Cambridge Parties, Feasts and Headaches!

If there is one thing that is certain in the Philippines it is the necessity to feast at every opportunity whether it be a Birthday, Wedding, Baptism, Graduation, New Business, whatever the event the food is a very important part of the celebration!

When we first opened Cambridge Farm Hotel in 1992 there were not many places in General Santos where large gatherings could be held so in the first years we had plenty of big events all year round and no two of them were ever the same!

This is the kind of thing that Ellie my wife really enjoys and I will admit that she always does a good job! My part usually is to keep out of the way!

The cost of the events differed a great deal as some wanted all the best food which on several occasions included whole Spit Roasted Cows but this we did not attempt ourselves as there was an old local man with the appropriate nick name of Lolo Baka who was the local expert or cow roasting and he was very famous locally for his roasting talents! The usual roasting time was about 24 hours and at the end the cow was roasted to perfection!

Roast Pigs are more usual as there are people who roast them at every street corner but we used our own staff for this work as one of my older workers actually had been on a Government Pig and Chicken Roasting Course and he had the T Shirt and Certificate to prove it! During the roasting phase the cook had one long neck (Fifth) of Tanduay Rum and when the bottle was empty the pig was totally cooked! I suppose that using a bottle of rum to time the roasting is the same as using an hour glass but much more fun!

On one occasion we held a Senior Prom for the Notre Dame Girls and for this event we supplied a 70kg pig of our own. The evening was very formal with all the girls dressed in the long gowns and looking as beautiful as they were able and they were on their very best behavior, until the food was served that is, once the Priest blessed the food and invited the crop of new young ladies to the table then, all hell broke loose! All the girls pushed up their sleeves, snorted and grunted a bit and then, all in perfect unison drove in for the food in a manner which would have made the New Zealand All Black Rugby Team feel afraid, the Nuns were bowled out of the way like skittles, the priest was also engulfed by the charging hoard then the food was out of site, covered by the ladies! In only seven minutes on the tray where the pig had been was left only an oily stain! This was the new years crop of young ladies showing their true talent, maybe the Philippines should form a Roller Derby or a Rugby League as these ladies sure showed a natural talent for such activities! in the end, after the carnage it was a most enjoyable evening as the ladies all turned back into ladies once again and danced the night away!

Most of the feasting happened after special events as I mentioned earlier. Now unlike what would happen in Europe or the US, once the meal was devoured, the party would start proper with drinking and dancing but here in the Philippines the end of the meal triggers the end of the party and everyone goes home! On more than one occasion we have had traffic jams on our entrance road as party members who have eaten are trying to leave while other guests are trying to get in! We really should have constructed two roads, one in and one out for such occasions!

Ellie was always in charge of the cooking and in all the years that we did this type of function there was never a real complaint about the food! At times there would be interesting table center pieces, a Chicken Tree was one where Banana stalks were covered with tin foil and Fried Chicken Legs and on stick type finger foods were placed into it to make it look like the Chicken and other things were all a part of  te decoration, it as been seen that some guests never even noticed just what it was and passed it by as they were too busy looking at the other normally visible dishes until they were told!

On another very memorable occasion a group of Muslim Men came in and asked if we could fix them up with a small gathering that very evening. With their being only 30 of them Ellie agreed even at such short notice as they did not want anything special and as long as there was no pork involved then there was no problem! In the early evening the group arrived and started their meeting, all was going well when one person asked if they could put up a streamer as a back drop for the main part of the meeting. No problem for me so I got one of my staff and helped to hang the streamer for them for which they thanked me for the help! The Streamer Stated” MILF ELECTION OF OFFICERS”! Wow, I was a bit shocked to say the least but basically these were a very nice and polite bunch of people who gave us no problems and at the end of the evening they thanked us very much, each one of them, paid their bill and went on their way!

