ANNAlysis

Speaking about the arts and environment on Thursday, 7PM at the Starbucks LEED Certified Drive Thru on 32nd and 7th streets, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig for Dialogues @ Starbucks.

I’m particularly excited because I get to talk about two things I love the most :) I was able to (successfully) marry both in two projects, the Bantayan Arts Festival and the 2010 International Coastal Cleanup we called KalikaSining.

video by Mariel Alfonso

poster by Klar Honasan

And if my sinusitis disappears along with the rains, I’ll be able to sing “Taylor the Latte Boy.” It’ll be the first time this will be performed in a Starbucks here in the Philippines. Yahooeyyy!

Thank you for the invitation, Zee and Starbucks Philippines!

On Dialogues @ Starbucks:

While the best coffees rarely need accompaniment, some of the best conversations will be had with it. The Dialogues @ Starbucks are afternoons/early evenings well spent in stimulating discussion on a wealth of topical issues.

The Dialogues promises at least one hour of meaningful discussion, a couple of inspiring characters, several unique perspectives and cups of coffee.

Four years ago, I could not imagine life without theatre. From the time I was about 12 until early last year, I was taking voice/dance lessons, teaching/participating in musical theatre workshops, rehearsing for shows and events, and performing with some of the most talented, hardworking artists that this country has to offer. But one thing led to another, and now I do what I do.

I miss the stage deeply, especially when I watch my friends perform. People ask if I have plans to go back, but sometimes I feel like I never left. My stage is just different now. Every talk/lecture/seminar/speech I give is still a performance, complete with gesticulation, animated facial expressions, and punch lines. The roles I play are different too: resource speaker, policy researcher, writer, environmental advocate, teacher. I am able to do all of these because everything I learned in life, I learned in theatre.

Theatre taught me discipline and the art of multitasking. During performances, actors don’t just think of lines and songs. We think of our microphones, costume, cues, cues of other people, choreography, and blocking. Throw in schoolwork or a day job and we have more to think about. When I was in 1st year college, I chose a 7AM-230PM schedule so I could make it to 530PM rehearsals at Repertory Philippines. I was very grade conscious then and wanted to graduate with honors, so I began projects and papers the day they were assigned so I wouldn’t procrastinate and turn in shitty work. I studied AT LEAST 2 days before an exam. I even brought homework to rehearsals/shows and asked my co-actors for help. (No less than Joel Trinidad was my human dictionary during Aladdin.) I didn’t stay up too late or get too drunk, because performing with a hangover was TORTURE.

Now I don’t believe in stress because multitasking comes naturally. I also know the importance of hard work, and how it always trumps talent.

Theatre taught me to wing it. There is absolutely no room for excuses and mediocrity on stage. The show must–and will–go on. If you forget your line, no one is going to say, “cut!” and you cannot stand still and wait for Jojo the Super Stage Manager to yell your line from the wings (“KENAT BEEE!”). IMPROVISE. If you walk into a scene with the hanger of your costume still on, you gotta act like it’s part of your costume! When something funny happens on stage that isn’t supposed to, either think of the worst possible thoughts to curb your laughter or find blocking where you can hide your face.

The work I do now? I’m making it up as I go. True story. But I’m going to keep acting like I know what I’m doing, because that’s what I learned. Sabi nga nila, fake it ’til you make it.

Theatre taught me to be a team player. Being part of a production is like being part of an athletic team, but on a MUCH grander scale. Never forget that the crew is part of that team. They create about 75% of the magic. They too need respect. BAWAL MAGING DIVA (unless you are _______. Uyyy, issue.). My experience on- and off-stage introduced me to all kinds of egos. (Generally, the greater the talent, the smaller the ego.) It’s also important to know who your friends are, keep them close, and be civil to everyone else.

Theatre taught me to be strong and brave. A rehearsal will stop because you forgot to bring in a prop. You will then be yelled at, cursed, and maybe even thrown an object at. Your director will critique every flinch, every facial expression. Your voice teacher will make you repeat a phrase 90823084 times if you’re flat/sharp, or if your breath falls short. Don’t take it personally, because they mean well. In fact, you should worry when they don’t say anything, because they probably think you don’t have what it takes to improve. This positive attitude to criticism came in handy during creative writing workshops. I definitely would not have had the courage to testify at the Senate had I not toughened up and performed in front of hundreds of people.

