The Outback Cafe and Carmelino's Grill

I don’t know how I ended up eating in two unassuming restaurants last week, but I’m very glad anyway that I did.

The Outback Café in DOT-accredited Swagman RPL Hotel Manila should be one of the best and most authentic Australian cuisine specialty restaurants in town. It’s not exactly first-class. Located on A. Flores Street at Ermita, right next to a number of Philippine attractions in the capital of Manila, the place feels rather like a pub in a foreign country. Very cozy. Subtle lighting. Great location. When I went there, I saw a nice little poster of Steve Irwin (who must be a hero in his country), a huge crocodile replica beside the versatile bar, two big-screen TVs playing The Australian Open, and a two-member band playing the requests of a thick, expat-filled crowd. There’s also free Wi-Fi Internet access for those who have to send E-mails while knifing away at the fabulous steaks.

Not that they serve dishes exclusively from Australia; if you prefer your breakfast, lunch, or dinner the Filipino or American way, then the extremely courteous waitresses would be happy to serve you. Whatever you order, ask for the traditional HP brown sauce – I don’t know why it’s not popular here in the Philippines, but it’s fruitier than A1 – and, of course, for a bottle of your favorite wine.

The other surprise treat I got was a Friday afternoon snack at Carmelino’s Grill, one of those hidden joints near the domestic airport. Less crowded than, say, Razon’s or Dreamhaus in Taft Avenue, the café is a perfect place to say your goodbyes to friends and family leaving on a jet plane. Or to have a cup of brewed before checking in at the airport. Or to just have a one-of-a-kind breakfast. I’m not familiar enough with the menu, but they do have a delectable array of fruit shakes and a variety of Filipino merienda choices.

Which new unadvertised places have you been to lately?

Notes from Mindanao, Pt. II

(Read Pt. I here at Attractions Philippines)

Day Two

7:28 AM: We start the day at a more reasonable time. But it’s still only seven. And I’m not a morning person. It’s going to be a long day. We’re still in Ipil, Zamboanga Sibugay. Bob and Evelyn are surveying the Mindanao map at a separate table in the yellowish hotel lobby. I’m staring at a Nokia mobile phone, left on a stool; I’m staring in a way that non-morning persons are wont to do: without purpose. Someone was charging it. That someone comes in, and he’s wearing a United Nations t-shirt. He retrieves his phone and drives off in a red pickup truck with United Nations stickers on its doors. Bob, too, watches all this happen and says, “See, if I stole that phone, the wronged owner would still have pointed at the Filipino guy here. I’m American. Evelyn is British.” Bob is right. I’m Filipino, the kind of person your mother warned you about.

10:01 AM: We’re in Dipolog City, Zamboanga del Norte. The so-called “Bottled Sardines Capital of the Philippines”. Minutes earlier Bob got rid of the vile thing called Dodol. Left it at the gas station. Well, I volunteered and left the thing under someone else’s car. The snack was successful in looking like a pile of shit. I relished the feeling of doing something obnoxious. It was just like that of a teenager.

Then we drove until we got here, here being Dipolog’s foreshore boulevard. Why, of course there’d be sardines in this city. I can smell it in the open air.

It is a lovely place, I must admit that. On one side of the boulevard there are al fresco seats under summery parasols that accommodate the food kiosk customers. Kind of like what I’d expect to see in Florida, except there’s fish instead of fruit. Not that I’d ever been to Florida. On the other side, the waves of the Sulu Sea crash against the esplanade. Surfer’s waves, maybe stronger – crashing, then ebbing, then crashing again, the water lapping up the concrete shore in a loud calming rhythm. A number of locals are casting their fishing poles into the water. The men are wearing sweaters and baseball caps. The wind is even stronger and cooler today than yesterday in Parang.

12:21 PM: Done with lunch. Went to Chowking, the one inside the mall here at gritty Osamis City, Misamis Occidental. We all ordered Spicy Beef Chao Fan with spring rolls on the side. Evelyn finished the rice, which was a minor surprise.

