Halfway down the Danube

Balikbayan guest blogging 3: Manila, finally

Like Magellan (but not), our intrepid guest blogger Noel Maurer makes landfall in the Philippines:

Ninoy Aquino International... Bus Terminal. Actually, it’s not as bad as the build-up. [hah! -- CY] The linoleum is a little frayed, and the lighting is a little harsh, but it works. The airport’s problems go a little deeper than the décor.

You see, there are three terminals here at Ninoy Aquino. The shiny new international terminal is reserved for Philippine Air Lines. Now, Philippine Air Lines is not one of the planet’s great air carriers. The airline’s owner is Lucio Tan. I hesitate to speak badly of Lucio Tan. (I lived in Mexico during the bad old days; I know how these things work.) Let’s just say that after he bought PAL in 1992, a group of senators signed a petition demanding that the deal be undone, and the Ramos Administration spent the next six years unsuccessfully attempting to prosecute Mr. Tan for everything from tax fraud to influence peddling.

Under President Estrada—who yesterday took the witness stand for the first time in his five-year-long corruption trial—Tan got the government to go to bat for PAL in a dispute with two Taiwanese airlines. The government lost when Taiwan stopped accepting Filipino guest workers, but Tan managed to preserve PAL’s monopoly over the shiny new terminal.

There is a reason that I didn’t fly PAL, despite its non-stop service from California and comfortable arrival area.

(I would think there are several.)

The domestic terminal is also a bit run-down and in need of replacement. It too is dominated by Philippine Air Lines. But here’s the fun part: there is no legal way for a passenger to get from the old international terminal to the old domestic terminal without leaving the airport. You can see the damn building, but you can’t get there from here.

And leaving the airport is not as simple as it appears. You need to flag down a jeepney, take a ten minute ride outside the perimeter fence, get off, and flag down another jeepney. This is good for the jeepneys. This used to be good for Philippine Air Lines. This is not so good for the Philippine tourist industry.

Jeepneys, for those of you who do not know, are colorfully decorated SUVs that seem to be completely hand-made. I’m not sure of the structure of the, ah, industry... but I imagine that somebody knows somebody because Manila’s very efficient (and totally misnamed—it’s a full-fledged metro) light rail system stops right outside the airport. In fact, the train yards are right outside the perimeter fence. But it just doesn’t quite make it. Perhaps there is an innocent explanation.

And so, there is no way to transfer from an international flight to a domestic connection without a trip on a crowded jeepney, which is, I’m sure, exactly what Chinese and Japanese tourists want to do on their way to a tropical vacation.

I later asked Sonny Coloma — Corazon Aquino’s chief-of-staff — about the airport. He laughed. Then he wiped his eyes and laughed again. After which we discussed jeepney manufacturing and basketball. Apparently, March Madness doesn’t penetrate here much, but people have strong opinions about the NBA. Are the current Knicks the worst team in pro basketball, or the worst team in pro basketball ever?

The Knicks are a less depressing topic than Philippine politics, you see.

Anyway, there was a sign at the airport reminding me of just why I’m here. In addition to the special lane, there were posters congratulating “our returning heroes,” the Overseas Filipino Workers. It was just like coming back into the United States, only with no yellow ribbons, light green-gray uniforms, or wheelchairs.

Looks like I didn’t get around to the food or the garbage dump. More to come.

Oh, and thank you, Bernard and Carlos. I will avoid the fish from now on.

Dude. You'd eat seafood in Venice, right? But the Veneto (and hell, probably Tito) dumped a lot more in the Adriatic than Metro Manila ever has in the bay. (For now, anyway.)

Let me post a recipe from Alan Davidson's Seafood of South-East Asia. It's for stuffed milkfish, and Davidson was the go-to guy for international seafood cookery.

I detect in this recipe a clear echo of Mediterranean techniques for stuffing fish, of which the archetypical version may well be uskumru dolmasi, the Turkish recipe for stuffed mackerel. Turkish and Levantine influences reached round the coast of North Africa and into Spain; which make account for stuffed-fish recipes which I found in Tunisia and for the enthusiasm with which Spanish cooks prepare merluza rellena (stuffed hake, the hake being one of their favorite fish). It seems reasonable to suppose that the Filipino practice represents the same tradition applied to the most plentiful and suitable of the Filipino fish.

There are two ways of preparing the fish for being stuffed, difficult and less difficult... the less difficult is as follows. Gut the fish in the ordinary way, taking care not to perforate the abdominal wall. Then make a cut right along the back of the fish, from head to tail, open it carefully, snip the backbone at both ends and life out all flesh and bones. If you use this technique you will of course have to sew up the back or otherwise secure it in place after stuffing the fish.

1 milkfish of about 3/4 kilo
salt
cooking oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped very fine or crushed
1 onion, finely chopped
3 medium tomatoes, finely chopped
1 tablespoonful butter
2 medium potatoes, cubed and fried
2 tablespoonfuls of peas, fresh or canned
2 tablespoonfuls raisins
2 eggs, beaten (or the yolks of 3 eggs, beaten)
flour

Prepare the fish [as described above] and simmer all the meat from it in a small quantity of salted water. When it is done, finish flaking it and removing all the bones.

Meanwhile heat the cooking oil in a pan and saute the garlic, onion, and tomatoes therein for a few minutes. Add the flaked fish, with seasoning, and continue cooking for another 5 minutes or so. Transfer the cooked mixture to a bowl and add the butter, potatoes, peas, raisins, and beaten egg. Mix all well together and then stuff the fish with it.

The stuffed fish is then to be dredged with flour and fried in hot oil until it is well browned. It may be garnished with celery sticks (kinchay) and lemon wedges.

I should add that there are those who recommend that the skin of the fish, after it has been emptied and while it is waiting to be stuffed, should be marinated in a mixture of calamansi juice, soy sauce, and pepper.

The calamansi juice is good, of course, but what makes it really Filipino is the deep-frying. Maybe some banana ketchup.