Art Sulit's Travel Pictures, Part III
Maryland, St. Clement's Island, St. Mary's County, site of the landing of the Ark and the Dove. These ships carried Roman Catholics from England under protection of Lord Baltimore, and nephew, Lord Calvert (see Calvert County, St. Mary's County) This is where the first Catholic Mass was given in America, by Father Andrew White in the mid-1600's. I am flying a Cessna 182 over the islands, rented from the Patuxent River Naval Air Station where I once worked. 1994
Washington D.C. as seen from the four corners of the Washington Monument. 1993. White House, Reflection pool-Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial. 4th picture not included, because it did not come out well.
Hearst Castle, CA 1977. William Randolph Hearst was a famous baron of "yellow journalism" until the mid 1900's.
Disneyland Casle, rumored to be based on King Ludwig's Castle Neuschwanstein. Ludwig of Bavaria was a great admirer and patron of Wagner.
Early Music Awards & models, mostly 1st place IL state organ competitions, except for one 3rd place as a 12 yr. old in a Master's division against 24 year old music majors (the tall one).
Phillippines, 1996?
1986 Deep sea fishing near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Cousins Victor (now M.D.) holding a huge blue, sister Eileen and Anna (now J.D.)
Biltmore, the Vanderbilt Mansion, Asheville, NC, also visiting nearby Duke University, Marlborough cigarette plants, and Furniture Dealer's convention in 1996. With coloratura soprano Victoria Sherr & friends.
Phillippines August 5 - August 30 2002
Historic Island guarding mouth of Manila Bay, where MacArthur escaped in 1942 just prior to Japanese occupation, later to say, "I shall return!" In Spanish, means "Corrector", a primary point of entry to process paperwork and ensure safe cargo and disease control. See Macario Peralta for the story on how MacArthur was able to finally return, 2-1/2 years later, in the major landing at Leyte.
(rich & famous, actors, politicians, benefactors, oppressors. Pesos exchange rate vs. American dollar: 52:1) Among its residents are former president Ramos (the General who led the overthrow of the Marcos government), one of the top movie stars Aga Mullach and his beautiful wife, Charlene Gonzalez, the wife of the Prince of Brunei, some Phillippine billionaire owners of San Miguel beer.
Relative's Beautiful Home Alabang
Alabang Country Club I worked out in their club, and didn't know until later that some were billionaires. My aunt said that one of such friends likes to "lead a simple life." Now, the term "Phillippine Billionaire" might be misleading, since the peso exchange rate to the American dollar is approx 50:1.
St. James Cathedral, Alabang Like many churches in the Phillippines, this one is open-air. The side barn doors are all open with fans running, because it is HOT.
Dirty Quezon City Teacher's Village
(Old residences of University of Phillippines professors.) Used to be a bucolic, upper-middle-class community where kids can play ball in the yards and open streets. Now it is a walled & barbed-wired town of fortresses bristling with sharp glass shards, trying in vain to "keep out" the urban decay. It's too bad, because the noise of the vehicles outside often prevents ones peaceful sleep.
Some shortsighted people blame it merely on explosive population growth of the Phillippines, from 30 million in early 70's to 70+ million now. I disagree. This puts an unnatural blame on the wrong people, just for having sex. After all, economists acknowledge, without natural population growth, there is no real growth in the economy, in terms of the "size of market" and other key stimulants.
Population control programs are often created in isolated cities, where congestion is more of a problem, but foisted onto the provinces, where overcrowdedness is not a problem at all. Dense population centers only take up far less than .1 percent of available land. It seems insane for these "few" to impose their unnatural policies upon the rest of the land when they should instead think in terms of expanding outward to wide open spaces still available everywhere.
Advancement throughout history should be given proper credit to growth of population, for the increased manpower and building it has enabled, and globalization of markets. Technology requires significant brainpower. It might make more sense to manage resources to encourage growth of new minds to untapped regions, rather than restriction/constriction of it. The former is what intelligent artists might help in. The latter is a "brute force" approach used typically by less-cultured people, which, like Stalinism, encroaches on natural human rights. For instance, a thriving arts region tends to attract residents, technology, jobs and so on even to remote areas. And it also takes civic leaders and businesspeople with an artistic mind and economical sense to help make those happen. These people could really use training in the Arts, to help encourage thinking out of the box, and not just accept everything the books and college courses tell them.