2:31 PM: Seem to be stuck here at the RoRo terminal. Restlessness boiling within me like water in a cauldron. We’re waiting for the ferry that will take us to Lanao del Norte. I mean to say, we’re still waiting. On the way here, I noticed that the tricycle drivers have had their rest schedules painted on the back of their vehicles (“Day Off: Tuesdays”). Very peculiar. It must be some kind of traffic scheme and not a God-then-rested-on-the-seventh-day sort of thing.

“Bob,” I mutter from the backseat, “what does RoRo stand for? And can I bring my laptop with me?” I also wonder about security in the parking area. It turns out that RoRo stands for “roll-on/roll-off”, an arrangement in which the ferry is designed to carry wheeled cargo – meaning the car, meaning the car with all our belongings, meaning even cars with frightfully dumb passengers from Manila.

3:47 PM: Happiness is a thirty-minute ferry ride from one island to the next. Osamis to Lanao del Norte. The wind is blowing furiously, and storm clouds have gathered above, forming a crown of what looks like thick, slightly used cotton buds licking the mountaintop. I am astonished by how lovely all this is. I’m actually on a RoRo boat! I don’t mind that the splashes of water from both above and below are slapping my face wet. Somehow I feel like I have been taken back to the best parts of childhood. I promise myself to report the experience to mother.

7:33 PM: Then another long drive. This time, from the seaport all the way to the former capital of Lanao del Norte, which is Iligan City. It was raining all the way. Bob, Evelyn, and I are now inside Gilee’s Café on San Miguel Street. Cozy. Candle light. Paintings and maps of Italian seaside communities on the wall. The soft and teasing pitter-patter of drizzle on the roof. Outside, groups of young and energetic Iliganons walk the lamp-lit asphalt streets and take advantage of the numbered cool summer nights.

Our group is rather interracial, and gathers a few of Bob’s friends in the city: freelance photojournalist and coffee connoisseur Bobby Timonera, French-American Marc de Piolenc and his wife Sharon, and of course Gilee. Gilee is Italian, I think. Or French. Doesn’t matter. Both will work for me. Later someone points out to me that he’s Swiss. Of course I don’t say it doesn’t matter. The Persian kebab pasta, served by Gilee himself, is all kinds of delightful.

I’m starting to get sleepy, but I manage to catch tidbits of conversations on, among other things, American Idol, homosexuality, driver’s license pictures, Iligan’s many famous waterfalls, the city’s thriving steel and cement industries, and the challenges expats have to deal with while living in as misunderstood an area as Mindanao. Such scattered talk, and for me it feels quite right to think it European.

11:56 PM: The taste of coffee lingers. I can still taste it. I’m writing alone in my Oriental-style Wi-Fi-ready P450-a-night room at Famous Pension House and I’m wide awake because of that coffee. After dinner at Gilee’s Café, Bobby took our group to his exquisitely furnished Iligan City home. This guy, apart from having arranged in his parlor a library that betrays his intelligence and good taste, also has all delicious sorts of coffee to offer his guests. Monk’s Blend from Bukidnon? Critically acclaimed beans from Sagada? Yemeni? Civet? We settled for something. I don’t remember what it was. Well, I didn’t need perking up. I didn’t want perking up.

Yet I ended up with coffee and cupcakes. Falling asleep seems unlikely now. That’s a particular danger. I’m in the blessed islands of Mindanao and I might not be able to close my eyes again. Or, at the very least, I might not be able to close my eyes for the rest of this night.

*** Attractions Philippines editor’s note: Want to share your own thoughts and stories on things to do in the Philippines, places to see, fruits to eat, cities and provinces to visit? Just E-mail us at Attractions.Philippines at Gmail dot com or send us a Twitter tweet via @attractionsPI. Thanks for visiting Attractions Philippines!