Weddings were always the big ones with sometimes up to 250 people at least, just preparing food for such a crowd took a lot of planning especially when it was “plate in”, this is a local term meaning that the food is served already on the plate unlike being buffet style! Getting 250 plates full of food was difficult enough but was even harder when there were kids and cats around waiting for the opportunity to grab something off of a plate! Nothing looks worse than a skinless pig with no ears as a table center piece! Ellie got around the plate logistics problem by giving the meals to the main body of guests on Basket style plates with Banana leaf covers, this also saved washing up as the Banana leaf could be discarded after use, only the head table got the good stuff to eat from!

Buffet style meals did cause problems as greedy people would go to the table and get a huge plate of food then return to their table or even their car and empty the food directly into a plastic bag or container then immediately go back and refill their plate again! Some of these people even had the nerve to complain later that the food was lacking but I would simply answer them by saying something like ” if you are still hungry then why not bring the food back which you put into your car earlier and eat that!”  That was usually all that I would have to say to calm the situation! I was always diplomatic with a few San Miguel in me.

Many years ago, the RECON Radio Club planned a meeting, this was in the days prior to Cell Phones. Yes, for any younger readers there was a time before the cell phone! Anyway, the meeting was to start at 4pm with the meal being served at 5pm. 4pm arrived with just a couple of the Radio Heads on site, they used their radios calling each other and slowly the group all arrived and with it now being 8pm they decided to eat first then hold the meeting! We served the food and while doing so I heard one guy say to his friend that the food was not hot! With this group who were all in contact to each other by radio, it took 4 hours for them to arrive then to complain about cold food was too much so I ripped into them and gave them a piece of my mind! (That’s the polite way too describe what I really said) The president of the group apologized later and bought me a drink so all finished well!

Probably for about 8 years we had lots of catering but as more facilities opened up the catering prices got cheaper and cheaper. I think that we used to charge between 250 to 400 pesos per head for our services which guaranteed a good deal for a sponsor of the occasion but we gave up on the business when a person came to us and wanted us to feed 100 people for 75 pesos per head, this was the standard price at that time! We found out that we could allow a caterer to rent our swimming pool for weddings etc, they would supply everything including tables and chairs, food, the whole works and that way we would make probably more money than we could by catering it our selves! On such occasions we did and still do advertise that we are not the ones doing the catering so people cannot get the wrong impression if the food is sub standard!

All in all, it’s very honest to say that anyone who is involved in the catering business in any form must be ready to take care of all kinds of problems as these problems do occur before, during and even after any kind of function and you must be ready to deal with anything at any time!

Most of our events went ahead with no real problems worth mentioning but I would like to give a word of advice to any person thinking about getting into the catering business and I think that it can be summed up in a single word DON’T!

Please excuse the quality of pictures as they were scanned from old photo’s

Gen San, The Fish Canning Capitol of the Philippines!

As you drive out of General Santos City westward on the Beach Road you cannot help but notice the specific area which begins just after the Airport Junction and continues along to the Fish Port Complex because once you reach the area you cannot fail to notice the wonderful fresh smell of cooking or cooked fish! This area is the main area for Canning Fish not only in Gen San but also in the whole of the Philippines and these Canneries and their related services are to say the least, one of the major areas for employment in the City!

Canning of all kinds of fish is done here from the larger Tuna and Skip Jack to many smaller fish what are generally called Sardines here! Also the Bangus of Milk Fish and other types of locally Farmed Fish and really any other fish that gets caught and is suitable to be canned can be and will be canned!

Its a huge industry as I said and it employees literally thousands of workers each one with a specific job to do in order for the companies to reach the final goal of getting the fish into the cans in a good and hygienic condition and on their way to their relevant markets!

At every shift change, the main road is filled with all kinds of transport from Jeepneys, Tricycles, Motorbikes, Cars and Taxi’s bringing the workers, all clad in their white rain boots or “Wellies if your a Brit”, to and from the canneries before and after their respective shifts! This makes more work for the City because when you have thousands of workers to move then you need a lot of transport in order to get them to their destinations on time and home again! Food sellers also do well in the area as all workers are hungry especially after a tough shift!

