BarkGrowlBite is back from my Christmas-New Year’s trip to the Philippines where I experienced the thrill of a lifetime. I managed to get a private meeting with that nation’s president.
While touring the capital, I went up to the main gate of Malacañan Palace. I identified myself to a guard as a former American narcotics officer and founder of the Texas Narcotics Officers Association and asked him if it was possible to meet Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte. After a moment he asked for my passport and told me to wait. About 20 minutes later he returned and told me to follow him.
To my amazement I was ushered into the president’s office. President Duterte greeted me with open arms. He took me outdoors to a veranda where we talked for about half-an-hour. He offered me a Cuban cigar and we had a couple of San Miguel beers.
We talked about the drug problem differences between our respective countries. I complimented him for his zero tolerance policy, even though that has resulted in the extrajudicial killings of more than 6,000 Filipino drug users and dealers since he took office last April. President Dutertr said he was determined not to let the Philippines become a nation of drug users like the U.S. I also told him he need not apologize for calling President Obama a "son-of-a-bitch," adding that most American cops agree with him.
There was only an interpreter with us, but we didn’t need him as President Duterte spoke and understood English pretty well.
Near the end of our chitchat, the president made a phone call. A few minutes later, a soldier came out carrying a small wooden box. I was almost floored when the president awarded me the Philippine Medal of Justice. Wow, diid my head ever swell up.
As I left, proudly wearing my Medal of Justice, President Duterte told me that any time I was in the Philippines, I was welcome to come by and visit him. Of course, I thanked him for his gracious hospitality and for awarding me the medal.
When I got to the palace gate, the guard returned my passport. As I noted, this meeting was the thrill of a lifetime.
Now on to other aspects of my trip. The Filipinos sure know how to celebrate New Year’s. More than 200 houses burned to the ground in Cebu City when they were set ablaze by fireworks. The Filipinos started setting off firecrackers the day before Christmas and did not stop until after New Year’s Day. Well, at least they did not fire guns in the air like the idiots in Houston do.
I attended a New Year’s Eve party at the same small resort where my dear friends Bert and Jingjing got married. The resort is within walking distance of their home. The celebrants were mostly Germans and their Filipino wives or girlfriends. The resort charged 1,250 pesos ($25) for the party. For that you got a buffet dinner and all the beer and wine you could drink.
The resort put on some good entertainment. It started out with a small band whose singer performed in English. He was pretty good. Then came a musical stage show featuring part of "The West Side Story,” and progressing to “the Lion King,” complete with those stilted giraffes and the zebras. After the show, I went to the restroom where, to my surprise, I saw that all the performers were teenagers. They had really put on a good show.
Then a dance band took over. Its lead singer was a swell-looking chick who was really good in belting out a bunch of songs. For 25 bucks, that was a great way to ring in the New Year.
On New Year’s Day, Bert, Jingjing and I just spent the day recuperating from all the beer we drank at the party.
Speaking of Jingjing, her family lives on Mindanao Island where a Moro rebellion has been going on since, it seems like forever, despite stinging defeats by the American military during the early 1900s when our soldiers exploited Muslim taboos by wrapping dead Moros in pig's skin and stuffing their mouths with pork. Her family’s farm and plantation gets raided by Moro militia units from time to time. The Moros take all the food they can carry off and extort protection money from Jingjing’s family. Occasionally they can hear the rat-tat-tat of gunfire in the distance.
During my visit, Bert and I went to the market in a nearby town. I had also been there in 2015 wehen he and Jingjing got married. The place is jam-packed with people. They sell live pigs, goats and fowl there, as well as clothing and cheap jewelry. There is also a watch repairman. Stall after stall sells pork and chicken, strips of which are hung from clothes lines. There are also stalls that display piles of fish for sale. The flies were having a feast and the stench is, to put it mildly, gut wrenching.
Bert, Jingjing and I also had dinner twice at a small bar and restaurant owned by a German butcher. His Filipino wife cooked us a couple of great German meals. Of course we also drank some San Miguel beers and the butcher served us several shots of Jägermeister schnapps. Man, that Jägermeister made my ears ring. (The first thing I did after I got back home was to buy a bottle, take it over to my sick friend Lew, and have a shot with him.)
Getting around Cebu Island is a thrill in itself. Everyone uses the main highway to get around – buses, 18-wheelers, pedicabs, motorcycles, cars, pedicabs, bicycles, pedestrians and more pedicabs. The pedicabs are either motorized or operated by some poor soul pedaling away.
Riding in the back of a pedicab is a hair-raising experience. There’s nothing like having a big bus come up and almost touch your feet. Since Filipinos tend to be small, my butt was cramped into a small seat.
Everyone drives along blowing their horns, not to tell some dickhead to get out of the way, but rather to warn the pedicab drivers and pedestrians that they are about to be passed, usually on the wrong side of the road. With everyone dodging from one side to the other, it’s amazing that there are few head-on collisions.
By contrast, back home in Houston you’re liable to get shot if you blow your car horn at some irate NRA member who believes he should be free to use the roadway without the annoyance of having another driver blow a horn at him.
The hospitality shown me by Bert and Jingjing was second to none. I was treated like family. It’s winter in the Philippines, but the heat and high humidity was stifling. So it was good to get back to the good old USA. Unfortunately, a couple of days after my return, I came down with a bad cold. I’m still suffering from the damn thing and feel like shit. I believe I must have caught it on the plane coming back. I'm glad I got to have that shot of Jägermeister with Lew before I myself got sick.
One final note. Of course I did not get to meet with President Duterte. I was just having some fun bullshitting all of you. Had I met with the president though, I would have praised him for his no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners anti-drug policy.
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