Notes from Mindanao

Today I found and opened a notebook I’d taken with me on a trip two years ago to Mindanao – a many-paged notebook, reporting a (more or less) three-day road trip. I didn’t take pictures. I remember that I’d hardly had any pocket money, and that I’d initially feared for my life.

Mindanao is the easternmost island group in the Philippines, just after Luzon and Visayas. It’s made up of a bunch of smaller islands, and it makes the world headlines frequently enough as a place that, sadly, continues to be disturbed by a number of extremist and militant Muslim groups. No one would dispute that Mindanao is a beautiful place, but at the time I was worried less about scenery than about having my name on a news ticker.

Reading these notes again, however, I remember too how I’d had the absolute time of my life. Fear, once it proved itself to be unnecessary, did not threaten to leave its traces on the pages. The notes are politically undisturbed and brave. I’m not always a brave man, and that’s why I hope you welcome these notes I now share.

Day One

4:07 AM: Sunday morning. Sun hasn’t risen. Just accepted invitation to go on a three-day road tour of the island of Mindanao with Bob (American friend) and Evelyn. Groggy and slightly uncomfortable in Bob’s car, a Nissan Adventure. Nissan Adventure: an appropriate vehicle for this trip. More sleepy than scared or excited, though. At least right now. Should be an eye-opener, especially for this Manila rat. A Kerouacian journey! Nasty motorcycle accident on Diversion Road here in Davao City, or the edge of it. Bloody helmet. Metal parts littered across the road. I can’t see the driver.

So awhile ago Bob played Chicago. Now it’s Jimmy Buffett. Na-na-na, na-na-na. Margaritaville.

I need coffee, even if it’s durian coffee.

7:31 AM: We’re in Cotabato – already. North? Or is this South Cotabato? Or Cotabato City? I’m not sure, but when was I ever sure. My first impressions of this province have been caricatured by news reports and editorials and scenes on TV and in the papers. Bombings, episodes of rebellion. Violence. Murders. Armed Muslims in intimidating skullcaps and color-coded scarves.

Seriously? This is Cotabato? Doesn’t seem as dangerous now, or as unfriendly, as its general reputation. On the contrary! Au contraire! I must learn more stylish-sounding French phrases. All the fruit vendors along the road smile. They’re pretty infectious. I wish more Filipinos would smile like that, and not just as a welcome to foreigners.

It’s so beautiful here. So beautiful, I feel like I haven’t been living. We saw the City Hall building awhile ago: very nice and mansion-y, but what do I know about architecture? The only fears I nurture, passing through, are: Bob running over these cute chickens that hurry funnily across the mountainous road (“Watch out for that chicken!”); the orthopedic implications of unhinging my jaw at the length of one of the least heralded - yet one of the most gorgeous - attractions in the Philippines, the Rio Grande de Mindanao; my committing faux pas in encounters with surprisingly friendly Muslims. Can I never talk to them about religion? Will they get offended if they see me make the Sign of the Cross? They’d probably be more tolerant.

The scenery here is luscious and green, like a golf course, with no holes, stretching to infinity.

10:18 AM: After rolling past places like Pikit, Pagcawayan, Sultan Kudarat, and a long line of what should be the tallest coconut trees I’ve ever seen in my life (and I’ve seen a lot of them), we arrive at Parang. Parang is in Maguindanao. Bob says something about this being the site of Camp Abubakar, former headquarters of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Evelyn and I are too busy looking at the crowded wet market. It’s like everyone who lives in this place works in this market. It’s like a real provincial neighborhood and everybody knows everyone’s name. I wouldn’t really know how to describe it. A man in fatigues stands in the middle of the road, directing the flow of the traffic, even though there isn’t much of it. He makes Bob roll down the driver’s window for a quick check. (“Americanos!” No, not really, the guy doesn’t ask a single question.)

On a muddy street (there’s a slight drizzle), hoards of vendors are sun-drying fish and plying their trade in Bisaya. Well, it sounds like Bisaya. Rata-tata, rata-tata. Evelyn says he can’t distinguish it from my Tagalog anyway. Mine is also rata-tata, rata-tata.