A better perspective is to examine the relative capacities of crowded regions, and plan the economic development of other regions which can absorb this excess capacity. Use natural economic approaches, not unnatural behavioral ones. I've seen the many beautiful and clean provinces where there's more than ample space for growth. Such approaches have worked successfully before. The only impediment to such solutions is the mind, and culture which influences the mind. So part of the solution in the overall economic big picture has to include better education in the Arts, as a stimulant to new ways of seeing things.
Quezon City House (Dr. Raymond Sulit, Jun+Dr. Leia DelRosario Sulit, & Ronald)
Jeepney vehicle emissions and traffic jams are a major political and economic problem. Squatters are huge populations of people who build their homes on public or private property, without permits, often out of junkyard parts. There are too many laws passed already attempting to stem these, but no way to enforce them.
Perhaps it has more to do with greed and infighting endemic to the Filipino people, more so than other races. Even in America, it is hard to get Filipinos to cooperate together for a group cause or a business, despite having individuals of astounding creativity and intelligence. Similar to Americans like Bob Moog, they often come up with the invention, but other nationalities like Japan end up exploitig the product. For instance, the Florescent bulb, by Ray Flores, the moon rover, the F-16 Ejection seat by Vince Strattan, Sr. and numerous biotechnical & pharmaceutical advances.
Many unfortunately are easily insulted, taking trivial things as personal when it is really nothing at all in the larger scheme of things. In many respects, their reputation for arguing is similar to that of our Judaic forefathers, whom most Filipinos descended from (see Indo-Pacific History Books). That is the cause for oft derogatory remarks by outsiders, and even amongst ourselves (which are well deserved). Many wealthy Filipinos themselves acknowledge this to be true, who once started out as idealists, but instead give up on their own kind and now fend for themselves. One lady, Vice President of a major International bank, says, "The Phillippines needs a dictator, a strong man. Marcos could have been that man, but screwed up royally."
The Chinese, on the other hand, (at the risk of some unintended stereotyping), seem more able to take simple concepts, and work together with their families or groups to see them through to high commercial success. This is not to say they haven't suffered serious urban decay in their own cities; but the idea of pooling relative's resources together and working hard doing menial work is an admirable and notable successful one. If Filipinos would learn from that example, and learn to appreciate higher arts, they could be once again become a formidable economic force to reckon with. It's about time they've earned back their legendary title, 'The Pearl of the Orient'.
Some Governors would like to forcibly relocate the squatters to the cleaner provinces. However, still there is much basic infrastructure not yet existing in many regions, such as stable water pressure, electricity, and other amenities we in the western nations have come to take for granted.
One problem is that people always dream of opportunities in the "big city", only to find their dreams spoiled by harsh reality of garbage and disease in the streets, This is true in Manila just as in the slum areas of New York or Los Angeles--causing great congestion there as well. As long as people "dream" of those places, the tide of population influx will be difficult to stop. However, there is ample opportunity to create other dream cities, or small towns with access to big-city amenities (such as well-stocked video stores, malls, movie-houses, grocery marts, home hardware and restaurants), to divert much of the tide. This is the challenge of the Century, and the transformation of Asia hangs much in this balance.
Phillippine Women's University: Dr. Licorice Kasilag's World Music Museum
(Memorabilia of my famous musical grandaunt, on Dirty Nakpil and Taft Ave, Manila) Lucrecia "King" Kasilag has been hailed an "Ambassador of Music". In her travels around the world, she has entertained US and Chinese Presidents, appeared on famous TV shows (like Ed Sullivan's), and brought a healthy dialogue between East and West. It is unfortunate that most of the rest of the Phillippines does not seem to remember her contributions any more, and instead watches these dumb game shows like spinning the head and walking the plank on ABS-CBN. What a waste of economic resources.
THE PROVINCES
(Clean air, & cool palm-tree breeze at last!) Marinduque is called the "Heart of the Phillippines", literally located at the center of the long chain of isles, and shaped like a heart. It is a somewhat backwards island. You have to fly or boat to Manila to get things like current DVD movie titles, eclectic groceries, clothing and so on. However, it is a bustling island full of great productive output. Amongst its chief exports are Coconuts, Mahogany, rice, and other handmade and manufactured goods. It used to be an exporter of Copper, but the abuses of the infamous MarCopper mines have left large regions permanently damaged from chemical disease and pollution.
Marinduque, Barrio Folk, Farms
Animals Carabao, Calesa and more
Playing w Butikes Tiny cute wall lizards.
Boac, Marinduque Cathedral Very old Spanish site still in use today
Sulit Gas Station Petron, the conglomerate now owned by Arabs
Marinduque Huts Quintessential Nipas.
Leaving Phillippines:
Family People (look at red MG trick)