And last and most importantly, theatre taught me to live a life of passion. I can assure you that no one in the Philippines pursues art for money. It is done for love. We love it so much that we are smart about it; we find ways to (financially) sustain ourselves through other means. You see, the opportunity to be able to share and communicate a story to an audience has no price tag. Fortunately, the passion I gained from theatre is portable. I carry it with me wherever I go.

The rest of my petition to the universe.

4) We need to higher standards for tour guides. Tour guides who don’t love their jobs should go elsewhere!!! A tour guide is like a teacher–they can make or break your experience and love for the subject/destination.

with Carlos Celdran, the tour guide who elevated my standards

A tour guide also plays a big role in briefing tourists how to take care of the destination. Donns, Juanch, and I were FLABBERGASTED when we saw a tourist smoking and throwing his cigarette in Cagayan River while white water rafting. We paddled to fish it out. This would not have happened if the tour guide told them not to dispose of anything in the river. We cannot assume that common sense is common. Especially not in this country.

In Tuguegarao, the tour guides of Callao Cave were trained by travel photographers. HOW COOL IS THAT??!?!?!?! Our guide was like, “Jump shot dito!” He also knew how to adjust the settings so the pictures wouldn’t be blurry, so the lighting would be perfect! GALING! This is brilliant because the pictures we share/post online will look good, which could entice other people to go!

5) More street art, less billboards.

Kester in Cancun

I’ve seen a few walls with great street art in Manila. More of this please! It covers ugly graffiti and adds character. I also like street art with an advocacy, like my hero A.G. Sano, who has successfully painted 23, 000 dolphins around the Philippines to symbolize the 23, 000 dolphins being killed in Japan every year. (Visit http://thecovemovie.com for more info!)

I’d also like to see highways without billboards. They uglify the skyline. Enough with those stupid skin whitening ads. Glutamax wins worst tagline two years in a row.

Last year

I’m all for gender equality, but this one was just… Tacky.

This year (tagline loosely translates to “white skin = skin of the rich”)

Eh ano kaming maiitim, kutis mahirap?!?! Kayumanggi ang mga Pilipino, GAGO!!!!!

6) Promote local art. Performing arts, literature, and visual arts. I can’t say this enough. It makes me sad that our talent is more recognized abroad than here. Our talent is at par with Broadway and the West End. Our visual arts speak of history and stories. And don’t get me started on Philippine literature because I’ll never stop.

7) Improve sports and wellness tourism. We should take a cue from Camarines Sur. Gov. L-Ray Villafuerte practically created CWC out of nothing. Now it’s one of the top wakeboarding sites in the world. What about yoga? I met a cute guy on the plane in lotus position and I was like, “Do you do yoga?” and he said, “Yes I’m actually on the way to Thailand for a yoga retreat.” HUWAW! Namaste! People go to Thailand just to go on yoga retreats by the shore. We have yoga and shores too, hello! There was a yoga camp in Boracay recently. We can also mix yoga with another sport, like do a surf-yoga or dive-yoga thing. Bertha’s special request is to promote football tournaments ala Gothia Cup. If New York and Boston have marathons, let’s have a Luzviminda marathon para inter-island. Fun fact: Joy Rojas was the first woman to run from Luzon to Mindanao.

8) Scuba diving deserves its own number.

Jonat took this picture at a museum in San Francisco

We have a Philippine Commission on Sports Scuba Diving under the DOT. My oh my the Philippines is soooo worth diving for. We are the only country with a world-class diving site 15 mins away from an international airport (Mactan), and a world-class diving site a couple of hours away from a megacity (Anilao-Manila). And we have one of my ultimate dream destinations: Tubbataha!!!!! It’s is much smaller than the Great Barrier Reef, but it has more corals than the GBR AND the Caribbean Seas put together. Anilao at its worst was better than Cancun’s Isla Mujeres. We need to make this more accessible to Filipinos (i.e. cheaper). Or at least promote it better so that it becomes worth saving for and investing in. I’m so frustrated that our pub mats just gloss over this. Parang, “Come to Cebu where you can scuba dive, eat great local cuisine, and go to the first Spanish settlement in the Philippines.”

