Second Installment

Back again. Saturday night we headed out to the Ayala Museum Café for dinner. That is really nice – it is beautiful décor and good food. The Ayala Museum is a great museum here with art and revolving exhibitions, and a series of about 50 (I think?) dioramas that depict the history of the Philippines from caveman days to the present. It is fascinating and so well done – we went during our orientation week and it was a great introduction to the Philippines. It is in Makati as well.


I do like Makati – it is like being downtown Melbourne – it is the business, financial and diplomatic heart of Manila. It has all the embassies and banks etc., plus all the designer stores and lots of great restaurants and nightclubs/bars. It also has parks and trees, which I miss so much (greenery…*happy dance*) and flat, even footpaths that you aren’t in danger of breaking your ankle on. However, it also seems a little surreal to be in a country as impoverished as the Philippines and be rocking around a place like Makati – it is a world apart. There are even security guards who keep the street kids and beggars away. It is a stark reminder of the immense divide of wealth in this country – there are an elite few who have wealth beyond imagining and then so many who struggle to feed their children. I go to Makati a couple of times a week as my Church is there, although I usually tend to go to church and then go home – not wander around the shops.


Money is obviously a bit issue here, and my having as much of it as I do is a potential source of tension, unless handled discretely. Although I am on a volunteer allowance which is a lot lower then my salary in Australia, I still make more than almost all Philippinos and even most of my colleagues. This can also be a problem as Philippinos don’t find anything unusual in asking you, often when they have just met you, “how much do you earn?”, “how much do you pay in rent?”, “how much do you pay for the gym?”, “how much are your tagalog lessons?”, etc etc. It becomes hard to fob them off repeatedly but it is better than telling them, because that leads to more questions and funny looks and only highlights the difference between me and them.


Another thing is when we go away for weekends – I tell people that I saved up before I came away in order to be able to travel, but when some of my colleagues have never left Manila in their entire lives, it stands out. Fortunately, my workplace is used to expatriates, with more money, so it raises less eyebrows, but it is still an issue. And then that raises another problem, because most expatriates have a salary and living allowance, which of course greatly exceeds mine – so although I make more than Philippinos, I have less than they are accustomed to expatriates having (especially those who work in the banks or big business).


To give you an idea of what I am talking about, the security guards at our apartment building make AUD$5.00 for a twelve-hour shift. The nicest one, Julie, who I chat to quite a bit, tells me that, even though she works six days there (so her weekly salary is AUD $30) and sometimes does a 24-hour shift, she still doesn’t make enough money to support her family, so on her one day off (Saturday), she does laundry as well. It strikes me as incredibly unfair that while I am lolling around on my weekend, she is working her butt off to support her children. Purely because I was born an Australian and she was born here. It is not that simple, of course, there are differences between the levels of income and there is quite a firm hierarchy in Philippino society (I get sooooo sick of being called Ma’am by everyone, even people so much older than me, who I should be deferring to).


One thing that I find appalling is the way that most rich Philippinos treat poorer Philippinos – the way that the Philippinos in our building speak to the security guards has me scraping my jaw off the floor and to see how Ya Yas (nannies – most middle and upper classes have at least one) are treated is quite sad. It is an interesting dilemma to live in a developing country. Although I have visited many, this is my first time dealing on a daily basis with the difference between the haves and have-nots and my own nagging guilt at being a have. It is a frequent topic of discussion – how we should handle and approach this. I think I have touched upon this before. I figure that by being here and spending my money in the local economy, I am helping. I try to do little things like giving good tips to taxi drivers (who apparently have to give between 900 and 1200 pesos to the cab’s owner each shift, and pay for petrol, before they can keep anything. This could well be three-quarters of their intake, or more – it is a tough gig). At the same time, I get irritated when they deliberately take the long route to try to get extra money or try to negotiate a ridiculous price out of you. Another favourite is how they wait until they have a fare before they will get petrol (a practice that lead poor Ange to be stranded on a major road on a Friday night a few weeks ago when her taxi completely ran out of petrol!!!) The presumption is that, just because we are white, we are a gullible mark for extortion. I would rather they just get me there and I will give them an extra ten peso tip or something. But if you ever try to explain that to them, it is just incomprehensible!!


Anyway – not sure if I am making any sense and this has rambled on too long. I will return (never fear!!!) with more details later…