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Post by chuckmorford on Aug 16, 2007 8:23:27 GMT 8
I have been associated with Paul and others visiting the Island several times. As I read through the post I see that I am not the only one concerned about the islands future. Progress is made but painfully slow. Some times its not progress at all (92nd garage). I think we all have a vision as to what it could be but feel powerless to implement what needs to be done. I am not sure of those in charge have a vision for sustainable tourism or is Corregidor just a backwater in the scheme of political red tape. As all who have visited the island can attest, other than an occasional group staying in the hotel (except Karl) when we visit it is usually just a small group of us. That’s great for breakfast and dinner service but shows the problem. You have to follow the formula Interest=Tourism=$=jobs and improvements. While the boats seem to run everyday the majority of people coming to the island do so out of curiosity, something to do and will probably never make a second visit. I am not privy to the financials but evidently it is not enough to build up the islands infrastructure. We have an Island in Michigan called Macinaw Island. It is quite a successful tourist destination and should be a subject of study by those in charge. The Island has 1 intact fort which probably dates back to the 1700's. Because we have winter it is generally not visited year round. Access to the island is also by ferry as well as I believe a small airfield-sounding familiar? Vehicles are also banned from the island. Michigan govt has a meeting in the main hotel on the island yearly. The movie "Somewhere In Time" starring Christopher Reeves and Jane Seymour was made on this Island. The island contains many bed and breakfast which are privately owned with mainstreet containing historic buildings. These contain restaurants, souvenir, and fudge shops. It is a marriage of government and private enterprise. This has been a successful formula with Michigan residents alone visiting several times in their life times. If you want tourism you have to be a tourist first and a bureaucrat second. Considering Corregidor I would like to propose some ideas that I think would make Corregidor a destination ($) 1) Re-open the golf course. Who can deny the interest in golf and the big money associated with it. I am not a golfer myself unless you have a beer cart. But I believe there is a hell of a lot of Japanese who pay through the nose to play in Japan. I gladly would except a cash infusion from these tourist. Hell they bombed it first, let them help reconstruct it through tourist cash. Do it right and I expect the airstrip will be getting more use as well. A) Reconstruct club house. B) Water collection 2) Set up tourist village "Barrio San Jose" 3) Restore rail lines and stations. Will make for a much better tour 4) Add bike rentals 5) Build a disappearing gun platform to replace a missing gun. Made out of fiberglass-has been done in U.S. fort. Additionally this would be able to fire (for effect) not breaking any windows or firing shells. Gun demonstration crew loading firing, tracking/aiming etc. 6) Restore one of the quarters houses topside (on the row with the vine house). "How they lived" www.mackinacparks.com/Please note that nothing I am proposing is affecting any historical structure or site in a negative way. 7) Weekend at the movies- Set up a projector and movie screen at the topside theatre with a few chairs-weather permitting. ok add a popcorn machine and pop
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Post by EXO on Aug 17, 2007 18:02:43 GMT 8
Before we get ourselves into a comparison of “wish lists,” the years have taught me that there are some significant constraints placed upon CFI by their political masters, and which tie their hands. Of course, these constraints effectively reduce the long term income potential of the island, and political masters don’t compensate CFI anywhere near adequately for the price of their decisions. This is not a shot at any political individual. When did a political master, anywhere, ever compensate adequately for their decisions? I can’t say that I disagree with one of the decisions, though. That decision is to try to keep the Memorial Zone unsullied by commercial interests. And no one quite knows how to sully as effectively as the usual bunch of former mayors, former bureaucrats, and former generals who were just thrown out of Dewey, oops, Rojas Blvd’s shoreline walk. Sullying is something that influential persons do well here. It’s better to keep the merchants from the temple, and to keep the Memorial Zone a place of introspection, retrospection, and quiet contemplation. Plus a tour bus, of course. We’re generally pretty safe from a Quick-E-Mart at Topside, though. Corregidor has seen all too many dreams and dreamers come and go, because the truth of it is that there’s just no money in investing in it, as the numbers of tourists and the price per head just haven’t made it a prospective goldmine for anyone. They have paid their tour fee, and they don’t want o spend much more. Attempts to bring in competition (another tour operator) only divided an already limited cake into even smaller pieces, and ultimately did not improve the island, because businesses which make no profit do not reinvest in infrastructure. One need only look at the shells of former businesses which have appeared, and disappeared from there. Personally, I think there's a commercial curse on the 92nd Garage. Who'd want to holiday at the site of a war crime? The way that Corregidor needs to develop is to find another aspect of tourism which is consistent with its current market, in the sense that it addstourists who do not clash with the present market. I believe that new market should be the ECO-TOURISM market. This requires some pretty serious