Milk is not a powder

I used to enjoy drinking my coffee with a little bit of cream or milk and a dash of raw sugar. Now I drink it black with sprinkling of cinnamon and pepper and a spoonful of honey. It's been so long since I have drunk anything but black coffee that my tastebuds would probably not enjoy the addition of milk anymore.

The lack of milk is not my fault.  Simply put there is no milk in the Philippines.  You can buy milk in a carton and you can find a limited selection in the refrigerated dairy section of the grocery store but it's just not the same.  

Milk in a carton does not keep and you have to drink it within a day or it starts to go sour.  

Warm milk in a carton

And there's something unsettling about the taste of milk from a carton.  Perhaps it absorbs some of the cardboard into its flavour? 

At least milk in a carton is liquid.  

Powdered.....milk......man!

For some reason Filipinos drink mostly powdered milk. All the television commercials for milk have mommy preparing a cup for her little child and then a voiceover touts all the health benefits of drinking powdered milk.

Health benefits? While it may be comparable to liquid milk in terms of nutrients it is not real liquid milk. Real liquid milk is healthy. Real liquid milk does not contain glucose syrup or any sort of vegetable oils. Real milk straight from the cow or goat is loaded with vitamins and minerals and has only one ingredient: milk.  The Bible is full of references to how nourishing milk is. "Land of milk and honey." "Sincere milk of the word."  Haven't these most superstitious and religious people read their Bible?

Real milk has only one ingredient: MILK!

Whatever health benefits powdered milk has brought to Filipino children it sure hasn't helped stem the plague of rotting teeth. Milk is loaded with calcium which is fundamental for bone and teeth health and yet so many children throughout the Philippines have serious dental problems.

The 2006 National Oral Health Survey (NOHS) revealed that 97.1% of six-year-old children suffer from tooth decay. More than four out of every five children of this subgroup manifested symptoms of dentinogenic infection. In addition, 78.4% of twelve-year-old children suffer from dental caries and 49.7% of the same age group manifested symptoms of dentinogenic infections. The severity of dental caries, expressed as the average number of decayed teeth indicated for filling/extraction or filled permanent teeth (DMFT) or temporary teeth (dmft), was 8.4 dmft for the six-year-old age group and 2.9 DMFT for the twelve-year-old age group (NOHS 2006). 

Filipinos bear the burden of gum diseases early in their childhood. According to NOHS, 74% of twelve-year-old children suffer from gingivitis (NOHS 2006). If not treated early, these children become susceptible to irreversible periodontal disease as they enter adolescence and approach adulthood.

http://www.doh.gov.ph/node/1303 

I do not want powdered milk anywhere near my coffee. It's not a real food. Powdered milk is liquid milk dried out and then all kinds of extras are added to preserve it and make it palatable. It's not milk.

Perhaps they would like some powdered toast to eat with their powdered milk?

Telenovelas and Love Teams

Brangelina, Bennifer, Bogie and Bacall, Hollywood has given the world plenty of onscreen and real life love teams.  An open secret of early Hollywood is that many of these love teams were covers for homosexuality.  

Best Love Team of all time 

In Hollywood love teams are fodder for the tabloids and a tool to get people to see movies but in the Philippines love teams are a whole different ball game.

In the Philippines love teams are the foundation stone of all televison and film. These teams start off on television starring in a sappy romantic telenovela. While the show is going on the love team does all kinds of promotion and passes themselves off as a real life couple.  And indeed many of them are.

Eventually they will make it to the big screen and maybe even get married in real life. But sometimes it ends and that spells the end of a career which was built on such a precarious point.

Love teams and telenovelas reflect a stark void of originality on Filipino television which contributes to bringing the Philippines in a downward spiral culturally. There is nothing that uplifts the spirit or provokes curiosity in the viewer. Instead a cultic devotion to each team develops and balkanisation takes place. People get real touchy if you diss their favourite team.

Telenovelas make up basically ALL of original Filipino television programming. Romantic novels, movies, and television are generally escapist trash meant for women. Imagine having that being the cornerstone of all televison. 

