Disclosure: The author’s spouse owns and operates a travel agency, which may be construed (but the author hopes it is not) as to having an effect on the context of this post.

There’s a fantastic story that came in yesterday afternoon about a Puerto Princesa fisherman being saved by a pod of spinner dolphins and pilot whales. As the story goes, the fisherman had been floating in the open water for nearly 24 hours, bleeding from crustacean bites, when a pod of dolphins took it upon themselves to nudge the man and his makeshift lifeboat towards the shore.

“Dumating yung mga dolphins. Ang dami nila. Tapos may lumapit na dalawang balyena. Dun sila sa tigkabilang tabi ko lumalangoy,” he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer. (There were dolphins, lots of them. Then a pair of whales started swimming on both sides)

“Palit palitan sila tinutulak ako gamit ang kanilang palikpik,” (They would push me alternately using their fins). Meanwhile, he said the rest of the pod stayed close to him to around just a meter away apparently trying to make sure no harm would come to him from any other animal. [Inquirer.Net]

What makes fisherman Ronnie Dabal’s ordeal more special is that he and Puerto Princesa Mayor Edward Hagedorn attributed the fisherman’s “rescue” as a sign of gratitude from the dolphins. As it turns out, Dabal is a deputized dolphin warden, and part-times as a dolphin spotter and habitat protector in Puerto Princesa Bay.

Dolphin spotters — a common second job for Puerto Princesa fishermen — head out early in the morning to look for large pods of dolphins, whose location they then relay to boatmen bringing tourists in for dolphin watching tours (using, what else: SMS text messages). Ronnie Dabal had been part of a program conducted by the Palawan NGO Network and ABS-CBN Bantay Kalikasan Foundation, with the help of the City of Puerto Princesa administration, wherein local folk, especially fisherfolk, are trained to find, identify, and protect dolphins, whale sharks, and other marine life as well as their habitats. Ultimately, locals earn revenues from eco-tourism activities, making for a win-win situation wherein the environment is protected and the locals earn a windfall from tourism, augmenting their traditional fishing or farming livelihood.

The locals, in turn, have a lot to thank for with such programs. A little over a year ago, my wife, her friends and I visited Puerto Princesa, where we were brought on an island hopping tour of Honda Bay by a guide named (I kid you not) Gloria. Gloria gave us a complete and detailed rundown of the tour: the origins of the word “Honda” (from the Spanish “hondo”, meaning “deep”, and not the Japanese car maker), the vigorous clean and green efforts of the city (our chain-smoking friend was getting mouthfuls from Gloria, boatmen, and other locals alike each and every time he would out of sheer habit throw aside a cigarette butt), and the various resort islands in the bay. It didn’t stop there; by the time we were in the water, not only was she pulling five snorkelers (my wife and her barkada) all at the same time, she would identify each kind of fish, crustacean, and coral that was there, sometimes by species name. Later that afternoon, I casually asked her if she were from a fishing family, with her excellent swimming skills and strong sea legs. I was surprised when she answered back: “hindi, magsasaka ako”.

It is difficult to believe that merely a decade and a half before, some locals and fishermen not unlike Ronnie Dabal were considered as part of the problem when it comes to environmental protection. In 1997, whale sharks, colloquially known as butanding, were discovered in Donsol, Sorsogon, and where subsequently hunted for their soft white flesh, which can be sold to Taiwanese dealers at around $15 a kilo — the most expensive whale meat in the world. As late as 1999, an estimate put 70,000 fishermen, or about 12% of the fishermen in the Philippines, are involved in illegal dynamite fishing.

Over the past decade, the tide is being turned with the help of various NGOs, as well as their respective LGUs, training programs were set up all around the country, and eco-tourism has become an increasingly bigger part in the lives and livelihoods of locals. Fishermen, aside from being dolphin spotters, are also being trained to be snorkeling guides and lifeguards — quite easy for them since it is customary for them to skin dive during fishing trips. Womenfolk are being taught crafts to be able to sell as souvenirs; everyone is being taught basic English to be able to communicate with foreign tourists. Donsol fishermen, for their part, have become whale spotters themselves, earning large sums during the whale shark watching season.