We find more vendors when we stop five minutes later at a cemented bay walk that fronts the Moro Sea, across which we’re offered a glimpse of the hills of Lanao del Sur. Manila seems so far away. The wind is making my clothes dance. I’m flying! And someone’s fishing.

1:40 AM: Bob missed the Jollibee in Pagadian, Zamboanga del Sur’s capital city. Yes, we're somehow in Zamboanga del Sur now. I’m starving. I should’ve opened my mouth when I saw the sign. Jollibee, McDonald’s, it doesn’t even matter. The next civilized commercial area is in Ipil, Zamboanga Sibugay province, over a hundred kilometers away. At least two hours! It’s rather amazing that hamburger chains have reached these far-flung areas. Well. I must be so narrow-minded I’ve always thought they existed only in Manila. In the meantime, I make do with carrot muffins and raisin-spotted banana biscuits, courtesy of Bob’s wife, Feyma. She sent us off with these home-made delights. Lovely: there’s always so much “home” in home-made.

Bob, meanwhile, is eating something called Dodol, which is a brown, thick, and sloppy Muslim delicacy. He bought it from a Muslim lady with a sort of mobile kitchen cart on the side of the road. The thing is supposed to be akin to toffee. Dodol. Frankly it looks like shit. Shit in a green plastic bag on a dashboard of a Nissan. (Bob will eventually dump the leftover in Dipolog City.) The three of us have a terrible time containing our laughter.

6:16 PM: In Ipil. Having my Jollibee fix. Finally! Two-piece Chickenjoy with extra rice. Looking out the window, I notice that there are motorbikes everywhere. Pedicabs. Festive, many-colored buntings that hang from telegraph wires. (What is this, Saigon?) And, on the sidewalks, barbecue grills with pork intestines and chicken feet on sticks. Yummy. The rising smoke mingles with the falling rain. I come from Manila where these sights aren't really rare, but everything here feels strange and seems beautiful, as in a pleasant dream. Like I’m in a Kazuo Ishiguro novel set in the tropics or something. Malleable. That’s the word I’m looking for. Malleable.

No place to sit down for a cup of coffee, though. Even Julie’s Bakeshop has run out of sachets of three-in-one. I’m absolutely stunned there’s even a Julie’s Bakeshop in here.

The men and women outside are looking at Bob and Evelyn with such curiosity! They haven’t even laid eyes on my, ahem, fuchsia shirt (pink being politically incorrect). I feel invisible now. Joe! Joe! It’s a kind of general welcome cry. For foreigners. If every Filipino can be called Juan then every foreigner can be called Joe.

7:20 PM: It’s still raining. Soaked now. I have like two t-shirts left. I couldn’t even find an umbrella in the only mall. Oh, and someone just tried to talk to me in Bisaya. I was at once flattered and stumped. Funny, because among the three of us, I’m probably the one with the vaguest idea of where we are. I can’t say someone else from my university has been here, which should make me proud of my inability to decline. Not that I have a clue where this municipality is on the map. I’m the one asking the white guys for directions!

I do know where we’re staying for the night. Metro Ipil Mandarin Hotel. Inexpensive, such as hotels in Manila never are.

The hotel staff at the lobby offers me the room service menu. I ask if they have caldereta. Not available. Crispy pata? Not available. Adobo? Not available. It turns out they can prepare only salty fried chicken. With mounds of rice. And cheap ketchup, the kind that’s sweet and where you can see the black ground pepper.

I order anyway. Afterwards I leave the dishes just outside the front door, because that’s what they told me. They’ll just pick it up. As I do just that, I notice a decaying piano in the middle of the third-floor hallway. Goosebumps. Maybe this is The Unconsoled or something.

Jicama – and the Art of Fart

Photo from Market Manila.