There is no X-Files, Sherlock, Seinfeld, Star Trek, The Office, Cheers, Lost, Twilight Zone or anything else that breaks the mold and draws people into a whole new world of possibility or comedy. The only draw of telenovelas is the love team and the viewer rooting for them.  How many people has Star Trek influenced in astounding ways that has affected real life? 

How inspiring!  What a world record! And it's all thanks to love teams.

There is no end in sight to these telenovelas or love teams.  Why should there be?  Love teams are profitable. Why change horses in midstream? 

http://www.lionheartv.net/2017/01/love-teams-of-2017/

A typical Filipino house

This is a typical Filipino house.  No, it's not the house that's typical about this house.  Filipinos live in everything from mansions to shanties constructed out of leftover wood and garbage.

What's typical about this house is the concrete and barbed wire fence.  Every single house in the Philippines is constructed like a mini-pentenitary.  The walls are concrete, the floor is hard concrete or tiles, the window have bars, and the outer wall is a huge concrete fence topped with shards of broken glass and barbed wire is strung along the whole perimeter.  There is also a large gate for vehicles to enter and exit.

No one gets in and you are safe inside your fortress.

Here's another example: 

A little different but still the same idea.  A concrete fenced topped with barbed wire.  The only difference is this one has a metal grate.

But why?  Why do Filipinos feel the need to enclose themselves in a mini-fortress?  What are they sacred of?  

They are scared of each other.  Filipinos don't trust one another.  Everyone is potential thief.

I live in a "gated community" but the gates are open 24/7 and only manned during the day.  There is a river marking the border of the community on the far back side and people have crossed it during the day to case the neighbourhood and return at night to break into people's homes. This "gated community" is wide open.  It is gated in name only.

During the day there are strange delinquent children walking around, vendors hawking fish, a constant flow of traffic, people coming to play basketball at the basketball court. Some of the farmers even have their carabao graze in the areas where the grass is tall. During Christmas carollers come by and even beggars knock on the door with envelopes asking for cash.

Innocent fish vendor or spy sent by a robbery syndicate to case the neighbourhood?

With all this unrestricted activity is it any wonder people turn their homes into prisons?

Plenty of houses here have been broken into. Cell phones, computers, washing machines, and thousands of pesos have all been stolen.  

Why would someone keep thousands of pesos in their home you ask?  Because the Philippines has a a cash economy.  There are banks.  There are credit cards.  But regular folks don't use them.  They literally stuff their cash under their pillow or in a hole in the floor. 

A man's home is his castle but in the Philippines it is also his prison.

Read all about crime in the Philippines here: http://factsanddetails.com/southeast-asia/Philippines/sub5_6f/entry-3908.html.

Don't Drink the Tap Water

You don't want to drink water out of the tap when you come to the Philippines. It's not very tasty because it's full of grime and dirt. You could also end up swallowing an amoeba or something worse and then you will be real sick. 

This is what the water looks like after a blackout. During a blackout the well pumps shut off and when they start back up they pump out nothing but oily black goo for a good five minutes, sometimes longer. Occasionally there is also a sulphur smell. Just imagine how disgusting the inside of the pipes must be after carrying all that black gunk. So even when the water is clear it's definitely not clean.

When the well pumps are working regularly the water is so full of chlorine it's disgusting. You can taste it when you brush your teeth and when you take a shower.

       Tap water            vs             filtered water

No one here drinks the tap water.  You can bathe in it, wash the clothes with it, brush your teeth with it, give to the dogs, but don't drink it.

Instead get your water purified

and delivered right to your front door!

 

These guys will come once a week or you can call them when you need a refill. Straight from the filtering station to you.  

So always remember: Don't Drink the Tap Water!

In the Philippines, being a lawyer is a deadly occupation

Amidst all the political turmoil embracing the nation, life goes on. And if you are a lawyer it is a dangerous and potentially deadly life here in the Philippines. Take the case of lawyer Mia Green who was gunned down February 15th, 2017.

Mia had been targeted for her work before, with four failed attempts by defendants and other lawyers at having her disbarred. Green says Mia even received death threats but she said it was just part of the job of being a lawyer.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/08/british-man-on-mission-for-justice-after-wife-gunned-down-in-philippines 

Death threats just part of the job? Attempts by other lawyers and defendants to have her disbarred  just part of the job?  Only in the Philippines.  