Once inside the cannery each person gets dressed in his or her respective white uniform and gets to work! Some remove the intestines and other offal from the fish, some slice the bigger fish into more manageable portions, some remove fins and scales while some cook the fish prior to canning! Before, the cooking process was alwaysdone by burning Fuel Oil or Hard Wood but unfortunately now Fuel Oil is expensive and Hard Wood is hard to find so now all the canneries are burning COAL in their boilers. This is such a shame using this dirty fossil fuel and you can really see the results as the boilers are lit in the early morning when thick clouds of smoke grace the skyline and the unseen pollutants and poisons are spread on the winds for people to ingest. Unfortunately business is business and some form of combustible material is required in order to cook the fish and coal at this time is the cheapest and is easy to come by in large quantities!

Once the fish is cooked, it is then sorted and cut by hand, any bones and inedible parts removed before it is placed into the can, juice added, inspected, can sealed and labeled and packed into box’s ready for shipment to local or foreign destinations!

The people who work on the Bangus Lines in my mind are real hero’s as they stand for their shift at a stainless Steel table removing the Tiny Bones from each Raw Fish by hand using only a pair of tweezers! The Bangus Fish is very similar to the Herring which is well eaten in Europe so anyone who has tried to prepare a Raw Herring will understand just how difficult it is to prepare the Bangus! Wow, that kind of job would drive me mad but these workers, like all the Cannery Staff do it every day but they are only employed on 5 month contracts so that the employers do not have to pay them benefits as stated by law so after the 5 month period they are replaced by another crew for the next 5 moths!

The Fishing Industry in General Santos City is a very major and important aspect of the City Economy but unfortunately the way that fish stocks are being decimated at this time then the future does not look too bright for this industry! In order for the industry to be sustainably in the future, man must learn how to manage our dwindling Natural Resourses the industry itself should take the lead in making sure that the fish that are caught all go for human consumption and not turned into Fish Feeds or Fertilizer as is the case now!

I believe that in a place like General Santos the Fish Canneries do not create too much waste as all of the discarded material is sold on for either Human Consumption, Fish Feeding or Fertilizer, unfortunately this is not the case in the “Developed Countries” where the diet of the people is not the same as here and the thought of eating a Fish Head would seem horrendous! Even the larger fish such as Yellow Fin Tuna are caught on hand lines so it is not a wasteful practice but the same can not be said for the Net Fishing Fleets that scoop up everything in the path of such fleets!

If we look after our Oceans and Fish Stocks and reduce the stupidity which is involved in Commercial Fishing Industry today then the Oceans have a chance to recover and continue to keep on supplying to us the fish which we enjoy eating! If the Rape of the Oceans is allowed to continue as it does today then the future generations will probably not have the chance to even see a fish except on Stock Footage on the Discovery Channel let alone enjoy the taste of an actual fish themselves!

Because of dwindling fish stocks, on many occasions nowadays its better to buy Chicken as the price per kilo is cheaper than fish! If people were to look at this seriously and eat more Chickens which are easy to produce then maybe the fish stocks would get a small respite and get the chance to reproduce a bit more! This could happen but I do not really believe that it ever will!

What are British Community Wardens in the Philippines?

Before you start reading, let me first explain that I am the British Community Warden for General Santos City and most parts to the North and West of Mindanao!

Many British Residents I am sure do not know anything about their Local Embassy and what it can and cannot do for them and many people in fact do not want their Embassy to even know that they are in the country! This is a sad fact really as your Embassy is here to assist you if possible and help sort out problems, it is not here to spy on the Brit’s living here for the Tax Man or anything like that!

As a part or the service that your Embassy provides, there is a small army of Unpaid British Residents within all countries including the Philippines and these volunteers are known as the British Community Wardens!

Now you might ask, what is a Warden? Well, a Warden in a British National living within an Overseas Community and really is there to give a bit of guidance to Brit’s as to how to do basic things like how to apply for: Passport Renewal, Birth Certificates, Visa Requirements etc! He is not there to give instructions or make decisions and will usually contact the Embassy to find out the latest updated information before passing it back to you! Most Brit’s do not even know about their local Warden because they are not registered as being in the country with the Embassy meaning that the Embassy do not know that they are in country and cannot pass on any information or give help to them in any way!

