Amazing jeepney race

MANILA, Philippines - For any foreigner to have visited Manila, its streets can immediately be recognized by colorful and distinctive jeepneys, the most popular form of public transport in the Philippines.

I think that the colorful and flamboyant jeepney says something of the Filipino people’s sense of fun and determinedly cheerful spirit, but few expatriates regularly ride jeepneys. So when the Philippines New Zealand Business Council (PNZBC) sought some inspiration in order to support its chosen charity, PNZBC board member John Edginton and wife Caroline came up with the idea of marrying the uniquely Filipino jeepney with the concept of a New Zealand-style mystery car rally. A mystery car rally sends participants across town to collect items and clues in order to accumulate points in a race against time.

On Sunday, March 10, nearly 100 people gathered outside the New Zealand embassy in Makati to await the starter’s orders and make their way around five famous landmarks in Manila. Teams collected clues before finishing at the New Zealand ambassador’s residence in North Forbes Park for a lunch and prize-giving.

The PNZBC’s chosen charity – Operation Restore Hope – will get a funding boost from what we hope will become an annual event in Manila. Each year, a group of plastic surgeons and nurses, mostly from New Zealand, travel to the Philippines on their own time and expense to perform cleft palate operations on under-privileged children. A cleft lip and/or palate is a separation of the parts of the lip or roof of the mouth, which are usually joined together during the early weeks in the development of an unborn child.

This year, the Operation Restore Hope team, led by Dr. Tristan de Chalain from Auckland, performed operations on 80 children at the President Diosdado Macapagal Memorial Medical Center in Caloocan. Throughout the week, the visiting surgeons and nurses teach and develop the skills of the local medical staff who work alongside them.

Judging by the reactions over lunch, the first PNZBC Amazing Jeepney Race was deemed a resounding success, and will be back next year – bigger, brighter and bolder. And in doing so, we hope that we will be able to help Dr. Tristan and his team continue their efforts to improve lives in the Philippines.

The author is New Zealand’s ambassador to the Philippines.