While I have no solid numbers at this point, my own trips around the country over the past year looks promising — the stories of Filipinos who are increasingly turning to eco-tourism to augment their incomes — or sometimes, who turned such activities into full-time jobs, are the same whether one goes to Palawan, or Bohol, or Davao, or Camiguin. Our guide in Bohol was a former OFW; our divemaster in Davao comes from a family of farmers; our Camiguin guide was a former Stork sales agent. Over that same year I learned to appreciate marine life to a greater extent, far from being an ordinary beach bum frolicking at the edge of the water and enjoying white sand.

The first time I snorkeled, and saw first hand just how beautiful Philippine marine ecosystems are, was in December 2007 — by November 2008 I tried, for the first time, scuba diving, finally being able to touch those corals:

No need for any fancy doctorate degree from an overseas university to appreciate that beauty, definitely. No need for audio even. It’s amazing just how teeming the marine ecosystem is at merely five to ten feet from the surface. My wife took this footage with a regular digital camera in a waterproof case, but needed to just snorkel above me and the dive master to capture the richness of the reef below.

Oh, and if you’d rant that it’s probably gonna be expensive — that 20 minute dive only costs PHP1,000 per person. It would’ve been PHP1,200 for two dives, but we couldn’t take a second dive since our flight was later that day, and apparently it is quite deadly to go on a flight right after going on scuba. One thousand pesos — the amount you’d spend on just one bag of groceries in SM — for the experience of a lifetime.

Clearly, the Philippine eco-tourism scene’s promising outlook presents several lessons that must be fully appreciated. Foremost of these lessons is that locals will fiercely defend whatever livelihood they have — make the environment their livelihood and they will defend it out of their own volition. Everything else follows — compliance with laws, self-policing amongst ranks, even a total change in attitude with regards to littering.

On the other hand, we have to do our part in helping our eco-tourism industry grow as big as it can, and the best way to do this is to go out there and see it for yourself. If there’s any way that best implements an effective “trickle down” effect (whether or not you believe in it), it is going to the provinces and spending money on the services and goods offered by locals. Instead of bringing your money out to shopping in Hong Kong or going to Disneyland or Ocean Park, check out the real fish in the real ocean. Experience the beauty of the countryside — and vigorously promote it to city dwellers both here and abroad.

Everyone will benefit from that.

Three years ago I was employed with a company that regularly sends employees to the US. I got fired from that post and never got to go. With my next employer there were two occasions wherein I would’ve been able to go abroad, first to Hong Kong, then to the US. Neither trips pushed through. With my current employer I got the opportunity to fly to South Africa — that didn’t push through either. Finally, last month I applied for a position that would assign me in either Shanghai, or Copenhagen. I didn’t get the post, and as with the others none of the trips came into fruition.

I don’t really bewail the fact that I wasn’t able to travel abroad. I have done it before, for leisure (my sister and I went to the US a decade ago to visit our late grandparents), and I have some sort of vow that if I’m ever to travel abroad, it would be for leisure. In fact, I do have a written promise to myself that I’ll fight my battles in this country, in an earlier manifestation of this blog hosted by Friendster.

Many times we take for granted things that we say to ourselves, whether or not they are half-meant, but it occurred to me that a big chunk of the realities that we experience were things that we always talk about.

For example, back when I was newly married and had a low paying job in a local bank, I had often wondered when and how I would reach a pay grade like that of my managers’ back then. Now, only four years later, my salary is around four and a half times (before taxes! :p) my pay the day I asked that question. Back when I was a teenager I vowed that, before exploring the world, I would explore the Philippines first. Today, aside from the fact that I was able to visit several tourist destinations in the country within 14 months, my wife actually owns the travel agency that made the trips possible in the first place!