Or, rather, especially in the Philippines.

The Philippines is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a lawyer, with dozens killed during the past decade in often-brazen attacks. Two years ago, a judge was shot dead in front of his courthouse.

A list of murdered lawyers between the years 2004 - 2014 for your reading pleasure: 

http://advocatenvooradvocaten.nl/wp-content/uploads/List-of-lawyers-who-were-killed-in-the-Philippines-since-2004.pdf 

I suppose being the best at being the worst is something to take pride in.

And now poor Mia Green's husband is out for justice. 

Too bad he's in the Philippines where not the DA, not the state, not the police, but YOU THE VICTIM have to gather the evidence, process all the paperwork, and file a case.

He flew to the capital Manila and will now proceed with a case against the person he says orchestrated the hit on his wife — the defendant in a property dispute Mia had been working on, according to an affidavit Green filed with the local prosecutions office. 

All that work ultimately puts your life and the lives of your family at risk.

Now, in pursing justice for his wife, Green knows he is taking a risk. When he filed the case, based on eyewitness accounts of the crime, he said someone came two days later and photocopied all the files he had submitted. 

“Of course, it’s a public document, we appreciate that. But someone who no one had ever heard of, isn’t a lawyer, is not from Bohol, came in, showed an ID, Xeroxed everything and left. They know every move that we make. We know who these people are but we don’t know who else is with them.”

In the Philippines if you catch a thief red-handed and call the police to come get him they will tell you that they can't do anything until you come to the office and file a complaint.  In the meantime the thief gets away.

That's because in the Philippines private prosecution is the rule.

"Cases do not get to the courts without private prosecutors," said Melinda de Jesus, executive director of the Manila-based Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility.

https://cpj.org/reports/2007/10/phils-sidebar.php 

The war on drugs, the war on terror, yellowtards vs Dutertards, what does all that matter when the Philippines remains a country without justice.  Without law.

The law here is for show.  It looks good on paper and it gives the government a seeming legitimacy but if the law is not going to be enforced by the very ones elected to serve the people then what is the point of having a government? 

Filipinos keep waiting for a Superman but none are coming. 

There have been decades of terrorism in the Philippines

Disgraced Senator Leila De Lima's newest ploy to put the heat on President Duterte is to file a resolution seeking "to investigate the failure of the Duterte administration to stop the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group from conducting kidnap-for-ransom activities."

In filing Senate Resolution No. 311, De Lima said the Senate Committee on National Defense and Security should look into the ability of government security forces to go agaisnt the Abu Sayyaf and other lawless groups. 

“These lawless groups are not only sowing domestic terror, but may also prove to be a weak spot making us vulnerable to external threats,” De Lima said in a press statement.

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/602378/news/nation/de-lima-seeks-senate-probe-on-duterte-admin-s-failure-to-stop-abu-sayyaf 

The fact of the matter is that at no time whatsoever in the history of the Philippines has the government been able to destroy the terrorist activity happening in the south.

Simply scroll through this extensive list of terrorist attacks in the Philippines since the 70's.

Since January 2000 radical Islamist groups and Islamist separatist forces in the Philippines have carried out over 40 major bombings against civilians and civilian property, mostly in the southern regions of the country around Mindanao, Basilan, Jolo and other nearby islands.^[4] Numerous bombings have also been carried out in and around Metro Manila, though several hundred kilometres from the conflict in the southern regions, due to its political importance. In the period from 2000 to 2007 attacks killed nearly 400 Filipino civilians and injured well over 1500 more,^[5] more casualties than caused by bombings and other attacks in Indonesia, Morocco, Spain, Turkey, or Britain during the same period.^[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_Philippines 

Is she going to call for an investigation into Marcos, the Aquinos, Ramos, Estrada, and Arroyo as well?  

Terrorist Enablers??

Unlike the partisan and near-sighted De Lima Australian scholar Paul Wilson places blame for the continued existence of terrorism on the failed policies of every single president of the Philippines in an article titled "The Philippines - three decades of terrorism." His conclusion?