adjustments of thought and conduct, something which I am not convinced is possible under the prevailing circumstances. Of interest is the damage that is being done to the Corregidor environment by the failure to implement waste management laws. For this to happen would truly be a case of the tail wagging the dog, because Manila bay suffers from pollution from industries which dump their effluents (often toxic) in the bay or in its estuaries, as well as from commercial activities and domestic sewage. Manila Bay is a huge floating dump for the whole of Metro Manila and the other coastal provinces from the Bataan peninsula down to Cavite. The huge volume of plastic trash which regularly finds its way to this important body of water impacts greatly on the sea—suffocating vital marine ecosystems and the plant, animal, and human lives that these support. Along with less visible but equally harmful pollutants, plastics have smothered the bay’s mangrove, sea grass, and coral ecosystems, and as in other coastal areas where plastic trash predominates, have led to the death of birds and marine animals via ingestion or entanglement. Corrregidor’s shores are being choked by tons of solid pollutants, necessitating remedial action. CFI have taken some action, and though I have views concerning it (which I shall not go into here), I say that on the balance, they deserve a good report card. Degradation of Manila Bay has long ago reached alarming levels (ie levels which would alarm any objective examiner), directly affecting the health and livelihoods of around 10 million people living in the vicinity. And the Government here can be very commercial - pandering to its financial fair weather friends and political backers, the benefit of the population comes a sorry third. Heck, if you can’t breathe fresh air here, what chance an Eco Tourism infrastructure on Corregidor? My prediction? Blah, blah, blah, more of the same, if it doesn’t get worse. Besides, I hear around the traps that there’s moves to unhorse Col. Matibag (head of CFI), and replace him with some familial acquaintance of a very close friend of the President. There’s no talk about what benefit this would be to Corregidor at all, what core competency the new broom has shown, and I dearly believe that as a sinecure, running the CFI is probably as thankless a job as you can get for many miles. (A wage, a nice office, and all the sea travel you can get provided it’s limited to Manila Bay.) Just when Corregidor is starting to show some improvement (and I think the Middleside works are a definite improvement, notwithstanding a heap of mudslinging earlier this year!) someone wants to pull a few political strings and stunts to change the game. Hasn’t anyone learned anything? Political interference, at the behest of influential glitterati and close personal friends of the Powerful, is the fastest way towards a lack of confidence in the competence of any appointee. If they were any d**n good for the greater good, they wouldn’t need back-room assistance to get a government job, would they? Come on guys, go “improve” the Post Office, the Bureau of Customs, or the Bureau of Internal Revenue, there ain’t no money here. Now, I am already on record as saying that I don’t always see eye to eye with Col.Matibag, but one of his (very) good points is that he listens. I am sure I will be able to get a smile from him next time we meet by saying that I would much prefer him, as the devil I know, than the devil I don’t. I’d like to know what his “wish list” is.
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Post by chuckmorford on Aug 18, 2007 8:35:55 GMT 8
You know the politics and the players probably better than anyone. I think you will have to better define eco-tourism for me. If it means cleaning up your mess thats a no brainer. No appeal in a dump. If your talking about wild life on the Island such as getting rid of the cats and having a large variety of birds is a nice draw. In any case it takes money to make money. If Corregidor does not have a real economy then the elements will continue to cause deterioration of the structures until few buildings remain and the rest have collapsed into rubble. Aside from the fact that Corregidor was a fort it was a microcosim of a nation or city in that it had in a sense its own economy and neighbor hoods and business like any modern city of the day. What Corregidor was before the war is as much an interesting part of its history at least as much as what it suffered. That is a part of its history that demonstrated to a much lesser degree. How they lived is whats missing. If we can do it and be sucessfull at it in every turn then someone has to point them in thr right direction. We preserve it, demonstrate it and sell it.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2007 16:04:35 GMT 8
unfortunately, i too must take a dim pessimistic view of the state of affairs with regards to the island. as i have stated in other posts, these things are mere symptoms of greater ills in the philippines. and the political aspect of it is just the tip of a much larger iceberg.
while it may be true that "it takes money to make money," the political establishment in the philippines, whether it be administration, opposition, or otherwise, is hell bent on making money with as little infusion of cash as possible, in order to reap the greatest reward possible, at the earliest possible time, such that they can line the pockets as much as possible, and spend the money in the fastest time possible. this is not a new development. this is a problem that has persisted not on the order of years, but on the scale of decades, and even hundreds of years. sad to say, and speaking as a filipino, we do have an attitude of wanting it all, right away, and not having to work for it. the habits of the politicians are merely a reflection of the prevailing attitudes of the governed.
