THE LAST WEEK, MANILA, MARCH 31 TO APRIL 7.

A SALCEDO
OUTDOOR MARKET
MORNING

Woke up, got out of bed, and headed for one of the many, many markets in Manila and surrounding cities and towns.

I especially wanted to visit this one because I was told it was filled with fresh foods, healthy foods, organic foods, homemade things and best of all it was outdoors surrounded by trees and Makati condos.

The intimacy of the market was very attractive to me, not alot of hustle and bustle, just slow and easy.

Cooks and sellers and buyers mingled easily, and no one was really pushing anything except very politely and very gently. This reminded me of other markets I'd been to.

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT MARKETS: Whenever I travel, I love to seek out the local markets. I want to see what the locals are shopping for, selling and eating or buying. Markets have a life to them because of the people and in the things they sell, and the energy in the way they sell, and because of the many shoppers and their curiousity. Like garage sales, some markets are getting rid of "junk", and for those who get lucky there could be a real find out there.
Some of my favorite markets are in Paris, London, Amsterdam, Seoul, Beijing and on Maui. Yes, Maui has a market that is unbeatable for its neighborhood feel and product diversity -- lots of "Made on Maui" stuff; it's a Saturday thing and the local folks look forward to it. There's one up the street from my home at the Kapiolani Community College parking lot, and it's a good one! My favorite things there are the fresh flowers, locally grown fruits and vegetables, the local meat sausages and burgers, and the take home, fresh cooked gourmet meals. Lots of locally made products! Oh, yes, and there is the big Aloha Stadium market. Good for alot things if you're up to walking miles of booths; a favorite of visitors and tourists.

Back to Salcedo. Tourists and locals mingled together in this Makati market not far from where I was staying. I loved the homemade stuff. I always do. Picked up a jar of calamansi (wonderful citrus) marmalade, a jar of ginger tea flakes, sugarless cookies, some Bangus (a favorite fish here) pate, a bottle of calamansi syrup, mango jam, a box of mango cookies, and a walnut/banana loaf which I gave to my driver Pio to take home to his family for Easter.

I left after an hour with plenty of goodies to bring home to my family!and was happy and gratified to find another market in the world I can name among my favories.

Then it was one last lunch with the board at the Manila Peninsula hotel. I was dying for a hamburger after a week of Filipino food. But when I saw the menu and pancit luglug listed, I went for that!! One of my favorite Filipino dishes.

Pancit Luglug uses a round rice noodle smothered with a thick, golden shrimp sauce or other flavored sauce, and topped with shrimp, pork rind grounds, hard-boiled egges and minced green onions. Luglug is what Filipinos bring to potluck parties, a true communal comfort food.

After saying our goodbyes, I walked to a nearby beauty shop. I really needed a poof to my droopy droopy hair that was still unable to hold a wave in this humidity. Three attendants worked on me for nearly three hours!!! Washed my hair, massaged my scalp. Blowed dry my hair and set it in rollers, and a massage for my neck and shoulders. A pedicure, a massage for my feet. A manicure and the poofing of my hair, with a massage for my hands and feet. All for about $35. A reason for returning for another Manila visit one day!!!

THAT NIGHT. A FRIENDS REUNION.

The last time I was in Manila was 20 years ago, in 1987 at the end of a USA Today reporting tour. I had seen these friends at that time, friends I had gone to high school with at the American School in Makati in the mid-60s.

Buddy Velayo (center below), Louie Villanueva (left) and Snooky -- I had seen then.
As for Edee Villanueva (tall one in the center) well, it had been a while!

I think I had not seen Edee for almost 35 years. Back then he was working in Hollywood for his father's export business, at the same time pursuing a possible recording career. I was working down the street at an all-news radio station as a young writer.

I finally met his beautiful wife Cita. They moved back to Manila several years ago with their two daughters after living in Los Angeles and Santa Fe, New Mexico for many years, leaving their son in the US to pursue a music career.

Edee and his brother Louie were the lead players in the TECHNICOLORS rock band during my high school days.

They were also my classmates and good friends that my sisters, Snooky, and I hung with. Snooky and I shared a best friend, Wendy Collinson (Jones) who was part of the December's Children, Edee's group that sang Mamas and Papas songs. That's Wendy in the white shirt, upper left of this page.

These are pages from my high school scrap book. We all worked on a TV pilot for a youth talent show called ENTER THE YOUNG and on other musical projects.

We often partied at their Forbes Park home where they also had a recording studio. That's Louie on the left, and Edee on the far right.

Their sound? They were expert technicians musically and mimiced perfectly the Beach Boys and the Mamas and the Papas. They also played alot of Motown songs. That's Paul in the back and Spanky in the front. I visited with Spanky a few years ago; he and his wife live outside of Washington DC.

We often rehearsed at their studio for the TV pilot. It was also here that Gary Lewis (Jerry Lewis' son) and his new Filipina bride came to jam with the Technicolors on their honeymoon, of all things!