Unless President Arroyo, or her successor, begins to deal with the causes of terrorism, rather than just with its symptoms, we can expect to see even more guerrilla violence and the tentacles of terrorism spreading throughout this complex and highly volatile country. 

 This was written in 2005.

Today, twelve years later, not even Europe can eradicate it's terrorist problem. Unrestricted and unlimited immigration has caused terrorism to raise it's evil head and the blood of hundreds has been spilt in recent years. With the worldwide threat of ISIS every country is at risk.

And De Lima seeks to blame Duterte for not putting an end to the decades of terrorism in the Philippines?

De Lima cannot honestly think Duterte is responsible for not destroying the terrorists in Mindanao. She is simply opening her mouth and saying everything and anything to take the heat off herself and put it on Duterte.

She is a desperate woman.  Her missives are nothing but the barkings of a scared little dog.  Despite all her rage she is still just a rat in a cage.

Terrorism must be confronted and it must be eradicated.  But placing the blame of decades of terrorism on the current president is absolutely dishonest and despicable. 

The one and only time The Beatles played Manila they almost didn't make it out alive

On July 4, 1966 The Beatles played the Philippines for the first and last time. Two sold out shows in Manila.  But by the time they were ready to go the Filipinos had turned against them for a perceived slight against then President Marcos. The Fab Four were chased to the airport by a mob of angry Filipinos demanding vengeance.  At the airport they were charged an exorbitant exit fee which added up to the whole proceeds from the two shows and they made it out by the skin of their teeth swearing to never again return to the Philippines.

Today the Philippines attracts top-notch international talent who probably have never even heard of this bit of history. Surely this is an incident they would love to forget but which exemplifies that ever pervasive trait of the Filipino: Pinoy Pride.

Original Source: http://991.com/Buy/TopItems/LennonGlasses/Stiffed.aspx

After the trials and tribulations of Japan the Beatles headed for a two shows in the Philippine capital Manila. On July 3, 1966, The Beatles landed on Philippine soil for the first and last time. This two-night stopover in Manila proved disastrous from arrival to departure. Upon landing, The Beatles were immediately whisked to a pier and put on Marina, a yacht owned by Don Manolo Elizalde, two miles from the port. This arrangement completely cut The Beatles from their associates for at least two hours— the first time it ever happened. 

On July 4, The Beatles held two soldout concerts at the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium with a combined attendance of 80,000; the evening concert registered 50,000 paying audience, being rivaled only in size by the concert The Beatles gave at Shea Stadium in New York on August 15, 1965. Such record-making statistic though was supplanted by the succeeding events owing to a fiasco that happened earlier in the day. 

The Beatles' alleged snub of then-First Lady Imelda Marcos occurred on July 4, where a lunch was scheduled at Malacañang Palace at 11 a.m. with 300 children waiting to see The Beatles. An hour before the party, a delegation came to the Manila Hotel to collect The Beatles. Brian Epstein, The Beatles' manager, declined the invitation on the grounds that no earlier arrangement had been made and The Beatles were still in bed. 

The day's scheduled concerts, however, later proceeded successfully. In between concerts, local televisions reported the alleged "snub" showing footages of children, some crying, disappointed by The Beatles. Epstein watched in horror and went immediately to the television studio to apologize and set the facts straight. But barely had he started reading his press statement when the transmission blipped. 

Newspapers carried the headline, "Beatles Snub President." The following morning was the scheduled departure of The Beatles to New Delhi. Suddenly, The Beatles and their entourage realized they were practically on their own without any help: Room and transportation services were withdrawn. In the airport, the whole Beatles entourage was manhandled as it made its way to the plane. 

Tony Barrow, the tour's publicity man and part of the entourage, claimed that Epstein received the invitation the night before the concerts but remained noncommittal. Whether it was wise for the local promoter to take this silence as approval is now moot. 

Bill Harry, in his book The Ultimate Beatles Encyclopedia, acknowledges the existence of an invitation from Ramon Ramos, the local promoter, for The Beatles to pay a courtesy call on the First Lady, but it was slated for 3 p.m. of July 4, an hour before The Beatles' scheduled afternoon concert. Ramos did not pursue this invitation, since The Beatles wanted to be in the concert location two hours before the set. Nor did he inform anyone in Malacañang about this. A further mixup in schedule emerged when the Palace set the meeting at 11 a.m. as reported in The Manila Times on July 3. Whether anyone went out of his way to settle the matter, and what transpired in this effort, if any, remains unknown. 

