THE MOST HONEST PLACE IN THE PHILIPPINES

   This blog is an appeal to my fellow Filipino's abroad who without their consciousness represent our Nation wherever they go. I was saddened most of the time when I hear our very own people lambasting his own country and countrymen in foreign land. These actions are like spitting to heaven. Haven't you heard what are the penalties for treason? 

   Okay we are known for graft and corruptions, but that's just a handful of crooks. In general we are honest and peace loving people. Other Nation's had there own filthiness too and so we are not an isolated case. As a matter of fact, we had the most honest people in the world. Well, the people of Batanes island at least. As I've said this blog was an appeal, and perhaps to plead and beg that when you go abroad make it your mission to endorse our country or maybe clarify the bad reputation our motherland had been labeled due to few rotten eggs. To inspire you and may be a good start for our own personal advertisement...let us talk about the People of Philippine's Northernmost island....

   YES!!! You can visit the Province of Batanes and be ashame of their EXTREME HONESTY. Their grocery and gift shop was unattended, all you have to do is serve yourself, get what you want and then leave your payment on the counter. The owner said there was never an incident of burglary, not even once. And if you check the record of their prison, there are only one to two person detained there many years ago, and these are people found drunk in the street. Did you know that they even return item to a radio station (Radio Ng Bayan) even if ownership is not identifiable. When I visit that place I saw about a dozen wrist watch and some cash under the custody of the radio announcer. 
   200 kilometer away from Manila, separated by oceans, wind, and typhoon Batanes group of islands rouses in you the ancient, forgotten life core — free from modern excess, and what made the Ivatan (people of Batanes) undaunted are their regular battle with nature as the island are favorite route of storms and typhoons plus the harsh windy weather all year round being surrounded by South China sea North-east and the Pacific ocean on the other side.
   In Sabtang, a smaller island 45 minutes away from Ivana’s port, only a couple of stores sell cooked food—by request. After all, everyone grows and raises his own chickens, cows and crops for their own consumption.

  Others still find it embarrassing to sell their vegetables; they find it strange to have to ask for money for what grew on their fields. 
   Farms have no barb-wire fences and livestock freely rove the fields. The pasture are own by everyone, as people hardly raise crops for profit and that is even in the main island of Batan (where Basco City can be found) the most citified in the island group of Batanes.There was even a story I once read in a newspaper that a certain woman build a hut for a stranger she found homeless on the road.
   If you think this isolated place is god-forsaken in terms of basic needs and social services better think again. This is an example of the fruit of good governance, hospitalization and public school are free with teacher-student ratio of 1:12.    The provincial governor, we will discover, lives in a modest, unassuming house, absurd anywhere else in the Philippines. While most prototype of our public officials we knew own a dozen luxury cars, you'll find the former mayor of Sabtang wheeling the street with an old rusty bicycle. 
    I just wonder if the whole Philippine archipelago get battered by regular 200 km/hr typhoon almost on daily basis, will they be as honest and helpful as the people of Batanes?