That's me sitting next to Gary. We had also played Scrabble that morning with his new wife Jinky and her sister Gemma who is at the right of Gary in this photo.

SOME THOUGHTS: That's the way it was growing up in Manila during my high school years. Bands, celebrity musicians passing through the PI (Diana Ross, the Kinks, Peter and Gordon, the Dave Clark Five, and the Beatles -- I saw them all!). I also became a band concert producer, a disc jockey, a singer, a concert fashion show moderator, and a teen magazine writer. An extraordinary time, pre-Marcos martial law, when rock n roll was truly king! It was great going back and reminiscing about those good ol' days.

One night I shared a meal with Louie and his wife Pilar and their family. She cooked my favorite dish -- slices of beef and onions stir-fried in calamansi juice and soy sauce.

Their younger kids (they had 9, lost their oldest son several years ago) were home and two of the girls joined us to watch some of my documentary trailers and excerpts.

SNOOKY, MY BEST FRIEND IN HIGH SCHOOL
I was very grateful that Snooky and her husband Gop did not go away for Holy Week on a planned trip to Singapore. I was able to visit with them several times, and it was great to catch up and also to get to know Gop whose work is in the garment business (I learned lots about that!!) as an agent (Target is one of his clients). He and Snooky married after my last trip to the PI and had built their beautiful Spanish home here in Alabang Village, an upscale gated community about 20 minutes from Manila (when there's no traffic).
It is full of beautiful art, much of it Spanish art and Spanish religious art. Her collection of Catholic statues is impressive.

In high school, we were in the same grade and formed a close friendship and hung with a group of friends that we had in common. Our birthdays are just two days apart, I was often at her home and she at mine. Her mother made this wonderful spaghetti, which Snook reproduced for us the night of our Holy Week reunion.

Snook had me over another night for dinner, and before we ate we watched STRANGE LAND: MY MOTHER'S WAR BRIDE STORY -- my lastest and ninth documentary.

We paused and froze the frame where Snooky appears in a still with my family and relatives. (See her in the back row?) Yes, she was part of our family back then. I rememember one morning when I woke up and there she was sitting on my bed waiting for me to wake up.

A very talented dancer since she was a child, Snooky took me to a dance club one night so I could meet her dance instructor Jojo whose been teaching her ballroom dancing. Snooky doesn't compete in the ballroom dancing world (very popular with the Manila elite), though I know she could; she does it for excercise twice a week!

Our last visit was lunch at the Manila Peninsula where we shared more stories about our lives.

Finally, I had the halo halo Haranos that some on the Consuelo team suggested I should try. Manila's best, I was told. And big, and a lot!! Ok, bring it on!

In Tagalog, halo-halo means "mix-mix" and that's exactly what it was -- egg-yolk custard (or flan), chickpeas, sweetened kidney beans, colored gelatin, red, green and white sugar palm, nata de coco (or coconut gel), purple-yam preserve, sago in syrup, jackfruit, makapuno (a rare variety of creamy coconut), purple-yam ice cream, toasted rice crisps, about an inch of evaporated milk and sugar.

It arrived in an oversized glass and was truly unforgettable!! The Peninsula's lobby's patrons—a Who's Who of Manila society—are said to order 7,300 halo-halo Haranas a year. That's 20 orders a day!

VISITS WITH FAMILY

Time was also spent with my mother's sister Cely-- mom's last surving sibling, and mom's sister-in-law Fely and her family.

Here Cely and cousins Sabel, Baby and Gely join me for lunch in Makati.

We had our pick of local foods at the food court of the Landmark shopping center near where I was staying.

I also visited auntie Fely, my late uncle Rody's wife, at her son Boyet's home where she lives. When I arrived, in the background on the TV was playing my latest documentary about my mom, STRANGE LAND: MY MOTHER'S WAR BRIDE STORY.

Fely and her large brood of grandkids filled the house and met their aunt Stephanie for the first time.

Boyet's wife and my godchild Stella surprised me with a wonderful lunch!

The food was fabulous and included my favorite Filipino dessert, Sans Rival (Without Rival) -- layers of buttercream in between layers of meringue wafers.

Well, time was short, but it was great seeing the cousins and their children.

One of my days that week was also spent time with Stella (far right), my godchild now in her 40s, and her family. We shared a Holy Week lunch together at a Chinese restaurant and did a little shopping at Green Hills shopping center, a bit too pricey for them however, even with the cash I gave Stella to spend on the kids.

Joining us for lunch was Malou, my cousin, and her husband Willie who drove us all to Green Hills in his little sedan. Willie, who is one of President Gloria Arroyo's official photographers, gladly chauferred us whenever he could.

A VISIT TO THE MALL OF ASIA

The SM Mall of Asia is the largest in the Philippines and is the third largest in the world, at least in floor size. There are more than 600 shops here, a cinema, an IMAX theatre, a humongous food court, an olympic size skating rink, and thousands of shoppers every hour. Restaurants galore, or the humongous food court -- take your pick. I am told it takes two days to see the entire mall.