Peter Brown, the executive director of NEMS Enterprises (The Beatles' Vic Lewis, the tour agent, received the invitation while still in Tokyo but failed to relay this to him. 

Much to the Beatles surprise, the palatial tyrants were extremely angered at the Beatles neglect and the morning after the concert, The Manila Times ran the headline "Imelda Stood Up!!". The ramifications were to become serious. Philippine promoter Ramon Ramos refused to pay the Beatles for their performance! Bomb and death threats were telephoned to the deluged British Embassy and to the boys hotel suite. Brian Epstein was so distressed with the situation he arranged for a press conference from the hotel to apologize for the misunderstanding. BUT...as fate would have it, some unforeseen static blipped out his interview from most all TV screens in the country! (more than a few thought it was probably more shenanigans by the Marcos clan). 

Pulling more strings the next day when the Beatles were scheduled to depart the country, Misael Vera, Philippine Tax Authority, insisted the group could not leave the country until every penny of the taxes owed them was paid! Of course, they never got paid anything but Brian hurriedly forked over a bond out his own funds for P.74,450 (around $18,000) to settle the matter. 

To make matters worse, all security detail assigned to the boys were withdrawn leaving them extremely vulnerable. They were literally kicked and jostled as they left their hotel and totally harassed all the way to the airport. Things were no better there where the airport manager has also removed all security for the Beatles. They went so far as to shut down the power to stop the escalators, forcing the boys to scale several flights of stairs with their own luggage, only to face an angry mob of 200 Filipinos brutally manhandling them! Ringo was literally floored by an uppercut and kicked on the ground. He suffered a sprained ankle as well and had to be helped to the customs area. Mal Evans and Brian Epstein were injured as well. Alf Bicknell suffered a cracked rib and a spinal injury. 

When they finally approached the plane, a large booing crowd jeered and mocked them chanting "Beatles Alis Dayan!" (Go Home Beatles!) Once in the plane, some scraping government officials "decided" the Beatles were NOT authorized to leave the country due to inaccurate "check in" procedures days earlier... This led to another 40 minute wait on the Tarmac while Mal & Tony Barrow went back to the terminal to clean up the necessary paperwork. Only minutes after the Beatles angrily departed, did the press run a statement by President Marcos stating "Their was no intention on the part of the Beatles to slight the first lady or the government of the Republic Of The Philippines". Obviously a bit too late to do the Beatles any good. 

IN THEIR OWN WORDS: excerpt from "The Beatles Anthology"... 

Ringo: I hated the Philippines. We arrived there with thousands upon thousands of kids, with hundreds upon hundred of policemen, and it was a little dodgy. Everyone had guns and it was really like that hot/Catholic/gun/Spanish Inquisition attitude. 

George: There were tough gorillas, little men who had short-sleeved shirts and acted very menacingly. 

The normal proceedings in those days was that because the mania was everywhere, we didn't pull up at an airport and get off the plane like normal people. The plane would land and it would go to the far end of the airfield where we would get off, usually with Neil and our diplomatic bags (we carried our shaving gear and whatever in little bags), get in a car, bypass passport control and go to the gig. Mal Evans with Brian Epstein and the rest would go and do our passports and all that scene. 

But when we got to Manila, a fellow was screaming at us, "Leave those bags there! Get in the car!" We were being bullied for the first time. It wasn't respectful. Everywhere else - Amercia, Sweden, Germany, wherever - even though there was a mania, there was always a lot of respect because we were famous showbiz personalities. But in Manila it was a very negative vibe from the moment we got off the plane, so we were a bit frightened. 

We got in the car and the guy drove off with us four, leaving Neil behind. Our bags were on the runway and I was thinking: "This is it, we're going to get busted." 

(Neil Aspinall: The army was there and also some thugs in short-sleeved shirts over their trousers and they all had guns. You could see the bulges. These guys got the four Beatles and stuck them in a limo and drove off and wouldn't let them take their briefcases with them. They left them on the runway and those little briefcases had the marijuana in them. 