Indeed, that promise — that vow, to stay in the country and work our way to progress despite the difficulty in doing so, has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those little promises allowed me, along with my wife (I’m very, very lucky to have a wife who shares my dreams and ideals), to recognize potential, read sign posts in our lives, and take advantage of what to others appear to be an environment bereft of opportunity.

Over the years I have learned not to mind the fact that I haven’t been able to go abroad to work or corner a job opportunity out of the country. It doesn’t matter. I’ve told myself once before that my fight is right here in this country, and the way things are going, I’m really, really enjoying it.

Ironically, I was lugging a tripod I had bought earlier that night.

I had fun hanging out with Tess, her friend Aiyleen, and Sarah.

I also got to meet other bloggers like Noemi Dado, Melo Villareal (wherein he gave away calling cards, with an accompanying wallet), Arbet, Jeff, the Jester in Exile (he still doesn’t want to say his real name), Jeric and Shari, aside from seeing Benj, Aileen and Juned again.

And the schwag was heavy. LITERALLY. Like, a case of Coke Zeroes. 24 cans and all. My arms hurt lugging it back home, to think I practically lived in the area. No, that wasn’t a complaint

Oh yeah, Coke announced a video blogging contest that night, so if you’re interested, check out the details here.

Anyway, while I was at home I thought I would be able to blog but, instead of writing, a different “muse” bit me and this is what I spent my time on:

This is the replica cockpit of an F-14A Tomcat, in 1:48 scale.

If you’re not familiar with what a Tomcat is, it’s the fighter prominently featured on Tom Cruise’s 1986 hit, Top Gun.

Hopefully the plane takes a more recognizable shape over the next few weeks. It’s a painstaking process and even after all this years I’m still learning a new thing or two about it.

It’s been two years since I’ve built any scale model, and the last plane that I completed was done back in 2005, and I’m happy over what I was able to start.

Hope that I finish it in time for our November IPMS Philippines National Competition.

Reading the following passage made me reminisce about my high school alma mater, which with its reputation and demanding curriculum, such stories are not unusual at all:

One graduate was Kim Soo-yeon, 19, who was accepted by Princeton this month. Daewon parents tend to be wealthy doctors, lawyers or university professors. Ms. Kim’s father is a top official in the Korean Olympic Committee.

Ms. Kim developed fierce study habits early, watching her mother scold her older sister for receiving any score less than 100 on tests. Even a 98 or a 99 brought a tongue-lashing.

“Most Korean mothers want their children to get 100 on all the tests in all the subjects,” Ms. Kim’s mother said. [The New York Times, emphasis mine]

I also had a batchmate who would freak out and weep when he got 99/100 in quizzes. He supposedly got beatings from his parents from such scores. It’s toll on the guy was obvious: he was socially inept. And by inept, I do not just mean that he’s a dork: by inept, I mean that, at 14 or 15 years old, he exhibited the emotional maturity of a 9 year old.

I’m not kidding, nor do I mean it in a degrading nor insulting way — he genuinely exhibited the emotional maturity of a 9 year old. While a lot of people was dealing with their adolescence hormones (although many, who are similar to him, are not), dealing with their relationships with the opposite sex, this guy was drooling (literally) in front of his Game Boy trying to finish The Legend of Zelda. He acted in this weird, comical way, as though he was always acting out a skit from some sort of cartoon. He wrote in the school paper, but his material never went beyond echoing the preachings of parents who made sure that their little boy behaved properly.

And all of that to satisfy the whims of parents who determined from day one that they will measure their child’s worth through the name of the school he went to, and through the numeric scribbles of some stranger on a thickened piece of paper.

While I agree that honing the talents of a gifted child is necessary so that talent does not go to waste, I believe that elevating perfection to some sort of sadistic standard and measuring a child’s worth through their adherence to that standard is pure and unadulterated child abuse. Indeed, many of us from that school, myself included, reached a point during our college years where we just burnt up, bombed out, and got disillusioned by the meaning of all the numbers ruling our lives, despite the absence of pressure from our parents at the time. It was simply expected of us because we came from that school.

