A British history teacher told me recently that his compatriots brought sugarcane to the Philippines from the West Indies. And that Brits crossed the cantankerous water buffalo of Indonesia with our more docile female carabao to produce a beast of burden with better temperament that both countries now have.
Who knew? Not UK Ambassador Peter Beckingham, who hosted a party at his home marking their queen’s birthday last month – the closest the Brits have to a national day. And not his guest last week, Labour MP Meg Munn, British under secretary of state for a wide area that covers Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean, Central America and Overseas Territories.
There are about 200,000 Filipinos now working in the United Kingdom, many of them nurses, and the number is likely to continue growing. The strength of the British currency makes it one of the favorite destinations for Filipino nurses.
Yet the two countries generally know little about each other. The Philippines needs to do a better job of marketing the country.
Munn and members of her delegation are aware of Bali, Phuket, Chiang Mai, and of course the tourist destinations in the former British colonies in Asia.
But they have not heard of the pristine beaches of Boracay, the snorkeling and diving sites of Palawan, or of swimming with the whale sharks in the Albay Gulf.
Munn, now 48, visited Manila for the first time in 1983 but didn’t get to see the countryside. It was shortly after the assassination of Ninoy Aquino and Manila was seething with political unrest.
Political instability, which is in the news, is still what many foreigners think of when the Philippines is mentioned.
Only Brits like Munn, whose job requires them to keep track of developments in Southeast Asia, may have a better appreciation of what the Philippines has to offer.
But even members of her delegation do not associate the Philippines with vacations. Tell them that Bali can’t compare with the glittering white powdery sand of Boracay and they will give you an incredulous look.
When they think of Southeast Asian travel destinations, the Philippines does not immediately come to mind.
Members of the tourism industry have blamed this on marketing failure on the part of the government. Tourism officials in turn point out that their marketing budget is miniscule compared to those of neighboring countries such as Thailand and Malaysia.
Indonesia also invested heavily in a marketing blitz after Bali, its top tourist destination, suffered from terrorist bomb attacks by Jemaah Islamiyah.
The Brits, who are facing serious terror threats, may be aware that foreign tourists have been kidnapped and held hostage by Islamist terrorists in the Philippines. That is another factor working against us in selling the country as a tourist destination. But if Bali can recover, as well as Thailand’s Phuket after the tsunami, so can we.
Thailand received about 800,000 UK visitors last year; we had 80,000.
If we can’t afford marketing expenses, we can strengthen bilateral ties and cultural exchanges, relying on word of mouth to sell our country as a travel destination.
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The two countries still have to learn much about each other. Filipinos love the Beatles and 21st century British pop music, watch British movies, buy clothing from British retailers and follow closely the foibles of the British royals.
But because of our colonial history, we have closer cultural links with Spain and of course the United States.
Filipinos who slept through history class are unaware that British forces occupied Manila, driving out the Spanish colonizers for two years in the 18th century.
The Philippines, Munn admits, is also not in the British radar screen, although her visit could change this. The UK is now working on an extradition treaty with the Philippines, initially focusing on sex offenders, and is also sending officials who worked on the Northern Ireland peace process to assist Manila in its negotiations with the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair, under whose watch the peace deal in Ireland was finalized, is fully booked for speaking engagements, but London is sending others who worked on their peace process.
Amina Rasul, daughter of former senator Santanina, knows the value of peace. Growing up in Sulu, Amina remembers direct flights from Manila to Jolo twice a day, and the province being the largest producer of abaca in the country. The sultanate of Sulu was based in the province.
All that changed, she said, when armed conflict erupted in Mindanao in the early 1970s.
Today Sulu is still torn by armed conflict, although the province is starting to revive its seafood industry and is trying to promote tourism.
If peace and order can be restored, Sulu has a unique culture that can draw tourists. And like the island-provinces of Basilan and Tawi-Tawi, Sulu is surrounded by waters full of snorkeling and diving sites.
US Ambassador Kristie Kenney is a regular visitor, though always under heavy guard by both Philippine and US forces. Beckingham visited with Kenney last year when their governments donated computers with Internet access to schools in the province.
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Munn, who left for Australia Saturday, did not have time to visit Sulu. What she visited was the former Smokey Mountain city dump in Manila, where Beckingham’s wife Jill has been trying for two years now to put up a public school using shipping containers converted into classrooms.
Jill has run into a mountain of red tape, but has managed to obtain land for the school, and now a donation of 30 shipping containers from private companies. She is being charged P100,000 by the Bureau of Customs to bring out the containers from the Manila port.
Smokey Mountain and the conflict areas of Mindanao do not evoke images of the Philippines that will draw British tourists. But poverty and conflict are also key features of life in this country, and a little help from friends is always appreciated.
Still, apart from receiving foreign assistance, the Philippines should work harder to promote its positive, beautiful aspects.
