Why Luli Macapagal Arroyo is sentimental about Washington DC

A picture is worth a thousand words, so goes an old, over-used cliché. But Luli Macapagal Arroyo’s running commentary for every travel picture she lifts from her several photo albums is certainly worth a million more images.

Remember when dear friends often remarked the book was better than the film? Get the gist?

I recently got together with the gentle and unassuming yet genuine achiever in many fields as a presidential daughter – a real person in more ways than one – for a leisurely chat on her journeys and odysseys for today’s column. But guess what? By late morning, I could have written a book – one of those riveting as-told-to-by travelogues. She was absolutely bewitching. I was totally captivated.

Meanwhile, as we can only continue to yearn for that hopefully inevitable collection of fascinating anecdotes – a bestseller no doubt – let’s just hear it straight from the enchanting storyteller herself:

Philippine STAR: What do you remember most of your first trip abroad?

Luli Macapagal Arroyo: My first trip abroad was with my grandparents, just the three of us. I remember my grandmother trained me from the beginning. She taught me to dress well but comfortably for traveling, and as a reward she had a couple of travel suits done for me by Pitoy Moreno. We packed three days before our flight out. She showed me how to handle all kinds of tickets, luggage, hotel, food, transportation and other related arrangements during the trip and I enjoyed being useful. I loved listening to my grandfather when he spoke with officials of the Philippine Embassy who still extended courtesies to him as former president. Not everyone did that because this was during the Marcos dictatorship and some of them were afraid to displease the home office.

What won’t you leave home without?

A good book and a camera.

How do you pass time at airports?

I read a book.

Name your favorite city abroad.

Too many! I always end up loving the places I visit. I am sentimental about Washington, DC just because I lived there for a couple of years.

What is the first thing you do upon checking in at a hotel?

If I have a window in my room, I take in the view and then unpack.

What would you consider a must-do activity in every foreign city you visit?

At the very least, I take a leisurely walk around the nearest park or just wander around the city to absorb its sights, sounds, and smells. For me, this is the best way to get a feel of the place even if I don’t have the luxury of time to tour.

What is your favorite spot in the Philippines?

Too many! Again, I end up loving every place I visit. I love that we are multilingual and multicultural; I love that we are blessed with an abundance of fantastic dive sites; I love that each area has a local version of adobo and other food specialties; I love that we have places where the beach and the mountain are only 20 minutes away from each other.

What do you miss most when you’re away from home?

My family. But to get over this, I always think to myself that I will always come back home and it helps me enjoy my travels even more.

What is the best travel advice you were given?

My grandmother always prepared for a trip thoroughly and this is what helped me most – always preparing early on.

Describe your most memorable trip.

Slovenia is a tiny, beautiful country and it helped that one of my good friends from graduate school took me around his country. Having a local host and getting a personal tour really allows one to delve deeper into the local culture. At the airport, I was the only Asian and the only one who needed a visa to get in, so much so, that the immigration officer had to take out his manual to figure out how to process and issue one. It was fun visiting a farm owned by my host’s best friend and his wife, in a land held for generations and continuously tilled by their family for centuries; having dinner at a house built by my host’s father-in-law by the edge of the woods; taking a dip in 10-degree temp at Lake Bled, and then enjoying apricot tea by the river at midnight in Ljubljana, the capital.

Equally memorable was my nine-day trip to Playa del Carmen and Cozumel in Mexico, with friends from grad school and 20 plus others from all over the world. We stayed in four houses on the beach in Playa, and we would walk to the ferry to cross to Cozumel and go scuba diving. We also visited an archaeological area in Tulum which was on a cliff, then proceeded to go down the cliff to the fantastic beach below where we had a piñata party because several of us had birthdays in late May and early June.

What is the strangest thing you have done on a trip?

Together with some friends, we watched a black light theater performance in Prague last year, and we were seated near the front row. One of the scenes had a giant spider hovering on strings over the audience, basically trying to scare or surprise us. So I caught one of the spider’s legs and hung on to it. The actor was not amused.

What’s your favorite meal and the drink you often order?

As much as possible, I try the local fare in every place I visit. But more likely than not, if lamb is on the menu, that is what I order. My bar drink: vodka with cranberry juice and a twist of lemon.

Favorite museum?

When I lived in DC during grad school, I loved going to the Smithsonian museums, particularly the National Gallery of Art which had several fantastic exhibits and which were all free! I remember lining up for tickets in the dead of winter starting at six in the morning for the Vermeer exhibit, and doing the same for the Van Gogh exhibit a few years ago. I think I got spoiled by the free entrance, because I balked at the $10 fee at the Metropolitan Museum in Manhattan.

Favorite landmark?

Our rice terraces, particularly the ones in Mayoyao, Ifugao. One of my friends once commented that we have no large monuments like those found in Angkor or Borubudur. But we have the biggest one, encompassing at least two provinces, in the rice terraces. They truly fill one with awe considering how ancient they are and that to this day they are still used.

Favorite musical?

Les Miserables.

Name a movie you could see over and over again.

A family favorite is Young Frankenstein, which I’ve been watching with my parents and cousins since the time of the Betamax, way before the laser discs. To this day we can recite lines and gags from this movie, and only my family members laugh uncontrollably or chime in. A personal favorite to watch repeatedly is Babette’s Feast, which always reminds me about the art of a good meal. Also, I think Clueless was a very successful adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma and it never fails to cheer me up.

Name a book you would recommend others to read.

Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond, because he was able to bring together many different disciplines of study to write a story of man that builds understanding and debunks some people’s notion that some races are just smarter than others.

What would I find on top of your working table?

A messy collection of papers, desktop PC, calendar and knickknacks from collleagues’ travels.

What would I find on top of your night table?

In my room in Malacañang, tissue box, a lamp and a phone – that’s all the space there is. In my room at our home in Quezon City, a lamp, a souvenir from Peru, a book on Albania and some letters.

What would I find under your bed?

Nothing.

Three sounds that distract you most?

Mobile phone ringing in the most inappropriate places – concert, play, conference. It’s just the loss of good manners. Someone speaking loudly in a restaurant, whether on the phone or to one’s tablemates. Again, it’s ill-mannered. The sound of birds. I miss that, so when I hear it, I get distracted and my focus shifts to the birdsong.

Famous persons you’ve met?

Luckily, I’ve met a number of heads of state and government and important persons because of my grandparents and my parents. It is always such an exciting experience for me, but also frustrating because I usually don’t have a camera around when this happens. I remember when I went with my mother to the Non-Aligned Movement meeting in Kuala Lumpur early this year. We were in a room-ful of over 150 leaders from all over the world, but cameras were not allowed inside the venue. Many of them wanted to meet my mother and many of them I just wanted to shake hands with.

Among those I met from years of traveling with my parents and grandparents: Pope John Paul II, King Carlos and Queen Sofia of Spain, Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko of Japan and family, Sultan Bolkiah of Brunei, Thaksin Shinawatra, President Megawati Sukarnoputri and family, Prince of Cambodia and family, Mrs. Rabin, Shimon Peres, President George Bush and Colin Powell, Yasser Arafat, Goh Chok Tong, and many others.

Bill Clinton and Mohamed Mahathir I first met during the APEC Summit in 1996 here in Manila and I met Umberto Eco during a book signing in a bookstore in DC.

At a dinner hosted by Prime Minister Koizumi during my mother’s state visit to Japan in December last year, I was fortunate to have sat next to former Prime Minister Hashimoto. We had a very animated conversation throughout the evening about Okayama, his home prefecture which I earlier visited, and about his keen interest in Luzon jars, which are of archaeological significance to our country. We conversed through an interpreter throughout.

My best memory is meeting Julius Nyerere at my grandfather’s house during a lunch in his honor, and it happened to be his birthday that day. He was such a great man, as peace-loving and visionary as my grandfather. I remember that he showed me a photo of himself and my grandfather in a brotherly embrace, when my grandfather visited his country in the Sixties.

What do you most enjoy doing on a Sunday?

Sunday is family day. I spend it with my immediate family just talking and catching up on each other’s lives, lying in bed together with or without the dogs, of course, with the granddaughter, watching a movie.

Who is your ideal traveling companion?

I travel with many different sets of friends – college friends, grad school friends, and my cousin and her husband, Nicole Jacinto and Patrick Reyes. I think I’ve traveled most with Nicole and Patrick. It’s easy to travel with them because we have the same priorities when it comes to touring a place, and we like to travel on our own leisurely pace rather that join a tour group.

Name an event anywhere in the world you would like to participate in.

In terms of historical importance, I am proud to say that I participated in both EDSA I and II because these were the times when we Filipinos came together as a nation first, to our democracy, and second, to regain our integrity. The impeachment of former President Estrada left us greatly divided as a nation, because in order to protect his position he and his minions made no bones about pitting Filipino classes against each other, and destroying the good name of those against him. This is why I think it is also important to travel around our own country, to recapture that sense of unity, to understand ourselves better, to stop wallowing in self-pity and appreciate all the good things we have to offer.

Name three traits you look for in a friend.

Loyalty, trustworthiness, honesty. And my real friends never bring up the fact that I am the President’s daughter – they treat me no differently from before, do not get intimidated, and never ask for favors from government.

What are your pasalubongs, inbound and outbound?

Inbound, I try to get something practical but representative of the place I have been to. For example a mini-calendar with Franz Kafka from Prague.

Outbound, I bring Fiipino products to my foreign friends, such as strawberry wine from Baguio or the Noli and Fili translations by Mrs. Locsin. For my friends abroad, they always ask for specific food products like bagoong or dried mango or Tanduay rhum or Chicharittos – so that’s what I bring to them.

If you could enforce one law to the fullest, what would it be?

Only one? For me I think the most basic ones, like no littering (particularly for people in vehicles who just throw garbage out the window!) and following traffic lights (so if one is a pedestrian, one must not jaywalk, and if one is a motorist, one must stop at the red light even if there are no cars in the other lanes.)

Let’s fill in the blanks: Where in the world...only in the Philippines.

Where in the world do you find a million and one alternative meanings for SARS spread faster than the disease itself? Only in the Philippines.

If I had more time I would...

If I had more time I would fix my room. As it is now, I don’t have time to put my luggage away because I average about one trip per month whether for work or leisure.

Aside from unpacking your suitcase, what is the first thing you do upon returning home?

Be with my parents and tell them what happened to me during the trip.

Name a city you have never visited but would like to someday.

Rio de Janeiro.

Name a country you wish to explore.

Tanzania

What would you say is the best part of travel?

Learning about the people and gaining a better understanding of them.

What would you say then is the worst part of travel?

The farewells and waiting around to board one’s flight or vessel or bus or train.

If you could reside anywhere in the world aside from the Philippines where would it be?

Spain.