It was tough being unable to distinguish one’s self worth from that stigma, the label of being a graduate of an elite school. Many people, upon learning that you’ve come from that school, immediately expect you to be some kind of superhuman or ubergenius; a person who is expected to be “successful” by excelling in all aspects of life, especially in academics and, years later, in a career. It’s as if failure is not an option.

I deeply appreciate my parents for not burdening me with the kinds of expectations some of my batch mates had to go through.

I am not discouraging people from sending their children to Philippine Science High School, or to any other science high school, or for aspiring for entry into Ivy League schools for that matter. Neither do I regret going to Pisay, because the challenges there certainly made me a stronger, more resilient, and more reflective person.

However, fourteen years’ worth of hindsight makes the repercussions of a high-pressure academic environment much, much clearer. Now that I am also a parent, at least the effort becomes more conscious: never ever make your child feel that they are only worth the grades they get. Being in an elite school is hard enough — lowering their self esteem will only make it worse.

They will thank you for it when you get older.

Highlighted text roughly translates to “stop this if you want to stay alive where you’re going”

From above, his email address is stevenson.salvador@linksys.com. His IP address is 66.114.104.164

UPDATE 1: I find it rather sad that the IP address above resolves to a Navitaire DNS server (as per the first comment below).

From http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/ipall.ch?domain=66.114.104.164

IP address: 66.114.104.164
Reverse DNS: slcinternet.navitaire.com.
Reverse DNS authenticity: [Could be forged: hostname slcinternet.navitaire.com. does not exist]
ASN: 18945
ASN Name: OMTEK
IP range connectivity: 3
Registrar (per ASN): ARIN
Country (per IP registrar): US [United States]
Country Currency: USD [United States Dollars]
Country IP Range: 66.114.0.0 to 66.114.255.255
Country fraud profile: Normal
City (per outside source): Salt Lake City, Utah
Country (per outside source): US [United States]
Private (internal) IP? No
IP address registrar: whois.arin.net
Known Proxy? No
Link for WHOIS: 66.114.104.164

I’m now considering what actions, legal or otherwise, I will take from this point onward.

UPDATE 2: Napakasakit, Kuya Eddie? Kaya ba nagcomment ka ng ganito?

Next time, keep your mouth shut if you have nothing intelligent to say. Also, please think twice before you give advice like this. Remember, you’re not talking to a student project. It’s Accenture. I completely believe that every thing you said was done but a project is not just about the software. Read, read, read, and don’t think you know everything. People who knows a little, talk like crazy. People who knows a lot… they read, think, and re-think before something comes out of their mouth.

This way, there will be no “death-threats” if I should even call it a threat. But if it is, do you think it’s okay to risk it? Your life inexchange for your stupid comments? I don’t think so.

I just think you’re finding a way out of your stupidity by diverting the topic from what you are saying into something else. That Salvador made more sense to me — it’s called common sense. A sense that you don’t have but pretend to have by using jargons like RAID and whatever.

Peace. Just my 2 cents. Just keep out of fights, okay? Shut up.

I can’t believe how “peace” and “shut up” could go on one line. Why do I have a feeling that that sentence was intended to be a veiled threat?

Let’s look at his IP address: 74.63.84.61

IP address: 74.63.84.61
Reverse DNS:
Reverse DNS authenticity: [Could be forged: hostname does not exist]
ASN: 0
ASN Name: IANA-RSVD-0
IP range connectivity: 0
Registrar (per ASN): Unknown
Country (per IP registrar): US [United States]
Country Currency: USD [United States Dollars]
Country IP Range: 74.63.64.0 to 74.63.95.255
Country fraud profile: Normal
City (per outside source): Chicago, Illinois
Country (per outside source): US [United States]
Private (internal) IP? No
IP address registrar: whois.arin.net
Known Proxy? No
Link for WHOIS: 74.63.84.61

Hmmm, taga-Chicago nga kaya? I wonder.