It sits on Manila Bay, the perfect place to view one of the most famous sunsets in the world. An open-air amphitheatre let's the sea breeze that edges up against the mall's massive air conditioned corridors.

I was invited to view an exhibition there, WAR OF OUR FATHERS, that told the story of Philippine guerillas who fought the occupying Japanese for four years during WWII while waiting for the US troops and Gen. MacArthur to return.

Fellow filmmakers Lucky Guerillmo and Peter Parsons welcomed me to the exhibition, where their documentary footage was being shown as part of the show.

Peter has been documenting the WWII experiences in the Philippines. In SECRET WAR, he tells the story of his father, Chick Parsons, who was an American businessman recruited by Mac Arthur to head the guerilla movement preparing for the general's return.

Peter's latest doc, MANILA 1945, documents the horrific atrocities committed by the Japanese during their occupation and as they fled Manila from the encroaching American troops.

The exhibit included a page from The Liberator, a newspaper for the guerillas fighting the Japanese. It was the official publication of President Quezon's guerilla unit and used to encourage the fighters.

The illustrator, Ezmeraldo Izon, was known to me, because he was the father of my dear friend and filmmaking partner Noel "Sonny" Izon. Sonny and I have made two films together about Filipinos in America. One of them was about Filipino immigrants who were in the U.S. when Pearl Harbor was bombed and who wanted to go back to the Philippines to rescue their families. AN UNTOLD TRIUMPH told their WWII story and how Gen. Mac Arthur used them for special covert assignments in retaking the Philippines. Sonny's dad, on his death bed, had made him promise to finish this film, which took 8 years to complete.

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT THE MALL: I was

told several times that these malls I visited contain an illusion. The unemployed spending tons of money! This phenomena is one of the Philippines' most controversial issues. It involves Filipino workers working overseas in various places and in various capacities --construction workers and domestic helpers in the U.S., Canada, Italy, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan, and dancers in Japan and Hong Kong, and etc.-- sending home billions of U.S. dollars. These portions sent home, called "remittances", are parts of their paychecks tracked by the Philippine government through bank transactions and wire transfers.

How much cash the O.F.W.'s (Overseas Foreign Workers) bring home with them during visits, especially at Christmas time, is unknown. Whatever and however the cash is being sent home, it is the salvation not only of many of their poor folks at home but of the Philippine government. OFW monies represented $12.6 billion circulating in the country's 2006 economy. That's up 19 percent from 2005. More than 1 m illion new workers left for overseas employment in 2006, and that included one of my own family members.

I have another one who's been working overseas in Dubai for quite sometime now. Other relatives had gone overseas but have now return -- a few to Japan as bar dancers, others took positions in Saudi Arabia as domestic help. So the issue touches home for me.

I see their families back home in the Philippines slowly rising out of their povery or making a life outside of the PI in the U.S. where prosperity is possible. They call it "getting out". Sounds like language prisoners would use. Poverty drives the drive to leave; and the money sent home is used mainly for consumer goods, which then spurs the rise of giant shopping malls, like the Mall of Asia.

A New York Times Magazine article written a few weeks after I got back took thousands of words to express the impact of these OFW on their families, especially their children, and on the country.

Jason DeParle wrote about Filipino workers but touched on the world's overseas workers with these words: About 200 million migrants from different countries are scattered across the globe, supporting a population back home that is as big if not bigger. Were these half-billion or so people to constitute a state — migration nation — it would rank as the world’s third-largest.

While some migrants go abroad with Ph.D.’s, most travel as Emmet did, with modest skills but fearsome motivation. The risks migrants face are widely known, including the risk of death, but the amounts they secure for their families have just recently come into view. Migrants worldwide sent home an estimated $300 billion last year — nearly three times the world’s foreign-aid budgets combined. These sums — “remittances” — bring Morocco more money than tourism does. They bring Sri Lanka more money than tea does.

The numbers, which have doubled in the past five years, have riveted the attention of development experts who once paid them little mind. One study after another has examined how private money, in the form of remittances, might serve the public good. A growing number of economists see migrants, and the money they send home, as a part of the solution to global poverty. Read more, to go:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/magazine/22Workers.t.html?ei=5088&en=ee85518a5f1799b1&ex=1334894400&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

A BIG THANK YOU!!

I must thank Consuelo Foundation, its board and staff, and especially its CEO and President for allowing me to stay an extra week to see family and friends and to renew my acquaintance with Manila! It was truly a God-given gift!

I hope this blog will express just how wonderful my time with them was and how profound a visit it was. Don't know what they will do with the 7 hours of footage I shot and don't know what kinds of work or projects will flow from this trip as their guest filmmaker. But I am hoping this beautiful trip will be the start of a wonderful friendship between us. Thanks Consuelo staff, thanks Ray, thanks Geri and Board members!