So while the confusion was going on I put them in the boot of the limo that I was going in and said: "Take me to wherever you've taken the Beatles.") 

George: They took us away and drove us down to Manila harbour, put us on a boat, took us out to a motor yacht and put us in this room. 

It was really humid, Mosquito City, and we were all sweating and frightened. For the first time ever in our Beatle existence, we were cut off from Neil, Mal and Brian Epstein. There was not one of them around and, not only that, but we had a whole row of cops with guns lining the deck around this cabin that we were in. We were really gloomy, very brought down by the whole thing. We wished we hadn't come. We should have missed it out. 

Ringo: The Philippines was really frightening. It's probably the most frightening thing that has happened to me. 

George: As soon as we got there it was bad news. 

(Neil Aspinall: They drove me to the end of a pier and I got out of the car and said, "Where are they?" They pointed: "There they are," and there was a big boat miles away in the middle of the habour. There were what seemed to be rival militia gangs. One gang had taken them and put them on this boat to meet some people who weren't the people putting on the show. It was all very strange. I never really understood why they got put on a boat.) 

George: We've no idea why they took us to the boat. I still don't know to this day. An hour or two later Brian Epstein arrived, really flustered, with the Philippine promoter, and he was yelling and shouting. Everyone was shouting and then they took us off the boat, put us in a car and drove us to a hotel suite. 

The next morning we were woken up by bangs on the door of the hotel and there was a lot of panic going on outside. Somebody came into the room and said: "Come on! You're supposed to be at the palace." We said: "What are you talking about? We're not going to any palace." "You're supposed to be at the palace. Turn on the television." 

We did, and there it was, live from the palace. There was a huge line of people either side of the long marble corridor with kids in their best clothing and the TV commentator saying: "And they're still not here yet. The Beatles are supposed to be here." 

We sat there in amazement. We couldn't believe it. We just had to watch ourselves not arriving at the presidential palace. 

Paul: I went out on my own in the morning to the kind of Wall Street area (Makati, the financial district -Ed.). I remember taking a lot of photographs because right up against it was the shanty town area. There were cardboard dwellings right up against this Wall Street which I'd never seen so well juxtaposed. I got the camera out: "Wow, this is good stuff!" And I bought a couple of paintings from the shanty town as presents to go back home and went back to the hotel to have lunch. 

Everyone was up and about then and we were in our hotel room when they started saying: "You've got to go to the President's Palace now. Remember that engagement?" We said: "No, no, no." The promotors, with those white shirts with lace (called a "Barong Tagalog" -Ed..) that everyone in Manila seemed to wear, looked a little heavy to us. A couple of them carried guns, so it was a bit difficult. 

We were used to each different country doing it their own way. They were starting to bang on the door: "They will come! They must come!" But we were saying, "Look, just lock the bloody door." We were used to it: "It's our day off." 

We found out later that it was Imelda Marcos (with her shoes and her bras) waiting for us. Somebody had invited us and we (gracefully, we thought) had declined the offer. But there was the TV announcer saying, "the first Lady is waiting and pretty soon the famous pop group will be arriving". And we're going, "Shoot - nobody's told them!" We stuck to our guns and sat the rest of the day out in the hotel. We turned the telly off and got on with our day off. 

Imelda Marcos, having lunch in 1996 (minus the Beatles!)

Ringo: Personally, I didn't know anything about Madame Marcos having invited us to dinner. But we'd said no and Brian Epstein had told her no. John and I were sharing a room and we woke up in the morning and phoned down for eggs and bacon (or whatever we were eating in those days) and all the newspapers because we always liked to read about ourselves.

We were just hanging out in our beds, chatting and doing whatever we were doing and time went by so we called down again: "Excuse me, can we have the breakfast?" Still nothing happened, so we put the TV on and there was a horrific TV show of Madame Marcos screaming: "They've let me down." There were all these shots with the cameraman focusing on empty plates and up into the little kids' faces, all crying because the Beatles hadn't turned up.

(Neil Aspinall: The Beatles didn't do that sort of stuff for anybody. They wouldn't get involved in politics and they wouldn't go to the palace. 

