Philippines of the Welcomes
“Mabuhay Philippines”, a Filipino Tourism Authority campaign, has echoes of a similar slogan from the depressed Ireland of the 1950’s. The Irish version has gotten a little tired now, championing a “poor but hospitable” vision of ourselves out of step with our new-found sophistication. The Filipino version, if anything, rather understates the vitality of the welcome that awaits tourists there. Mabuhay (Welcome) only hints at a culture of enduring obligation to the visitor that makes the Irish version seem limp by comparison. This traveller found the reception a little hard to take at first, but ultimately was totally disarmed by it. The quiet insistence hidden behind the shy smiles leaves one with no option but to accept the sincerity of the overwhelming hospitality and let go of the nagging feeling of it being completely underserved. Not being a tourist, this Mabuhay cocoon could not, however, insulate one from a sense of pervading unease that comes with my visits to the Philippines. There are complex realities hidden by the “Mabuhay Philippines” advertisements and having friends here from all walks of life allow one to see a sadness behind the smiles.
The contrasts in the Philippines make one uncomfortable. The highly educated of Makati business district have about them an easy, unaffected first world sophistication without being any less Filipino, but their Philippines seems to have more in common with Britain or Ireland than the Philippines of the garbage collectors of Payatas (a Metro Manila rubbish dump). Having been warmly received by both, it is depressing to imagine that the latter’s generous hospitality was earned from the discarded leftovers of the equally genuine hospitality of the former.
The Manila Shopping Malls are where I felt this unease most keenly. They are not like those of Beijing, which are built in anticipation of a domestic consumer spending boom, which is still not fully realised. In mall-ized Manila, the boom is in full swing, and no end in sight. The “American Dream” lifestyle is marketed relentlessly on billboards everywhere, but fuelling the dream is the sweat of those who leave the country and send money home faithfully every year. The cash registers suck up these foreign-earned dollars of the many and deposits them back, often by nefarious means, in the foreign bank accounts of the few, with little net benefit to the local economy. Ten years after first becoming aware of these realities, the malls are more beautiful, the registers ring more insistently, but the lifestyles of many at home remain dependent on money earned by those who work abroad. I am told that the economic and religious prophets are strangely silent about the phenomenon. One would wish to hear them shouting from the rooftops.
The Philippines emerged from the ‘War as Asia’s leading economy. It does not hold that position today. Walking along the tired streets of metro Manila one wonders if this was what Dublin was like in the ‘50’s when a marketing guru’s invented “Ireland of the Welcomes”. If so, then there remains hope for this beautiful country also. In 1952, could one have imagined the confident country Ireland has become, no longer needing to congratulate ourselves with thin expressions of our natural qualities (in the absence of anything else to boast about). There is nothing thin about what “Mabuhay Philippines”, expresses but it has to juggle with other, less happy, realties. Perhaps one can equally hope that that this land of islands will reemerge as an economic force in Asia, but that the natural, easy, and entirely overwhelming Mabuhay welcome will be retained in the process.