9) Strengthen our ecotourism programs to empower the locals and provide livelihood. Those who used to kill whale sharks in Donsol are now the tour guides. They’re called “eco officers” or something. They love what they used to kill, and they teach others to love them too. In Bantayan, Cebu, the former dynamite fishermen are wardens of marine protected areas and fish pens.

in March 2009

10) The facilities and infrastructure and tour packages are easy to fix with some budget and political will. But what we really need to fix is our people.
10.1. Basic rule in the hospitality industry: peak season means more tourists, so GET MORE EMPLOYEES! Ever heard of contractual employment? I find it STUPID that there’s ONE PERSON manning a ticketing booth during peak season, or THREE PEOPLE running a fast food place. The inefficiency makes tourists really cranky.
10.2. We all need to learn from Puerto Princesa. Last time I was there, all tours were of the same price. This encourages competition and improvement of services and products, and! Tourists won’t feel gypped! You won’t get that, “Ay sayang mas mura pala sa iba!” feeling.
10.3. I hate airlines or sea crafts that overbook, kick you out of their trips and appease you by giving you free tickets or upgrading you. It’s so unprofessional.
10.4. My Canadian friend told me he went to the Philippines and hated Puerto Galera. “Just because we were white, they thought we had a lot of money and wouldn’t leave us alone. They kept trying to rip us off. It was disgusting. You have a beautiful country, but stupid people.” I didn’t bother defending us because it’s true. (Although I’d like to rephrase: “We have a beautiful country, stupid people, and even stupider leaders.”) Those pesky porters and overcharging taxi drivers are stakeholders in the tourism industry, and they’re JUST AS IMPORTANT as, say, an owner of a hotel or theme park. They should realize that.

And if we come into contact with scammers like overcharging taxi drivers, or overbooking airlines, we shouldn’t let it go down without an argument. Tolerating unprofessionalism only allows the problem to perpetuate. We may be Third World, but we don’t have to keep acting like it. Hindi natin kailangan panindigan. We can’t keep saying, “Pwede na.”

Like I said in my previous entry, I don’t know if I’ll ever be DOT Secretary. I really don’t. But I’ve written two entries as my petitions to the universe, and those who “Like” this entry and retweet it are signing the petition as well because we want a Philippines that we can be proud of. Whether or not I get that position, I’m still going to be working with the DOT to make the Philippines a more tourist-friendly place. That way I get to do things top-down and grassroots-up. I was in DOT a couple of weeks ago to discuss some possible projects. We have Plans. Great, exciting plans. Stay tuned!

Two years ago, I met the then-Secretary of the Department of Tourism (DOT), Ace Durano, and thought he had the best job in the world: to promote the Philippines as a tourist destination FOR A LIVING!

Since then, I have very openly talked about wanting to be the DOT Secretary (or, as OJ says, Sexytary). This article I wrote even ended up on Yahoo Philippines. I have made great efforts in getting to know the country better, so most of my savings go to trips around the archipelago. The last two years have taken me to the northernmost parts, like Batanes and Cagayan Valley, and all the way down south to Cagayan de Oro. My thesis is even on DOT materials, so all the sources I read are related to national identity and tourism.

My dad said that with my “passion” (I think “obsession” is more like it) I could be the youngest DOT Sec ever. He advised me to come up with a list of what I’d want to accomplish every week if I became the Secretary. OA naman yung every week! I told my yoga teacher this, and he told me to write down my plans, tape it on my mirror, and meditate on it. So here I am, putting my goals and ideas down on (virtual) paper. I am well aware that some of these go beyond the DOT’s responsibilities (I read the Tourism Act of 2009, all 126 pages of it, okay!) and that some of these reflect my own interests and biases. I also know that most, if not all of these, are easier said than done. Nevertheless, I think they’re worth putting out there.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be DOT Secretary. With the kind of politics we have, being appointed a cabinet member depends more on connections than credibility. But I do love this country to the core of my bones, and that’s not some wide-eyed, naive claim; I know that a lot of the tourism practices we have are bullshit, I’ve seen how dirty our streets and seas are, and how much work needs to be done. In fact, recently, I was at the brink of giving up this advocacy and shift to a new one: to stop promoting tourism until we get our act together. Sobrang nawalan ako ng gana, and it’s just so much easier not to care diba? Then my dad, brothers, and I dove in Camiguin yesterday and I was reminded very blatantly of what I was fighting for. There was so much life underwater. So I choose to care, and I choose to believe in the good. Maybe these ideas won’t materialize in my lifetime, but I’m sure as hell gonna kill myself for not trying.

This is my petition to the universe.

