How to avoid deportation, outsmart security, ride a horse, climb a volcano and nearly miss your flight ... all in 15 hours.

A model program for avoiding boredom in a mere 24 hours amidst a week of international meetings in the Philippines:

1. Take part in the covert organisation of official delegates in smuggling them out of the meetings, into matching t-shirts, past numerous caravans of military and police, into awaiting jeepneys and breaking through the police lines (5 officers deep) at a public rally where "foreigners would be deported".

2. Devise a way to outsmart the security measures (scanned barcode ID cards) at the Government meeting not once, but five times. Make the most of this little weakness by taking advantage of free massages for government officials, schmooze opportunities and excellent free food at dinner and lunch banquets - complete with beach-side/pool-side fireworks show and free tour offers.

3. Wander aimlessly around town and through endless neighborhoods and markets drawing sufficient attention as a single, white, woman so as to not dare take out the camera in most places. Laugh later when Mr. Mark Mazo (see below) says "But ma'am, you went there by yourself? You are very lucky, ma'am! Quiapo is full of snatchers!!"

4. Meet a very nice, clearly honest, "good vibe" local - Mr. Mark Mazo - and make a deal to hire him as local tour guide + driver to see the "real" Philippines. Laugh again when Mark tells you that 8AM is very late to meet; "we must meet at 5AM!" (Philippino street life seems to suggest they are early risers...)

5. Head to Lake Taal to see the volcanoes inside the freshwater lake. Lock the doors and fly by all of the many "swindlers" trying to offer us a boat ride out to the volcano ... Mark "I will protect you from the swindlers!"

6. Hire a boat to take us out to the volcano; hire horses to take us up the volcano, then peek down the hole of the crater curiously realising there is another lake with another island inside the volcano, where people swim in the sulfuric hot spring.

7. Drink buko (young coconut), eat buko, buy buko pie ... and drive some 300 kilometers through small Philippino towns of all kinds, being amazed by the sheer number of children everywhere and the fact that even the poorest looking hut houses had TVs flashing from inside.

8. Get stuck in Friday + All Soul's Day traffic ... amid jeepneys, tricycles, scooters, cars, bicycles, honking horns and sickening pollution. Realise there is no way in hell that you will be getting to the airport in time for your flight.

9. Mark Mazo: "Don't worry, ma'am, I will get you there!". Take on oncoming traffic, put on the flashers, honk incessantly, pour on the speed when you can and be terribly stuck in traffic yet again. Definitely missing your flight.

10. Mark Mazo pulls a new trick: Push all of the motorcycles out of the way, head straight into on-coming traffic, honk even more incessantly, put your whole body out the window and start screaming urgently "Emergency! Emergency!" Only later to add for the traffic controller "She's a United Nations Delegate (N.B. far from it, in fact); it's an emergency; I must get her to the airport!!" And, like the parting of the seas, traffic moves aside, our tires peel out and we arrive at the airport ... 40 minutes before flight departure.

11. Mark Mazo: "I hope you will never forget our eventful day, ma'am". No time soon, for sure ...

Of mediocre meetings and passionate protests

"Foreigners seen protesting in protest actions can be deported for violating the country's immigration laws ... Foreigners have no business joining these mass actions because it is tantamount to meddling in our country's internal affairs" - Philippine Bureau of Immigration

"The protesters brought with them placards that simply said "No to GF*D", "End labor export", "End poverty" and "Create jobs at home", all written in different languages. Is there anything subversive to the international and national interest about these?" - N.O.G.

Ever aware that choosing not to make this blog private somewhat jeopardizes my willingness to talk candidly about all things interesting, I will avoid spelling out the name of the actual global meeting that brought myself and more than 1,000 top expert foreign diplomats, trade union reps, non-profit professionals, academics, social workers and migrants to Manila, but I trust that it will be obvious for those who choose to take a peek at the PICTURES HERE and/or a few of the bazillion news articles, including, perhaps, a couple of these:

• Migrant workers not tools to save globalization
  

• Preventing protest against labor migration
  

• Passion for reason: OFWs: Expatriates with less rights
  

• Global Forum succeeded in wasting public money, protesters declare
  

• Bureau of Immigration: Foreigners joining protests to be deported

Not withstanding the one-of-a-kind hospitality and friendliness of the Philippino people that would, undoubtely, grant them the title of "World's most friendly people", the meeting was branded by thousands of military soldiers and police officers, blocked off roads, x-ray security, digital security badges, traffic escorts should you ever need to set foot outside of your (arranged) hotel or the conference centre and even security professionals to ensure that you do not inadvertently get into any trouble while making visits with Mother Nature. Thus making "escape" from the picture perfect conference world all that much more appealing.