In general there is one Warden to about 25 British Families in any given area, in some places especially in the

Greater Manila Area there are sometimes several Wardens very close together as the volume of British Families can be rather dense! In my area there are not too many so my area stretches over most of Mindanao as the Brit’s are scattered far and wide! I think that there are only 4 Wardens for the whole of Mindanao!

The British Embassy Manila has a very good Webb Site and can easily be reached at www.britishembassymanila.com which opens up to all services which Her Majesty’s Government can do for you whilst you stay in the Philippines! You can also download all forms and information which you may require for whatever you have to apply for thus cutting out expensive and time consuming visits to the Embassy or the Consulates in other large areas of the country!

There is a very good service which ALL Brit’s should take advantage of and this is called the LOCATE service which consists simply of filling in an online form in order to register yourself and your family names and address in the country so that your Embassy knows that you are in country! Once registered your local Warden will be informed and he will probably make contact with you an introduce himself! To register on LOCATE visit www.fco.gov.uk/traveland click on LOCATE and fill in the form! Easy. If you are registered you can avail of daily e mail news letters and general information from the Embassy Staff who are very friendly and helpful an do their best to assist you! Just now details of how to vote in the next General Election is being sent by e mail to those who are registered! Even Short time visitors, tourists etc can use LOCATE, its open to everyone!

Another important aspect of the Wardens Duties is for times of Crisis! At such times the Warden would receive instructions from the Embassy regarding what to do in an emergency weather it be Civil Disturbance or Natural Disaster! He would receive information from the Embassy as to what course to take and pass on to his Brit’s as to Evacuation Points, Meeting Areas or even just head counts as happened in Luzon just recently after the Typhoons! I was in Northern Nigeria when the First Gulf War Started and with it being an Islamic Populated Area all Brit’s were called and assembled in one place, the Kaduna Rugby Club and we had a great party until it was deemed safe to return to our duties with our companies! This was organised by the local Wardens following instruction from the Embassy!

Basically what I am saying is that if you are a British National living in the Philippines, please register your presence

on LOCATE so that the Embassy will know of your existence in the country and can assist you if required! Who knows, it could be something very simple like a relative or friend is trying to contact you, if the Embassy know your home address, e mail address and telephone number then this would be a very easy to solve problem!

I believe that only the British Embassy has such a Wardens Service on a World Wide Basis so why not take advantage of such a simple and free system and register yourself on LOCATE today! Also pass the word to all your British friends in the area as the more people who can be registered then the more people can be helped if necessary!

The Philippine Councillors League hits Gen San.

Not much really happens in General Santos City for most of the year with the exception of the rather too often City Fiesta’s but this year has started differently with the hosting of the Philippine Councillors League 1st Quarterly National Executive Officers and National Board Meeting for 2010. (Long Title).

This was all planned well in advance and for a change even the small Hotels, Pension Houses and Lodging Houses were invited to tender their price for Breakfast and Accommodation for the delegates!

Now this really makes a change as usually when ever any people of influence come to the city they are always accommodated in the few larger hotels and us small guys never get any business from the city unless there are problems!

The delegates were due to arrive on the 3rd of February 2010, settle into their respective accommodation and attend the main event on the 4th and 5th leaving on the 6th of February!

As the guests started to arrive, it then became clear that there was a problem as we had guests who expected to have individual first class accommodation, a thing that is really very lacking in Gen San! All of the delegates were assigned their accommodation from the event organization located in the Lagao Gymnasium and were then transported to their designated accommodation! Many of these delegates were truly unhappy with what they got as the fee for accommodation and the event was around p9,000 each and when some found out that they had to share rooms in small type of accommodations they were less than happy!