“Now there are three kinds of fart,” I began. “The first is called Loud and Proud. That’s the kind you don’t want to emit while inside the elevator. The second kind is called Silent but Deadly, which of course offers you the best opportunity to accuse others of what you yourself have done. The third and final one is the kind you wouldn’t want to ever expel, voluntarily or not, whether by yourself or in the presence of other people, no matter where you are, be it out in the open or in some closed space.

“It’s called Wet and Wild.”

At this, two pairs of the whitest lips on earth flung open. Mine were just as white. In any case, during that aimless lovely chat I was having with our two housekeepers, Lisa and Ambay, both from Tuguegarao City in Cagayan, I enjoyed my contributions to the conversation as much as they did theirs.

Everyone but the three of us had left the table after dinner when Lisa produced from the fridge a huge, unpeeled singkamas – popularly known as “jicama” in foreign soil: a creamy white, fibrous, juicy plant, the edible roots of which are slightly sweet and mostly tasteless.

Now, we all know that tropical fruits are one of the most compelling attractions in the Philippines. The range is endless, and we can talk about it another time, but for now one has to understand that if one ever runs out of things to do in the Philippines, which is highly unlikely, he or she can always try a tropical fruit or two. Like this singkamas thing. In the Philippines, shopping? Don’t miss the local fruit markets.

Lisa pounded the singkamas against the mat-less dinner table like an ancient gavel. “Anybody wanna piece of this?” she asked. Ah – Loud and Proud.

In countries with climates warm enough for its cultivation – countries such as China and others in Southeast Asia – singkamas is usually eaten raw. Not much was different in the “jicaman” tradition for the three of us Northerners (with common provinces in Cagayan, that is) – except that after peeling, slicing, and dicing the spherical root and then pouring table salt on the singkamas, we soon immersed it in a deep pool of vinegar. (A certified way of making one’s tummy boil and one’s, um, bowels loosen.) Apple cider would be best, but we only had a fifteen-peso glass bottle of Datu Puti white vinegar in the kitchen.

Tonight, in a trance nevertheless best described as mouth-watering, we watched the soft thin slices of an already very moist plant swim and dance in our respective bowls, absorbing as much acetic acid in the vinegar as “jicamanly” possible.

The first slice – eaten with the utilization of a silver teaspoon so we could drink a bit of the, ahem, vin aigre liqueur – was, as always, the most exquisite of all. It was perfectly salty, and sour in the most extreme, most gratifying pleasure. All the possible salivary glands were then at work. No one dared speak prematurely, certainly not among the three of us veterans, because the taste of singkamas dipped in Datu Puti vinegar always lingered in the most sensitive surfaces of the human tongue; made fiery downward passage through the winding tunnel of the esophagus; pierced violently through diaphragm to reach the stomach; and finally, provoked the intestines in a manner not unlike digging too deep to find molten lava. Ah – Silent but Deadly.

The discourse on the art of fart began sometime between our sipping one too many teaspoonfuls and craving for yet one more (“I swear this is the last!”). Ambay shared that during her early childhood days, their father would recklessly discharge intestinal gas despite the humility of their abode in the province.

“The whole family would get out of the house, all of us covering our noses,” she said. “Only Papa remained inside, probably enjoying the remnants of his after-dinner evening breeze.”

Lisa, slicing the last pieces from what remained of our shared singkamas, recounted: “There was one time when my boyfriend visited the house. I remember that mother was there to welcome him. Then I appeared, all twee and happy, when all of a sudden I felt this growl in my stomach. ‘What’s wrong?’ my boyfriend asked. I ignored him and scurried into my bedroom and locked the door. That’s when I finally farted, farted furiously and with all my might.”

“I fart all the time when I’m in an elevator on my way to meetings,” I told them. “But come this midnight don’t let me see you two spend too much time in the bathroom. Hot gas can be controlled by anyone with a persevering stomach, but this here,” raising my last slice, trickles of vinegar rolling down my thumb and index finger, “this here is all water.”