After it was all over and they hadn't turned up and people were going barmy, we asked Brian what had happened and he said: "I cancelled it. You weren't supposed to go there."

It turned nasty in the Philippines. I didn't eat for three days. They would bring up food that was terrible. Even if it was Cornflakes for breakfast, you'd pour the milk out and it would come out in lumps. They had given you sour milk. I remember once ordering dinner and it came up on of those big trays with the rolled lid on it. I rolled back the lid and Ohhhhh! Just by the smell of it I knew we couldn't eat it.

Paul and I sneaked out there as well. We must have been very brave or very naive. We got in a car and drove for miles. It was like Manhattan for five minutes and then a dreadful shanty town for a long way out to some sand dunes. We bought a couple of pictures, sat in the sand dunes and had a smoke, then drove back to the hotel with everybody freaking out (especially the security): "Where have you been? How did you get out?"

Although people kept saying it was a failure in the Philippines, the Beatles did two gigs to a total of about 100,000 people (after the Marcos thing). The fans had a really good time. They really enjoyed it. There were still thugs about, organising things (nothing to do with the army), but they seemed to be organising the fans rather than us.)

George: Again, we had a big problem with the concert. Brain Epstein had made a contract for a stadium of so many thousand people, but when we got there it was like the Monterey Pop Festival. There were about 200,000 people on the site and we were thinking: "Well, the promoter is probably making a bit on the side out of this." We went back to the hotel really tired and jet lagged and pretty cheesed off. I don't recall much of what happened after that until the newspapers arrived.

Paul: The next morning someone brought in a newspaper and on the front it just said in massive letters: "Beatles Snub President". Oh dear! Well, we didn't mean to. We thought, "We'll just say we're sorry."

We were scheduled to leave Manila that morning and as we were leaving the hotel everyone was a bit nasty at reception, so we had to scuffle out as if we hadn't paid our bill.

Ringo: Things started to get really weird: "Come on! Get out of bed! Get packed, we're getting out of here." And as we got downstairs and started to get to the car - we really had no help - there was only one motorbike compared to the huge motorcade that had brought us in.

George: It was "Beatles Snub First Family" - that's how they decided to present it. It was quite likely it was the promoter or the agent who had done a deal; brown-nosing Mrs Marcos, probably. She was later quoted as saying: "Oh, I never liked them anyway - their music is horrible!"

The whole place turned on us. We had people yelling and screaming when we tried to get to the airport. Nobody would give us a ride. We couldn't get any cars. There was nothing available.

Finally somebody managed to get a car or two and they put our baggage in one and we got in the other. We were driven to the airport. Two things were happening simultaneously: there were all the government officials or police, who were trying to punch us and yelling and waving fists at us, and then underneath that were the young kids who were still around doing the mania.

(Neil Apsinall: They were really putting obstacles in our way. When we were on the way to the airport, a soldier kept sending us round and round the roundabout until in the end I told the driver to pull over.) 

Paul: We got down to the airport and found they'd turned the escalators off. So we had to walk up the escalators. All right, let's get out of here then if that's what it's going to be.

Behind a huge plate glass window, the sort they have in airports, on the taxi rank outside there were all the Filipino taxi guys banging on the window and we're all going gibber, gibber.

(Neil Aspinall: Nobody would help us with all this equipment and so we started using the escalators and then they stopped. So we had to lug all the stuff up the stairs and once we got it all up the stairs the escalators started to work again. The Beatles were going to Delhi and the equipment was going back to England. So at the check-in desk we kept saying, "OK, that's going to Delhi", and they kept putting it on the pile that was going to England. In the end Mal jumped over the counter and sorted it all out for us because nobody was going to do it.) 

George: It seemed like forever at the check-in desk. We eventaully got into the departure lounge, which was a huge room, but then the thugs appeared again - the same people with the short-sleeved shirts who had been shouting at us as soon as we had got off the plane when we arrived in Manila.

There were a number of them coming up to us, pushing and screaming, "Get over there!" They forced us back and then another one would come around the other way, doing it again: "Get over there!" I was trying to keep my eye on all the people, keep moving ahead of them to stay out of their way. It was all really negative. I saw a couple of Buddhist monks and went and hid behind them.