1) Fix our freaking airports already!!!! This is the first and last thing that tourists see, so they give the first and last impressions! There are about 12 steps we need to go through before we get to the gate! Don’t tell me that it’s for SECURITY REASONS because those guards don’t even know what they’re looking for when they check our glove compartments and trunks. I’ve seen those people manning the x-rays texting, filing their nails, and making chismis on the job. It just gives a false sense of security. In other countries, there are about 3-4 steps lang for check-in. PLUS NONE OF THE NAIA AIRPORTS HAVE WIFI. I need my wifi. Other people need their wifi. AND!!!!! None of the plugs in NAIA 1’s waiting area work. The restrooms are disgusting. Our airports, especially NAIA 1 and 2, scream Third World. Though we are Third World, we shouldn’t keep acting like it. Ang lumalabas kasi, pinapanindigan natin ang pagiging purita.

Since we’re an archipelago, traveling poses several problems. BUT a problem also means an opportunity. We can come up with a Luzon-Visayas-Mindanao backpacking trip and make it look ~exotic~ or adventurous. Tipong, “Experience the Philippines by traveling on land, air, and water!” Long hours can be fun if we make it an effort to be fun, like fun flights ng Cebu Pacific. My friends and I always join those games kaya. The restrooms we have in our ships are gross too. I feel like I’m gonna get an STD just by walking past them.

FYI The Tourism Act says DOT should work with DOTC and DPWH to improve infrastructures. I like the idea of the Philippine National Railway. The trains are all in Manila, which is unfair for the taxpayers everywhere else. Traveling around Europe is so easy because of the train. I wanna try one of those luxury buses. I took a bus from La Union to Manila (went there to surf! LOVED IT!), and a bus from Batangas to Manila. Both times, the buses overheated and broke down. A nice bus system would do wonders. Let’s have designated routes for buses too, not the stop-whereever-you want system we have now.

2) Improve the quality of tourism materials and their availability. The ones now use crappy fonts and graphics that look like they were done in Word Art. They also contain grammatical errors and ambiguous phrases. Both form and content are of poor quality, plus they’re not made available everywhere. In Cancun, there was a wall of brochures and a tourist information center before you step out of the airport. Genius.

There were brochures and leaflets in supermarkets, restaurants, and waiting areas, and Tourist Information booths on the streets.

The following pictures were taken here, during a three-day weekend, when tourists are out and about.

I paid a bit over 1k for Lonely Planet Philippines. When I forked over my money, I thought, “Why am I paying this much to learn about my own country from foreigners?!” I wouldn’t have to if we had our own, made by our own and for our own people. I saw the new one on Manila. Okay sana but it makes use of Tempus Sans. Ew. People should care about typography because typography matters. I really think fonts like Tempus Sans, Comic Sans, Jokerman, Curlz MT, and Brush Script Ltd should be banned from everything. Srsly.

CDO is a Curlz MT criminal

And a Jokerman criminal

It was also a Comic Sans criminal but I didn’t take a picture of that anymore because I was too taken aback.

AND PLEASE LET US STOP PUTTING THE DOT SECRETARY’S NAME AND PICTURE IN ALL PUBLICITY MATERIALS. No tourist cares what the DOT Secretary looks like. If they’re name- and faceless, then the materials can be distributed for longer periods of time. Actually this goes for ALL government projects. This is the only country I’ve ever been to that has the politicians’ names and faces plastered on every POTTED PLANT(!!!!), bridge, basketball court, and waiting shed. This would be okay if they used their money, but it’s OUR TAXES.

3) Having said that, I’d ask Manix Abrera, Pol Medina, and Team Manila to work closely with the Publicity and Promotions Office. Manix and Pol Medina to give our postcards a facelift; we could all use more humor in our postcards. Team Manila has greatly contributed in making tourism young, hip, and relevant. I LOOOOOOOOOOVE Team Manila. I hope they print their posters and make them postcards too. A lot of tourists send and collect postcards, and the ones we have now are so… Chaka. Again, Word Art quality. What I love most about Team Manila isn’t their creativity, but their sincerity.

Alright. Imma blue balls you on purpose. Part #2 tomorrow!

Ticket prices:
– Center orchestra – Php 1300
– Side orchestra – Php 1100
– Loge – Php 900
– Loge (Side & back row) – Php 700 (sold out)
– Balcony – Php 500

For reservations, call 0906-3414559 or email snazztastic.schizzle@gmail