Change scenes now to life in the streets outside the cordoned police barricades six officers deep and you have a very different picture ... one of rallies involving some 5,000 people frustrated by an opaque system that has not allowed them to participate in the conference and fearful that decisions being made behind closed doors about migration policies come at the cost of using human beings who are unable to find decent work at home as nothing more than economic bargaining chips for greedy governments.

Despite the fact that a number of media have entirely misled unknowing readers into believing that these rallies were led by "militant activists", they were light years away from being even remotely violent. Case in point, protesters went down the lines of police barricades affixing giant "Migrant rights are human rights" stickers to their riot shields and placing roses in their uniform lapels ... receiving only smiles in return. How many of those officers must also have wives, mothers, daughters, brothers working abroad?

Braving the indescribable pollution and daunting humidity, I later spent a day meandering the streets and neighborhoods of Manila. If back in the conference delegates were totally oblivious to the daily protests, they certainly had NO idea of the evident social backlash by other groups on a very local ... made clear by an array of anti-forum graffiti, posters, etc.

In a nontransparent, government-only process, removed from the United Nations and with limited intention to evaluate the process and/or produce concrete results beyond the "talk shop", the added "social oblivion factor" makes you wonder all that much more ... what the heck are we, and our leaders, doing?

An imperfect process in an imperfect world...but always, with a smile

Yet another unexpected in a life of unexpecteds, I find myself now writing tonight from those wonderful islands to the West of Vietnam and to the North of Malaysia ...

Indeed, with two weeks notice I found myself packing a bag with 25 kilos (about 50 pounds??) of books, jumping on a plane to find a flight crew wearing traditional Thai silk formal dresses serving nose-drip-inducing spicy curry airplane food (who knew airplane food could be anything other than bland!) observing the viscerally sickening mix of male passengers that left more than a lingering doubt as to whether they were headed to Southeast Asia for the beaches or the women (or, worse, the children), putsing around Bangkok just long enough to befriend a group of extraordinarily outgoing Bangladeshi's and entertain their questions as to A) who is going to win the US elections and B) whether I am Phillipina (?!), fly threw Philippino customs with only just enough time to gaze curiously as the Overseas Filipino Worker Express Lanes (I suppose one would have to hope that more than a few of the 120 Philippinos per hour who depart for jobs abroad would return at some time or another), smile bemusedly as the somewhat entertaining and quintessentially Philippino creatures that are jeepneys, and lug my obscenely heavy suitcase up the stairs of the "deluxe, five star luxury" - are we really NGOs? - hotel in Manila ... the heat and terrible humidity being the indiscriminate cause of the gallons of sweat pouring down my back. Welcome to the Philippines.

This, of course, is not the final description, but rather the beginning. But then, to be a truly accurate description of "the beginning" you would most certainly have to add the anecdote of my somewhat desperate search for a cash machine nearby the hotel, seeing as they whisked us away from the airport with such haste that that even Speedy Gonzalez would not have had time to withdraw. Thus, upon explaining to the concierge for the twentieth time that no, the ATM machines at the mall were not an option unless he cared to sponsor my transportation to GET there in the first place, he finally conceded that there was an ATM just around the corner. Happily heading for the door with my directions in hand, he adds - with what I have learned to be the Philippine epitome of politeness - "But ma'am, I would suggest you remove all of your jewelry and leave your purse in your room before you go". Mmmhhmm. Wearing no jewelry anyhow and having only my trusty Timbuktoo-nearly-impossible-to-rob bag, I thanked him for the warning and headed out.

I don't think I had walked even 10 meters when I suddenly was surrounded by six pairs of small, groping, clasp-like hands, had two small children clinging on to each of my legs in the same way we used to do to my Dad when we wanted to walk on his feet, and saw a seventh (or was is eighth?) little boy come tearing around the corner carrying an infant in his arms and running so quickly I thought the baby's head was going to be broken off. Naively, I thought something terrible had happened to the baby and he was in search of mom ... though it quickly became apparent that he was hoping his tactic would be more fruitful in producing coins from the "white lady" than that of the monkey kids. Soo, we awkwardly hobbled to the chants of "No, no money - money? money? - No, no money - money? money?" for about two blocks as I tried to figure out just how I was going to get cash from the machine in such a state, when suddenly a waiting jeepney driver simply went "tschhhh" and they all disappeared before I could even see which direction they had gone. Poverty in the Philippines ... you have to wonder, where was mom? Considering the stats here, chances are good she's off working in the Middle East or the US.

In fact, I had imagined blogging about much more than these first moments tonight, about the conference, about the protests, about the police, about the absolutely unrivaled friendliness of the Philippine people, but seeing as this has already seemed to convert itself into a mini novel I suppose we best leave it here, certainly with several a sequel to come ...

In the meantime, I leave you with this image of the day (above), anyone want to take a stab at what my later commentary to go with it will say?