Ah – Wet and Wild.

*** Attractions Philippines editor’s note: Want to share your own thoughts and stories on things to do in the Philippines, places to see, fruits to eat, cities and provinces to visit? Just E-mail us at Attractions.Philippines at Gmail dot com or send us a Twitter tweet via @attractionsPI. Thanks for visiting Attractions Philippines!

Verse in the Metro

Photo from the Berso sa Metro Facebook Page.

Have you taken Manila’s Light Rail Transit recently (LRT)? Well, we all should – if only to wax poetic during the ride.

The Instituto Cervantes de Manila, led by Director Jose Rodriguez, and the Light Rail Transit Authority have collaborated to install posters inside the carriages of the train, posters that contain celebrated Spanish-language poems by such writers as national hero Jose Rizal, Jesús Balmori, Claro M. Recto, José Palma, and Fernando Maria Guerrero; Spanish poets Calderón de la Barca, Lope de Vega, García Lorca, Antonio Machado, Luis Cernuda, Luis Rosales, Miguel Hernández and Gil de Biedma; and Latin American writers Pablo Neruda and César Vallejo.

The poems, of course, have Filipino translations. So we can stop ogling at strangers and start memorizing lines that ought to have been familiar to us long ago.

This new promotional campaign, entitled “Berso Sa Metro (Verse in the Metro)”, was launched recently to encourage reading among Filipino commuters, as well as to strengthen the ties between Spain and the Philippines, two countries that share a common past that spanned more than 300 years. It’s also a new – albeit simple – cultural attraction in the Philippines, a country that still has plenty of traces of colonial rule and Spanish heritage.

“With almost one million commuters riding the train every day, it provides a great opportunity for the reading campaign to reach as many people as possible,” Rodriguez said.

While the LRT has usually been cited for overflow of passengers, the poems should give people something new and positive to talk about. It’s certainly one of the most unique attractions in the Philippines.

Instituto Cervantes is the cultural arm of the Spanish government that promotes and teaches the Spanish language and culture. It is the largest Spanish teaching organization worldwide, with more than seventy centers in four continents. With its collection of classic and contemporary Spanish art, literature, movies, and music, the Instituto library has become an important agent in promoting the Spanish language in the Philippines and is an indispensable source for those who are interested in Spanish and Latin American cultures.

Bohemian Boats

We found ourselves in the middle of the water in the middle of the day in the middle of the season. The mid-afternoon sun roasted us like muttons, to quote a little John Steinbeck, and we were melting like the cheese on yesterday’s pizza. Summer has officially made a blistering entrance. We were right in the middle of it.

“Let’s swim,” Marte Perez suggested.

A lovely, affable woman of whose age I shall diplomatically refuse to take an estimate, Marte dove from her husband Rolly’s pocket yacht straight into the cold waters of Taal Lake in Talisay, Batangas. Nykko Santos, a photographer friend, made a louder splash: a thunderous beckoning, it seemed, to someone who had no intention of swimming (or, to be more precise, of having his fear of the waters exposed).

But how, in my representation of a local sports magazine and of Attractions Philippines, could I have declined? “No” was not the correct answer. So I dove clumsily, although I was trembling before I even hit the waters.

Petrified, I tried to swim and take note of what was happening around me. In an event dubbed as the “Summer Messabout,” held in a Philippine beach resort called Taal Lake Yacht Club, the Philippine Home Boatbuilders Yacht Club (PHBYC) paraded a flotilla of homemade sailboats and motorboats: of different sizes, lengths (from 8 to 22 feet), and personalities. The tarpaulin sails danced with the breeze and saturated the vaporous backdrop with colors. Taal Volcano was a beauty to behold, too: a faraway mound full of textures, imaginings and mysteries.