Even Quiapo’s Hidalgo St. is experiencing a boom because of digital photography, and it’s all good, really. There were anectodes that, in the last Hot Air Balloon Festival at Clark, there were more DSLR holders than plain spectators.

Unlike them, I do not own a digital SLR camera (I only use a mid-range, ill-reputed Olympus SP-510UZ) though I have been dabbling in photography for much longer. For the past decade we have had a Canon EOS 300 35mm film SLR, and my experience in using it underscores why digital photography is so popular these days.

It was simply expensive: you had to buy a 130+ peso roll of film for a mere 36 shots, and development and printing of each roll runs up from 250 to 300 pesos for 4R size prints. To add insult to injury, you only get to see your pictures the first time when they are printed, so even if a shot is terrible, or is blurry, since you have no way of knowing you will have to settle for having them printed and wasting money on them.

These limits of film photography are quite burdensome for tight-budgeted people like myself, but what happened was that this quandary influenced my decision making processes in a certain way with lessons that not only apply to photography, but to a lot of other things in life:

Risk-taking – Every shot you took with a film SLR is a risk; a risk of a lousy picture, a risk of a bad exposure, a risk of bad color, a risk of wasting your money when the photograph is printed. But there are simply places, things, and events that you have to have a picture of. So you have to take that shot — even if there’s little light. Or if you have no tripod. Or if you have little film left. You just have to take that risk, or else suffer in a plethora of what-ifs on your mind on how the shot would have come out later on.

Resource management – With 36 shots per roll, and usually just a few spare rolls with you, plus a budget for developing and printing, you have to keep in mind how many shots you still have with you, and accordingly, if loading that spare roll of film (which you have to finish, as you have to develop all 36 frames on the roll whether you used everything up or not) will be worth it for the given situation. You also have to manage your supply of film, making sure that they don’t go to waste (those things have expiry dates!). It also involves saying no when you have to — like saying no to that camwhore’s request to have a picture taken of them even if you’ve already had 10 pictures of the same group of people taken already.

Risk-management – Both previous points come down to this, added with the fact that in film SLRs, you cannot undo nor erase shots already taken. Every shot you take is literally a gamble, and you must learn when to lay down your cards, or when to call a bluff, or when to up the ante. It takes a lot of practice to master this, but when you do almost every other shot will be rewarding enough for you to ignore the wasted ones.

Foresight – Or more accurately, learning to anticipate what would happen next. On ceremonies like weddings, or during events this is a bit easier — the reason why the availability of wedding photographers likewise exploded is because weddings are very predictable, and you could, as their photographer, call out shots even during the ceremony as to how the shots will be composed and how they would look like. In nature, sports events, or in unscheduled “act of God” events, it would be much more difficult. You have to learn to “see the future” and be there ready to take your shot when it happens, with the correct settings on your camera to capture the moment. This one takes a lot of practice too.

Discipline – Finally it all boils down to discipline. The constant decision making during the time that you are holding the camera up will, over time, instill more discipline in the way that you treat each location, each event, each roll of film, and each shot.

I’m not saying that DSLR users can or will not learn the lessons stated above, but it certainly is easier to see them in action when handling a film SLR. It will definitely help digital photographers though, who have to suffer a far different curse — that of possessing way too many pictures than, say, their web photo hosting or external storage solutions can handle. Perhaps taking a leaf from the obsolescent art of film photography would help them solve these problems too.

I have been meaning to do this myself, but somehow, that “passion and excitement” of writing down my dreams has not reached me. For some reason, I find it difficult to write it in serious detail, the most plausible reason of which is not really knowing what I want to attain. I do have some vague idea — the birth of my wife’s travel agency business is certainly part of that. But my inability to do so does not erase the need to write it down.