the situation is compounded by the fact that even with all the inherent corruption, the philippines is a country in dire need of rebuilding. the nation's infrastructure is decayed and incapable of handling the transport of its exploding population. i cannot provide basic services such as health care, sanitation, etc. its education system is falling apart. people are forced to leave the country to seek decent work. many live in squatter areas. as much as there is value in preserving a nation's heritage, it is forced to take a back seat to more basic, fundamental needs.
add to that a rampant, nationwide contempt for all things historical (ever seen the metropolitan theater in lawton park? what ever happened to the jai lai palace?) perhaps there are collective nightmares about having survived past upheavals and politicians. or maybe it's past nightmares about really, really boring history classes in school, where students spoon-fed useless data about things that happened in the past, and are asked to regurgitate them (case in point, the infamous rizal class in college -- i'm told a common question on final exams is "what are jose rizal's middle names.....i rest my case).
all of this translates into indifference on the part of those who should be responsible for corregidor's upkeep and maintenance -- "why spend what little pittance we are alotted on a bunch of rusting ruins that no one but a few foreign tourists really wants to see.....let's go put up more resorts in boracay."
as much as i, like many others, have dreamt and had visions about what might be possible, the unfortunate truth is that beyond those of us who frequent this and other sites, there are few others who have the capability of even grasping our sentiments. as much as the ideas proposed on this thread are absolutely wonderful, i think if these were proposed to the decision-makers, it would merely illicit a "deer-with-the headlights in its face" look, and a corresponding "WHY?!" (yup, your proposal would be so far beyond any of their comprehensions).
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Post by chuckmorford on Aug 18, 2007 18:47:41 GMT 8
I have no doubt you and Paul are both right. I am forever an optmist. It is preaching to the choir as they probably do not read such threads and I doubt it will ever be presented up the food chain in a proper proposal. I suppose we should be gratefull they have done any thing at all. At least they stopped the inevitable scrapping of every gun and piece of rebar. I would be curious if visitors are ever polled? 1) What they liked 2) What they disliked 3) What they would like to see/suggestions Sorry no waterslides or ferris wheels
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Post by Passer By on Aug 21, 2007 21:10:30 GMT 8
In a Corregidor only sense, Sun Cruises does poll visitors to the island - by giving them a comment sheet on the boat back to Manila. However, Sun wastes the opportunity to ask those questions by directing the questions towards comments about Sun Cruises, not about likes/dislikes/suggestions for improvement of Corregdor overall. I conclude from this that drdemented is right - there are greater ills, and one of them is the failure of the body politic. That being so, the Philippines will begin to improve markedly only when the majority of people who can emigrate to the US (a) do not and (b) stop treating their motherland as a waiting room. Passer By
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Post by Anon on Aug 22, 2007 15:31:20 GMT 8
I don’t accept that there is an indifference on the part of CFI for Corregidor’s upkeep and maintenance. The CFI is at the lowest level of funding, and gets only what trickles down after higher government has had its fill. CFI are caught in a “would if they could, but can’t so they won’t” position when it comes to major investment. The indifference is higher up than CFI could ever hope to reach. At levels far above CFI, levels which it cannot hope to reach, there is a political indifference, a shadow world of smoke and mirrors which allows Senators, Congressmen, Cabinet Members and powerful bureaucratic pigs at the trough to lead wondrous lifestyles of travel and privilege, and to amass great fortunes and assets far beyond their honest wages. There is a phrase here which, it seems to the mere outsider, justifies instutionalised corruption, and the reliance upon patronage par excellence. It’s a phrase, or rather an institution that has itself been borrowed from the US - “the pork barrel.” Except here, they have taken it to such a degree of expertise, that there does not seem to be any pretence at political philosophy beyond that of power and expediency. There isn’t, as far as I can see, a “Republican style vs. Democrat style” philosophical debate over the direction in which the country is to develop, or how it is to be brought back from the abyss. There’s not a liberal vs conservative debate here., There seem to be only two so-called political groupings – those who reflect in the glorious light of the Presidency( and thus have access to the pork barrel,) and those who are denied it. Political philosophy is an expediency, second to having big-money backers, and powerful friends and allies. Corregidor is just one of many pieces of infrastructure in a country full of dire needs of rebuilding.
For those who might ever hope for redress, despair – why would anyone who holds four aces call for a fresh deal?