When we and the other hotel people were asked for our available accommodation and prices we were also asked to squeeze the delegates as many as we could into each room so up to 5 were planned for some of our bigger suite rooms. Not only did we plan for this larger than normal amount of guests but we also bought new items for the rooms in order to be sure that there would be no complaint by any guests about the standards offered to them! My wife purchased new Mattresses, Pillows, Pillow Cases, Bed Sheets, Towels just in order to make sure everything was good. Each delegate was also issued with his / her own Personal Hygiene kit including Soap, Shampoo, Tooth Brush, Tooth Paste etc. Even a new Rice Cooker was added along with other Kitchen and Dining equipment. 4 New televisions and new fans were added and extra staff members were taken on in order to make sure that everything should run smoothly or that’s what we hoped!

As soon as the first guests arrived, problems began, not only for us but all the hotels in the city! Some returned directly to the Lagao Gym to complain and change their accommodation! Some returned directly to where they came from and did not attend to the event. We had other Delegates constantly visiting or telephoning to us asking for rooms. Even as late as 11pm there were still homeless delegates!

The very next day on Facebook and in the local media the organizers were being applauded on their excellent work in putting this all event together in such a professional manner. Sure, if  any of the organizers would have done their homework then they might have discovered that Gen San does not have the capacity to accommodate over 2,500 delegates in 5 star accommodation and this was probably their biggest mistake!

Now, because of the complaints of the delegates and the demand for discounts, the organizers, in their wisdom agreed to I believe a p3,000 repayment to each delegate who complained but they then passed this loss onto us, the small hotel people so now we had full hotels but the income for our work would now be reduced be about 30%. You cannot do enough for such good event organizers can you!

We had even organized a large buffet type breakfast with a large variety of dishes for our guests, were we supposed to reduce this to toast and coffee, no, that’s not our way, even though we lost out financially we still gave them huge breakfast meals to remember us by!

I do not know exactly how successful the event was as nobody said anything about the event but about 10 delegates staying with us never went out at all except to eat, instead they played cards and drunk beer for the 2 days that they were our guests. Others with Laptop Computers sat in our lounge using my WIFI for the same period!

I do know that there were prominent politicians including Presidential Hopefuls hosting events there, I am sure that they received their full payments for what they did or hosted!

General Santos is now being advertised as the Convention Capital of South Central Mindanao, I would really like to see this kind of statement come true but unfortunately there is much to do especially in the area of accommodation before this can really happen.

To us small hotel owners, once again we were screwed over by the event organizers and I am sure that the next time that there is such an event being held here then we will not bother to register our accommodation, instead we will just wait for the walk in guests to arrive, then they will come on our terms and nobody else will get involved!

A Country Boy visits the Big City!

My normal life is situated in and around the quiet and peaceful City of General Santos with the odd visit to Davao. Now, in my official capacity as the British Embassy Community Warden for the Gen San Area (Grand sounding title don’t you think) I have to go to Manila to the British Embassy for an annual meeting!

Firstly, imagine the Beverly Hill Billies and you get the idea of what my trips are usually like when I go there! Me in the Big City!

It all started with me going to the Gen San Airport to catch the PAL Flight to Manila, my wife and kids went with me to see me off! You would think that I was leaving for months not just for 5 days but the same routine is the norm for any traveler here I think as there are always lots of people at the Air Port saying good by to friends and relatives!

The Flight to Manila was normal and we landed on time, I had to wait for my check in bagage which included a box of Tuna and Dried Fish which were gifts for my friend Tiny who I would be staying with in Makati just off Dela Rosa!

Once outside the PAL Terminal it was nice to see the Air Port Yellow Cab Service which is new since my last visit but even though a little bit more expensive it was a good service to where I was staying! From what I remember, the Manila area looked pretty much the same since last year with the exception of more apartment Blocks!

I got to the house and my New Zealand friend Tiny was there to greet me, let me explain that Tiny is 6ft 6in plus tall and weighs about 360 lbs but is a lovely person and always insists that I stay with him when I am in the Big City!

