So, most people don’t know about the struggles going on in the PI these days. There are some crazy Muslim extremists in the south Abu Sayyef in the south trying to gain total independence from the north. Bombings, kidnappings, etc… you know how things go. Anyway, I got to go there this past spring with some journalists and I really saw a different side of the PI than most people. I went to all kinds of sites that had been destroyed by landslides. I witnessed American military people doing great things, such as medical, dental, veternary, and engineering missions. It was amazing and humbling to see the thankful faces of local people who had been cut off from the rest of the world for months because of a destroyed road. The scenery is great and the people are really accomodating and kind, even if opportunistic. Poverty is juxtaposed with wealth and excess. I literally saw a shopping mall with thousand dollar handbags just down the street from naked children playing in sewage. I stayed in a five star hotel for a hundred bucks, though! Just about every major drug company has plants there, but the employees live in corrugated metal shacks built in ghettos around the factories. It’s interesting, to say the least! I hear that a lot of “gentlemen travelers” frequent the country, too. I don’t condone it, but I certainly saw it. When you have the choice between living in a shack even with an honest job and prostitution, I can understand the choice.