Adventures of Isabel

The Philippine government just released its report on school attendance for 2006-2007, revealing that 17% of primary-school-aged children — which is to say 2.2 million of them — are not in school.
In 1999-2000, before current President Arroyo, the corresponding number was 3%.
Numbers have plummeted under Arroyo, as has real per-capita spending on education, making [...]

Breakdancers, rocking it for the camera on Dipolog beach.
I’m leaving again for the mountains early tomorrow morning. This time, I’ll be well and truly off the grid — 12 km hike in, no cellphone signal — so I’ll be out of touch for at least the next 2 days.
Geeky digression: the only Tagalog [...]

*[Slightly under-edited sneak preview of a much larger project]*
Barangay Miatan is located deep in the hills outside of Katipunan, Zamboanga del Norte. The entrance to the barangay can be reached only by foot or the most rugged of motor vehicles, a long trip along jaw-rattling dirt and gravel roads lined with paddies where farmers [...]

Barangay Miatan, Katipunan Municipality, Zamboanga del Norte.
(The picture I wish I had was me, wading through waist-deep water, holding my camera bag above my head. But, for obvious reasons, no such picture exists. I am playing with my lens cap in this one, though)
UPDATE: ha! how’s this for a diptych:
(14 years ago, Yellowstone [...]

I’m back in the city again (Dipolog) after visiting communities up in the mountains. I’m a bit worn out, especially after the trip down.I tagged along with people from 2 local NGOs working on implementing livelihood programs as part of the GRP-RPMM peace process. On the way back, we caught a ride down [...]

Mountain Province, Luzon, Summer 2006
I finally have a confirmed ticket to and from the Philippines this summer. Philippine Airlines certainly made me sweat a bit (I didn’t know until this morning whether I had to be ready to leave on Sunday) but in the end, I got exactly the itinerary I wanted — [...]

Blogging as work avoidance.In any case, here are some photos in the thirty minutes I was able to spend as a tourist in Zamboanga city. Not the best composed, but I was conspicuous enough without waving a camera around all over the place.
Fort Pilar

Rio Hondo Mosque

The very tip of the Zamboanga Peninsula

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Would you believe there’s a coffeeshop with wifi here? A good place to kill time during the endless waits to get anything done. I’ve generally found Zamboanga to be frustrating. As everywhere in the Philippines, doing anything requires going through an excrutiating mix of formal and informal procedures. For example, to speak to the US [...]

Sorry for the communication gap. It’s not as easy to stay in touch in Mindanao as it is in Manila.I’m in Zamboanga now, after 5 days in Davao. Everything’s been going well so far. I had to wake up kind of distressingly early for my flight, but I’m still mostly functional, was [...]