forest. Do we really need this? Now I understand that our politicians want to relocate the Mactan airport to Cordova. Why? What’s wrong with Mactan the way it is? If some ‘fixing’ needs to be done, so fix it; we don’t need to ‘reclaim’ and mess up more land and mountains for the whims of some politician or developer. We have subdivisions and factories where subdivisions and factories should not be, roads are now in places where none existed before. Our beautiful island has suffered irreparable scars, most, if any will never heal. This is called ‘Sustained Development’.”

 “What ever happened to our rice terraces?  Why is there now a hotel on Badian Falls?  I haven’t been to Camiguin lately, but judging by some of the other things I see, I’m not sure I want too.”

 “I moved to the Philippines because I love this place and the people who live here; this is my ‘tropical paradise’ that so many Americans, and I suppose others, dream about, but are not willing to pursue; I did it, and I’m glad! “

 “One might point out that since I’m not a citizen, maybe I should mind my own business; I can accept that; but can you live with poverty and “Sustained Development”?  Forever?  I’m 82 years old, I won’t be around too much longer, ergo I won’t have to live with ‘Sustained Development’ et al., but our children will...must they?”

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