by Maria Bratikova

Fairness and Justice are cousins. . .

To be veddy veddy fair, objective and honest, our ports (air or sea) are a cause of yuuuge embarrassments to visitors. Not only during this presidency but also during past presidencies. And that‘s under presidents in almost 80 years! It is a stretch to blame Marcos for an inefficiency that germinated even before 1948 in relationship to our Manila International Airport which, by the way, was modernised (according to the modernness prevailing in the 70‘s. . .) when Marcos was president from 1965 to 1986. That Marcos had an edifice complex did not come about just for want of sloganised rebranding.

I call myself a traveller. I‘ve been to more than half
of the listed number of UN members and signatories.
I‘ve been to more capital cities than the number of
countries I’ve visited. I can say with candid impartiality that the provincial airports of Surat Thani, Koh Samui (both now international) and Pattaya (can fly direct from Hamburg now) in Thailand can easily better our international airports (except for our Clark, which is really “international“ in thoughts and in words and in deed!).

Going places gives one a culture shock when
entering gateways to our country, be it localised like
hospitals, schools, public offices, public toilets! Or
internationalised like our seaports and airports. Going places takes forever. Surface travel from Manila to 300 km to the North (like Isabela) takes 12 (if you are lucky) to 18 hours (you‘ll wish you were comatised the whole journey !!!!!!!!!). To compare: flying time from Zürich through Doha to Manila is between 16-17 hours, add a 3-hour lay-over.

Visiting attractions here is a contradiction: boring and stressful. You like to fly to Laoag City? Fine from Manila. You‘d also like to visit Cebu: fly back to Manila then fly to Cebu. Return to Laoag? Fly first to Manila then fly to Laoag! Allow each leg an overnighter in the common denominator called Manila. You‘ll
squander time, efforts, moolah, patience, sanity in tripples each!

In comparison, you can visit attractions in most cities of the world by the hop in-hop out buses. I once did Scotland from top to bottom in one day on a bus (Edindurgh-Inverness-Edinburgh) , organised by the Scotland Tourist Authority. Granted, Scotland is one mass of land at almost 450 km north to south,
PH is almost 2K from north to south on sporadically scattered islands.

And you think our ports are the problem?
And it‘s Marcos the culprit? Tell me, how long had he
been president? How long does it take to build a road? In my province, a ten-meter road is constructed every before-election time and only the half lane. The next ten-meter on the other lane would be for the next election, by then the existing 10-meter half lane would be in need of total renovation.

Our Bulacan airport may be ready for use in 2027 or 2028. Groundbreaking for this project was 2020, Duterte-time. Who to blame for this singular project should it not be completed before BBM steps down?

Fairness is a virtue. Biased is a character flaw, a weakness.