So here’s my meager attempt at writing at least some of my dreams, and then maybe I would be able to add details unto it slowly in the future:

1. Set up my own ISV (Independent Software Vendor) business – or simply, put up my own software company, which will most likely dabble with the travel and tourism industry which my wife is already in. I have already taken baby steps towards this direction, although I am keeping my day job until I’ve completed some extensive preparations. So far, I’ve been drafting a feasibility study for this, which is a requisite to writing a good business plan.
2. Put up our own resort/hotel – actually this is my wife’s dream, but after hearing of the idea and thought about it, I figured… that’s not a bad idea at all. Perhaps set up one of the real Value Hotels in the Philippines. Considering the fact that the Philippines suffers from a lack of hotels vis-a-vis interested foreign visitors, it’s actually crazy not to pursue this dream.
3. Be a “real” entrepreneur – By “real” entrepreneur, I mean someone who has set up a system or an otherwise efficient business model that creates jobs and generates a decent profit. The two previous items should lead to this.
4. Become a pilot – despite defects on my vision, I still hope to be able to afford laser eye treatment and learn how to fly a real plane, whether for recreational or business purposes. As you can see it’s still quite related to the business we’re in
5. Move/retire to a home away from the city – My wife and I have, at one point, considered moving to the province as an option, but we didn’t push through it because of the lack of employment options for either of us. But that was more than two years ago, when we didn’t have a business on our own. When we visited Puerto Princesa in Palawan last year, we were so impressed that we toyed with the idea of moving there, since we’re in the travel industry anyway and the city’s main industry is eco-tourism. Once I am able to go on my own and really set-up my ISV, it might actually be possible to do that.

So far that’s it. It’s not much, but I figured it’s a start. Wish me luck.

P.S. I’m flying to Cebu City tomorrow and will be visiting Bantayan Island. Not sure if I’ll have internet access there, and my wife and I do intend to enjoy ourselves, so I might not be able to moderate your comments until Monday. I’ll update if I ditch Puerto Princesa for Cebu City, but I think that will be highly unlikely :p

In that blog entry, I posited that the “the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer” mantra was part of a “gospel of hopelessness” that poisons people’s minds into believing that there is absolutely no way for them to rise up above a life of poverty.

In turn, Sidney pointed out an article from Newsweek describing how, in many countries – even our more progressive Asian neighbors with so-called “tiger economies” – the gap between the rich and poor are widening, with the already-rich hogging any economic gains that a country achieves, leaving the poor to settle for the scraps from the dinner table which they fight for their lives for.

It was very painful for me to read that issue of Newsweek, and it boggled my mind as to how to answer Sidney’s challenge. I was in a quandary as to how view the situation – for every story of a successful individual borne out of poverty and raised in poor families but are now in the upper echelons of corporations or own businesses, there are a thousand stories of despair and failure in the filthiest of slums and squatters’ areas.

How do I resolve that? I knew that somewhere, somehow, there was an answer to this contradiction.

Then finally, I read about Gilbert, and posted my rather controversial take on his story.

Education has been the traditional answer to the scourge of poverty. It is the silver bullet that many believe to be the true ticket out of subsistence living. Finish college, find a secure job, perform well, get promoted, receive raises, and you’re on your way to becoming big. Gilbert’s story belies that – despite finishing an IT degree, he went abroad taking on a menial job more suited to a person who had finished high school.

While taking a job overseas is absolutely fine, he totally wasted his education in a field that promises big bucks and ample opportunities both within the country and abroad.

On the other hand, there is the story of Mariannet Amper. Although her alleged suicide is undergoing reinvestigation, assuming that her suicide note is true, she is a case of a person who has given up long before she could even start. The irony is that there are tycoons that have started from exactly where she was, and have made it big 40, 50 years down the line.

So now I ask, what was the difference between Gilbert, Mariannet and the big business figures we know that hadn’t finished college, and actually started from poverty-stricken backgrounds – Socorro Ramos of National Bookstore, Henry Sy of SM, John Gokongwei of Robinson’s, Julie Gadiongco of Julie’s Bakeshop to name a few?