After a snack I took a walk out in Makati to Aquamundo Scuba, one of my Scuba Suppliers in order to show my face, see what new products they had in stock and pay for my last order, all in all a worthwhile visit after which i walked back to the apartment! I could not help noticing the huge amount of building works going on in Makati, there certainly was not much sign of the recession in this neck of the woods! That evening I went to Green Belt with Tiny and we met some of his friends and had snacks and a few beers and spent a very pleasant evening doing nothing much but talking and having a few cold ones!

On day two I just thought that I would do a little shopping so I started off in Green Belt and worked my way into Land Mark, Glorietta, SM and Rustons! I was in there for about six hours and managed to do about 30 minutes of shopping, the rest of the time i spent wandering around like a headless chicken trying to find my way home! Wow, at least in Gen San our Malls are independent of each other but here there are 5 Green Belts, 5 Glorietta’s and all the rest are joined together in one big maze with the very occasional sign pointing you in the wrong direction! What a nightmare, I am sure that the whole of Gen San could fit under that one roof! By shear luck I recognised a place where we had eaten the night before and managed to break out and got home with time to spare to prepare myself for my evening out!

That evening was an official dinner in Forbes Park at the house of the new British Ambassador and as luck had it there was transport to and from the event from the Charter House Hotel which was only a two minute walk from Tiny’s Apartment so off I went! I met some other Wardens who were staying there and we got our transport to the function!

The house of the Ambassador can only be described as magnificent, a real colonial type house set in really well groomed grounds! What made me happy on entering was not only meeting the Ambassador who was born in my home town of Bradford but also there was beer to drink, not only wine like last year! The evening was very good and informal with excellent food and conversation and a chance to meet some of not only the Embassy Staff and Wardens I knew previously but also some new ones as well! At around 10pm we went back to the Charter House and had a few more beers before retiring for the night! That was a very pleasant evening indeed!

The next morning it was back to the Charter House and transport to McKinley Hill in Taguig City to the new Embassy Building for the Wardens meeting which was the purpose of me coming to the Big City in the first place! The meeting was very informative with speakers talking about all sorts of Embassy Matters including Security, Visa’s, Consular Duties, Scams and all kinds of other stuff! There was a guest speaker who talked about foreigners owning land but at the end of her historical commentary basically she said that we cannot own land which really we already knew! The lunch was good and the meeting ended a bit early to allow people to get home as a Typhoon was imminent so we went back to the Charter House and more beer!

The Typhoon landed in Makati at about 1am the next morning and by 7am it had moved on! I was a bit disappointed as there was very little damage only a few tree branches broken off and a couple of sections or temporary building site fences blown down. A Bit of a none event really but that’s the better way I suppose! There was a brown out in Makati and I was very surprised at the amount of noise made by all the big generators and the amount of pollution coming from there exhaust pipes!

The next morning I walked to another Dive Shop, Nautilus to once again show my face, pay a bill and look at new stocks and then had a stroll around Makati to pass the time as Me and Tiny were going to a place in Burgos called the Howzat Sports Bar in the afternoon to watch the New Zealand vs Australia Rugby Match taking place in Japan! The place had more white faces than I would see in a year in Gen San but the Rugby was good and New Zealand won so Tiny was happy! I was happy also as the beer between 4pm and 8pm cost p250, drink all you can, I had a buzz on to say the least by 8pm! To celebrate the victory we went to a few bars in Burgos, very strange places with lots of ladies who must have been very warm as they did not wear much clothing even with the air conditioning on full! After several bars we decided to call it a night so we had a bite to eat and went home!

On the Sunday I had planned to visit Ocean Park Aquarium but changed my mind as I had been there last year so instead I had a very easy day and went back to the Malls from Hell to finish off my shopping! This time I did a bit better and managed to find my way around and got what I wanted! I ate Apple Pie with Ice Cream for a snack, expensive but very nice! I had a few beers in the afternoon and went back to the apartment feeling very happy!

That evening I packed all my stuff and got ready for my early PAL Flight back to sanity the following morning. my entertainment for the evening was the last race of the Formula 1 Calender for the year on TV which ended once again with a British World Champion so all was well and I woke up at 4am to get to the Air Port for my 7am flight! In the Air Port I bought the Chocolate Cake etc which is expected by every traveler, had a coffee and flew back to Gen San to be met by the wife and kids at the Air Port where they had taken breakfast while waiting for me!