Ringo: There was chanting, with people hating us all the way. They started spitting at us, spitting on us, and there's the famous story of John and me hiding behind these nuns because we thought, "It's a Catholic country, they won't beat up the nuns."

Paul: There was a group of nuns in the corner of the airport and when all the fisticuffs broke out we went over to the nuns. It was rather a nice little shot, nuns and Beatles in the corner. They didn't actually protect us, they just stood there looking a bit bemused. Whenever they moved, we moved the other side of them. 

Manila 1966 concert ticket stub 

John: When they started on us at the airport, I was petrified. I thought I was going to get hit, so I headed for three nuns and two monks, thinking that might stop them. As far as I know I was just pushed, but I could have been kicked and not known it.

"You treat like ordinary passenger, ordinary passenger," they were saying. We said: "Ordinary passenger? He doesn't get kicked, does he?"

I saw five in sort of outfits who were doing it, all the kicking and booing and shouting.

That was Brian's cock-up. Because he'd had the invitation given to him and declined it and never told us. It was terrifying.

Paul: We were quite frightened. Most of the aggression (luckily for us) was directed towards our people. One of them got thrown down the stairs violently. But mostly it wasn't overt, though they were annoyed.

We felt a bit guilty, but we didn't feel it was our cock-up. Now, knowing more about the regime, what I think is that they had ignored our telling them we weren't coming: "Let them just try and not come - we'll make it difficult for them."

(Neil Aspinall: I'm sure nobody got badly hurt, but that was because we didn't fight back, so we got pushed and shoved. We knew not to fight back. 

If we had fought back it could have been very bad. It was very, very scary and nothing like this had ever happened before - and nothing like it has ever happened since.)

George: Finally they announced the flight and we boarded the plane - and that was the greatest feeling, just to be on that plane. It was a sense of relief. Then the plane sat there.

Eventually, there was an announcement on the speaker saying, "Will Mr Epstein and Mr Evans and Mr Barrow (Tony, who was our press agent at that time) get off the plane?" They all had to get off and they looked terrified.

Mal went past me down the aisle of the plane breaking out in tears and he turned to me and said: "Tell Lil I love her." (Lil was his wife.) He thought that was it: the plane was going to go and he would be stuck in Manila.

The whole feeling was, "Hell, what's going to happen?"

Paul: When we got on the plane, we were all kissing the seats. It was feeling as if we'd found sanctuary. We had definitely been in a foreign country where all the rules had changed and they carried guns. So we weren't too gung-ho about it at all.

Tony Barrow had to go back into the lion's den and they made him pay an amazing airport leaving Manila tax that I think they just dreamed up. Strangely enough, I think it came to the same amount as the receipts for the trip.

George: We sat there for what seemed like a couple of hours. It was probably only 30 minutes or an hour, but it was humid and hot. Finally they reboarded, the front door closed and the plane was allowed to leave. I felt such resentment against those people.

Paul: I remember when we got back home a journalist asked George: "Did you enjoy it?" And he said: "If I had an atomic bomb I'd go over there and drop it on them."

It was an unfortunate little trip, but the nice thing about it was that in the end, when we found out what Marcos and Imelda had been doing to the people - the rip-off that the whole thing was - we were glad to have done what we did. Great! We must have been the only people who'd ever dared to snub Marcos. But we didn't really know what we were doing politically until many years later.

Ringo: We had fantasies that we were going to be put in jail because it was a dictatorship there in those days, not a democracy. You lose your rights in a dictatorship, no matter who you are. So we weren't going to get off the plane. That was my first and last time in Manila. (NOTE: The Philippines were under martial law at that time, by order of President Ferdinand Marcos..)

(Neil Aspinall: I'm sure it made the band think hard about touring. It might have been one of the last nails in the touring coffin.) 

(George Martin: When they got out of the country they said, "Never again. This is it." They said to Brian then that they would not tour again. Brian said, "Sorry, lads, we have got something fixed up for Shea Stadium. If we cancel it you are going to lose a million dollars." 

Oops. They did do Shea Stadium.)

John: No plane's going to go through the Philippines with me on it. I wouldn't even fly over it.