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Post by chuckmorford on Aug 24, 2007 5:11:28 GMT 8
Be that as it may we also have a saying "There are those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what happened". I have no doubt that what you say is true world wide, in govts to a more or lesser degree. I have no doubt that things are tough in the Philippino economy with too many people and to few good paying jobs. Makes me wonder why China is doing so well. I am neither a Phillipino nor a resident but if I want to see something happen here in the U.S. I at least email my representative along with a whole lot of other people. If I want to dig deeper on a subject then I am going to find out who's who in the zoo. Find out everyone involved, and put a suggestion in the right ears. Besides if 4 aces are great 5 are better. We also have a saying here "Follow the money"
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2007 11:47:32 GMT 8
i apologize if i sound sarcastic, but if you were to write your congressman in the philippines, you would get one of the following responses:
1. "show me the money" (they prefer their bribes in greenbacks, and it in no way obliges them to do as you ask) 2. he will ask, "how could help my re-election/chances at gaining a senatorial seat/attempts to become president of the republic". 3. he will laugh his arse off 4. toss your email in the wastebasket.
for the philippine politician, the only project that is worthwhile is one that allows him to put up a sign that says "this waiting shed was a priority project of congressman......."
for those of you in this forum that do not have ready access to news in the philippines, let me enlighten you with one example -- in this case the trials and tribulations of the new international airport in manila.
originally, the plan was to convert the former clark field into the main entry point for travellers to the philippines. it was ideal because of large runways and lots of space for terminals. travelers to manila would be sent via high-speed rail to the former fort william mckinley (now fort bonifacio) where they may connect with other transport.
with a change in administration, the plan was dropped in favor of building a 3rd terminal at the already congested ninoy aquino international airport. small runway (we are talking about the former nichols field) which accomodates international and domestic flights, as well as the philippine air force. the contract was awarded to a german consortium on a build/lease/transfer basis. the germans poured billions into the project on the "promise" that upon completion they would be reimbursed.
in comes another administration. airport is completed. days after completion, the government declares the contract null and void. the germans are left holding the bag for the bill. two years later, despite promises from the government every so often that the airport would open in due course, it sits there with no planes, no passengers.....nothing.
there are lots of other examples like this.
such is the sad state of affairs in the philippines.
we are all talk, yet no substance. we have leaders who do not lead, and whose priorities are their own self interest and not the common good. you speak of putting suggestions in the right ears, but there are no "right ears" in the philippines. one may "follow the money", but the only path it seems to follow is out of the pockets of those who are forced to work 10-11 months out of the year in places where they are treated as second class human beings, and right into the hands of corrupt politicians and elitist businessmen who have only pluck the dollar bills out of peoples hands just as soon as it is ripe enough.
just to give you readers a bit of perspective, i am of pinoy descent, but was born and raised in the states. i have just returned from 7 long years in the philippines trying to get a medical degree. i arrived hopeful and idealistic. people seemed sincerely trying to make changes in the country. but as time went on, it became apparent that old habits die hard. for the powers that be there, greed is the order of the day. and because of that, out in the streets and the squatter areas, survival of the fittest was the name of the game. having to watch patient after patient die because they couldn't afford even the most basic of medical supplies (because the governement doesn't have the funds to provide for it), will wean you off your idealism really quickly (thankfully, not completely).
i want to believe there is hope. i don't hold anyone's idealism against them, for i would like to have that idealism as well. corregidor is one of the few true bright spots -- it is clean, picturesque, serene, beautiful, you name it. the occasional floating trash that has made the 26 mile trek from metro manila does spoil it, but only for a moment. i hope that those of us who do believe can find innovative and realistic solutions. it will take small, but sure steps. as for the politicians, they should heed the advice of general patton ("lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.")
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Post by chuckmorford on Aug 25, 2007 21:43:09 GMT 8
I respect your experience as well as others who have had to pad peoples pockets to get things done. I do think however that in the case of Corregidor it may not always be that way. It is an important part of Philippino history or today the entire island would be inhabited by squaters and every piece of metal gone courtesy of scrappers, every building reclaimed by the jungle. Or just as bad the island sold off for developers for what ever purpose.
It is also a fact that some money is put into projects from time to time. Case in point is middleside barracks. Since this building housed Philippine Scouts then the funding may be more of a national interest. What it does show is that someone(s) has an interest in this history(in addition to the rest of what you have cited).
My guess is someone(s) lobbied someone(s) for the funds. So it is possible we have some partial allies somewhere. Perhaps retired military; I don't know. But it is advancement vs maintaining the status quo. By the way I have no problem with it and why it was chosen as long as its being done right. I am interested in all of it.
My point is if you don't try you will never know. Even a child is more optomistic with his parents in a toy store. I am not being sarcastic or demeaning. We may not be able to influence things at the highest level but we will never influence things at the lowest level. Investigating how the Middleside project came about may certainly be a key to truly understanding the politics.
Once that is accomplished we then may be able to influence projects. Anything we propose must be done professionally like any buisness would do to have any impact. A simple suggestion would be forgotten after dinner.
Lets try something simple like getting simple surveys as I have previously proposed handed out by the tour drivers on their Corregidor experience.
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