Is it just a matter of, 40, 50 years? Was that world really so different — one that was devastated by war — that opportunity was just there right for the picking? If that were true, why isn’t every one of our grandparents filthy rich by now? Is it that the rich weren’t “preventing” the poor from getting richer back then?

There is no question that the answer to Sidney Snoeck’s challenge is no. Mariannet Amper cannot possibly have gotten out of poverty. If her suicide note is to be believed, she simply didn’t have the fight within her to have what it takes to get out of her rut. The same goes with Gilbert – his choice of career – or lack thereof – clearly shows the inability to take advantage of opportunities presented to him.

However, for a person who has both characteristics – that is, the relentlessness by which they refuse to succumb to adversity in their situations, and the ability to spot and exploit opportunities in every situation, whether positive or negative, being successful is inevitable. Throw in some talent, and you’ve got an achiever. Throw in a lot of guts, and you’ve got a surefire winner — rich preventing poor from taking a share of the pot or not.

There are a lot of talented people out there who don’t have the guts, or a lot of people who have the guts but do not or do not know how to hone their talents, and unless these change, it is unlikely that they will even be able to rise up to the nearest higher socio-economic stratum.

Some people will argue that there’s also luck — that some people are extremely lucky to have had certain opportunities in their lives. I, however, would argue that luck is a talent — it is no different from the ability to spot opportunities and make the best use out of them. For example, there are cases wherein people rose out of poverty because they had a benefactor — who gave them a scholarship and saw them through their education and eventually employed them or helped them put up a business. While some would think that the person is extremely lucky, it is unlikely that he will find that luck had he been not recognized by the benefactor by performing well in school.

Fortunately people are not born with these characteristics. These traits — skill, opportunity spotting, risk taking, and I dare say even luck — are learned, whether through others or through one’s life experiences.

In the end, it is totally up to an individual if they decide to fight back, or if they will believe that they do not have what it takes to rise up to the challenge of life.

One of the new year’s resolutions that I’ve been wanting to make is to be able to post more regularly to this blog. To say that this is difficult is by itself an understatement — my work schedule only allows me a few blocks of genuinely free time, which are then used up for things like family and genuine sleep, not to mention I-NAV Travel.

So scratch that resolution, it doesn’t seem attainable and realistic — at the moment.

The nice thing though was that starting last year the holiday economics law came in to effect, providing a wide range of long weekends within the year. Not only is it good for our business, but it allowed us to travel to a lot of places without me having to give up a lot of my vacation leaves.

It’s important, because starting last year we’ve been traveling like crazy; it’s the first time where I went to four different beaches within a year when before there are years that I wouldn’t even go out of town. It’s also been the first time that I hopped on a plane to two different destinations within the same year.

To sum up our travels, last year we’ve been to well known destinations like Subic, Boracay, and Palawan, and the lesser known beach in Bani, Pangasinan — a relatively new find which promises to be an excellent place for snorkeling and diving enthusiasts.

I’m excluding Laoac, Manaoag, Dagupan City and the beaches of San Fabian (all in Pangasinan) from this list — we go there practically all the time already.

This year, we’re already slated to go to Cebu in February and Bohol in March, and perhaps Davao later in the year. We’re going to look into other destinations as well.

You might be wondering what all the fuss about going around the Philippines is — well, there are several reasons. Being in the travel industry and not knowing what your clients and suppliers are talking about have proven as a handicap, so we’re taking a “see it from the horse’s mouth” approach and take a look at the different destinations ourselves. Secondly, we’re planning to have another baby by 2009 — so any and all the travel that we need or want to do will be best taken by 2008.

So to hell with the new year’s resolution — I will blog about the places we’ve been to soon (ironically, the Palawan Experience blog of Legend Hotel beat me to my own Palawan post), but I do promise that whatever comes out of this blog will continue to be worth your while — if not worth fighting over at Manolo’s blog.

Hope to see you around.