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Safety and The Philippines

22nd August 2005
Am I safe here? Am I likely to be kidnapped? Will savages hunt me down with a stick that has been sharpened at both ends?

Well, to answer that question I need to give a little background about the Philippines.

Interesting Times in The Philippines
Like most poor countries, The Philippines suffers from crippling foreign debt and a corrupt government. For every dollar collected in tax, 30 cents is used to feed the bloated officials, 40 cents goes to servicing foreign debt and 30 cents is spent on what tax dollars should be spent on. Education, healthcare, roads and so on...

The people of the Philippines are paying $US 25,000 a day in interest on a completed, but not yet operational, nuclear power facility. There are many other similar stories. Money borrowed, asset constructed, asset not used, excessive interest paid.

Corruption runs from the lowest level of government to the highest. The President of The Philippines really annoys me. Her picture graces every classroom in this saintly pose, but she is anything but a saint. She bought her way into power and recently bribed enough politicians to avoid impeachment. You see her every now and then on the news handing out food parcels to the poor. This cynical approach to public relations makes me ill.

You can get away with anything in The Philippines if you have enough money. Judges can be bribed and you can get away with murder. So, like most places in the world, the prisons are filled with poor people.

I'm getting really passionate about education in all forms. I'm enjoying teaching the kids at Pulao and am about to start up some adult education classes. I'm also thinking about doing some education stuff for the people in the prisons. I'm not sure what form this will take and whether or not it will even happen. So watch this space!

Most public sectors are in a sorry state of repair. Schools are under funded and teachers are underpaid. Some of the roads are downright dangerous.

Filipinos can earn a good wage in the well-funded police and military sectors (plus they get to carry a big gun). So why are these two sectors well funded? The cynic in me (or is that the realist?) thinks that if I were the president and there was a chance of a violent revolution occurring, I'd sure as hell want the military and police to a) be on my side and b) carry big guns.

I don't hold out a lot of hope for the Philippines. Their debt is increasing, their currency is falling, their expenses are going up and most people have not had a wage rise for many years. It seems as if the Philippines is headed for some sort of economic meltdown. Much like what recently happened in Argentina.

I've talked to many Filipinos about what they think can be done. Most of them seem to think that a revolution, possibly violent, is required to begin the healing process. But, for whatever reason, it is just not worth it at the moment.

What This Means For Me
Desperate people do desperate things. In the southern island of Mindanao, an Islamic group is fighting for self determination. They are currently locking horns with the Philippines Army and a recent skirmish left 23 people dead. If I headed to certain parts of Mindanao, I would more than likely be kidnapped and be held to ransom. I am not going to Mindanao.

The New Peoples Army (the red fighters of the Communist Party of the Philippines) recently ambushed an army convoy to, as part of their one going revolutionary war. They have also bombed several cell phone towers in Manila because the telecommunications company did not pay the "peoples tax".

Check out these links for some assorted news items:

A couple of months ago some people tried to kidnap a rich Filipino to, presumably, hold him for ransom. The rich Filipino managed to fight them off and escape. This happened about 200km away from where I live. I am a very rich person by Filipino standards so I am a potential target for kidnapping.

Eden, the local volunteer coordinator was in Iloilo city recently. The Jeepney she was traveling in almost had an accident with a car. The driver of the car was most upset and stormed out of his car and held a gun to the Jeepney driver's head while making threatening comments. Eden said something like: "Please. No. Don't." and the car driver headed back into his car and left in a cloud of dust.

The mayor of Dumangas is concerned about the volunteer's safety. He initially wanted an 8 o'clock curfew but several volunteers moaned and this was changed to 9 o'clock. He has also organised police patrols that routinely check the houses we live in.

The mayor has tried to organize transport for the volunteers. This involved two people (policeman?) coming to the volunteer's house and escorting them to their placement in a rather ominous looking S.U.V. This hasn't really worked though for two reasons. Firstly, it is just such a pain to organize. Many people are going to many different places at ever changing times. Secondly, there was a lot of opposition to this idea by some of the volunteers. There is always going to a balance between freedom and security and it was felt that the transport was impinging too much on freedom. The escorting is no longer happening.

The house I live in has bars on the windows and is locked up like Fort Knox in the evening. A rather oddly named dog called Jaguar also guards the premises.

On the plus side, Dumangas has won the Law and Order award for the whole of the Philippines for three years in a row and is nominated for a fourth. It is one of the safest places in the whole of The Philippines.

The locals here are always looking out for you. If people see me waiting for a Jeepney, they will often go out of their way to give me a lift on their motorbike or in their car. And, yes, I do know the people that are offering me lifts.

One of the ironies of all this though is that they don't worry at all about my safety when I am riding on top of a tricycle.

So, do I feel safe? Yes I do. I have pointed out all the potentially unsafe things that could happen to me. Realistically though, the chances of anything bad happening to me is very remote. The Global Volunteer Network people take great care to ensure the volunteers are placed in safe environments.

I am in a very safe area of the Philippines and the locals care about my safety and want to look after me.

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(c) 2005 and 2006 Malcolm Trevena.
All the stuff on this site is written by me, Malcolm Trevena. Feel free to link to this page. Heck, you can even copy stuff from here if you want. Just make sure you sight me as a reference.