Other PHBYC members, meanwhile, built a canoe on site – at Commodore Peter Capotosto’s Philippine beach resort – to show visitors how easy and practical the process was. Armed with pre-cut panels, epoxy, hammers, screwdrivers, power drills, a paint brush, and basic carpentry skills, the group built the 15-foot Moth in just six hours. (It was one-legged multimedia artist Cherrie Pinpin’s first canoe, but everyone took turns paddling the new boat around Taal Lake.)

Then – the back of my head resting on the pillows of water – I gazed at the vast, cloudless sky. Suddenly a single bird flew across the view. It prompted me to muse upon what Kenneth Grahame once wrote: “Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing half so much worth doing as messing about in boats.”

It was to be the epitaph for the death of my fears.

I was first to climb back on deck; Rolly followed suit. We enjoyed a wine-less conversation about his life in sailing and the prologue to that. He was from the northern province of Tuguegarao, Cagayan; attended Ateneo de Manila; studied English literature in college; photographed professionally for seven years then ran his own theater company.

“Ahoy! Ahoy!” we afterwards yelled at those who happened to sail nearby. Also at those who were on the shores of the Philippine beach resort. Roy Espiritu and Louie and Cheryl and Mario Garcia and Cherrie and Felix and Ben and Kuton – I don’t want to miss any names here – all of them waved at us as though we were friends either long-lost or newly-made. But did it matter? Was I not feeling the oats best described as bohemian? For as the sun began to set and the blue sky faded into orange, I seemed to have settled in a kind of camaraderie where I felt no storm could come. And I heard the delicate waves of the lake echo exactly where we were.

Home.

*** Attractions Philippines editor’s note: The PHBYC was formed in 2006. The boat building craft compelled the founders and members to create a web-based forum at www.pinoyboats.org, which has become PHBYC’s central point of contact. Being the country’s first virtual yacht club, the group has quickly dispelled some of the myths about boating – that it is only for the rich (building can cost just as much as a regular mobile phone!), that sailing is a difficult skill to learn (members attest that it’s way easier than riding a bike), and that water sports are very dangerous. (“It’s very safe,” said Rolly. “You’ve simply got to respect the water.”)

Sunset in Manila

Let us begin the first-ever post on Attractions Philippines by talking quickly about Manila.

Every day in the capital city of the Philippines, there is something new to see. Something quite out of the ordinary. Something that can be classified as far more than just one of the many Philippine attractions. The ironic thing? It’s something so regular, too.

Something like the Manila sunset.

In Ilustrado, Filipino expatriate Miguel Syjuco’s acclaimed debut novel, one is offered a brief description of the sunset in Manila: “Over the bay, the sunset is starting, the famous sunset, like none anywhere else. Skeptics attribute its colors to pollution. Over there’s the land, the great gray sprawl of eleven million people living on top of each other… fourteen cities and three municipalities, skyscrapers and shanties, tumbling beyond Kilometer Zero and the heart of every Filipino, the city that gave the metro its name.”

One cannot say that he has been to the Philippines, or lived in it, or known it, without having his breath taken at least once by this pretty sight. This goes for locals and foreigners alike. It is truly one of the most popular – not to mention, important – Philippine attractions.

“Oh my goodness,” expatriates must have said, “It’s just like a screensaver!”

In the afternoons, typically in the lovely time between five o’clock and sunset, hundreds flock to the boardwalk of Roxas Boulevard, all of them eager to watch the sun dipping cautiously behind Bataan peninsula on the horizon that is, at first, gold, then dark orange, then purple. Tourists, both domestic and foreign, brandish their cameras; artists set up their easels and sit on stools to paint the vista. Anything to capture the moment, it seems. Of course, the moment is not complete without a glimpse of the tiny white dinghy slicing through the glassy waters of Manila Bay.

Government ordinance may have taken away Roxas Boulevard’s sunset-view music bars, al fresco cafes, and street performances. And ridiculous taxes may have been imposed on the enjoyment of other attractions.

Fortunately, this screensaver – this picturesque afternoon view that has come to embody the tropical beauty of the rest of the Philippine attractions – cannot be touched.

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