I got back home safe and sound and undamaged and have now done my traveling until next year, with a bit of luck that is! I still had money in my pocket so the trip had gone very well indeed!

Babies Even Get Named at Cambridge!

In every corner of the world, including the Philippines people go out of their way to increase the Worlds Population and in some places they go over the top in this endeavor by creating Babies, lots and lots of them, maybe the parents enjoy making them of something, beats me!

Babies, Babies and more Babies seem to appear all over the place all of the time! Where ever you go you see Babies!Why is this, do people really like Babies, are they really necessary, what use are they? One famous writer said that the true description of a baby is a Natural Phenomena of Uncontrollable Orifices! That’s a good description for them until they get past the Rug Rat Stage! WC Fields I think once stated the Any Man who Hates Dogs and Children can’t be all Bad!

Anyway, back to the main story! Several years ago we noticed this kind of event happening all year round, not seasonally like many such events in nature, Babies arrived every day so we thought at the time that there should be some way to make money out of it so we put our heads together, me and the Wife that is and tried to formulate plans to enrich ourselves! Our first idea was to make a Diaper Rental and Cleaning Service but decided that this business was a bit too crappy for us and it could easily drop us in the S**T even though we would never be short of fertilizer to grow the salads for the Hotel Guests Fine Dining!

In the end my Wife had the idea that because of all the Babies in a family, they would have to be some way for the parents or other people to distinguish which was which! This was a pretty new idea in some areas so we thought of how to do it. They already had the Pink for a Girl and Blue for a Boy but this does not work too well when you ave a house full of them! My first idea was to Brand or Tattoo different marks on them. My Wife suggested Color Coding but this would probably wash off or have to be repeated as the Kids got bigger! We were really running out of ideas when someone had the idea of giving them names after the Saints etc so the idea of having naming ceremonies for them was formed!

Now that we had our idea we had to work out a plan to put it into practice so we spoke to an English Priest who was a regular Guest at the Hotel and asked him if he had any ideas! He was very interested and suggested that we try it on the Kid that we had with us, Rambo was his name, we had him given when he was at the Pre Rug Rat Stage by a person who knew that we had some monkey’s and stuff so a Baby would be a good addition to our collection! The only thing that the Priest insisted on was that he would only Baptize him Rambo if we could locate a Saint Rambo in the Bible so we changed his name to Christopher instead of reading the Bible to keep the Priest happy!

We started making plans for the naming ceremony and complications arose when we were told that he had to have at least one God Father! Could I really invite Marlon Brando, he never even knew me and what favour would he ask in return! In the end we got a few local people with dubious reputations to stand for him so all was well!

The day came when the actual ceremony took place, in the bar at the far end of Cambridge where the Dive Shop now Stands! Lots of people arrived and all expected to be fed after, the nerve of some people extorting food from us in order to attend! Rambo was dressed in a Long White Frock a bit like the one that Baby Sweet Pea wears on Popeye! So did the Priest!

The Ceremony was in Latin, probably so the God Father could understand it I suppose and then it was translated into English so we knew what was going on also! The Priest Oiled Rambo down then poured water on his head! Very strange but then he shoved Salt into the mouth of Rambo, now that’s really weird but I said nothing, just watched and listened to the proceedings! After all this, everybody had to sign a document after the name of the God Father, I suppose that’s so that he knows who owes him favors in the future! The Priest said that he would send us a copy as the kid would need it in his future! Maybe to get help or something from his God Father!

Once the Ceremony was complete and Rambo now had a new name, all the invited guests and quite a few who were not invited sat down and ate their fill and washed it down with cold San Miguel Beer then went home as soon as the God Father Left! I suppose that it would not be polite of healthy to leave before he did!

With our Ceremony being OK, other people came and asked if they could name their Babies at Cambridge, some of these people were a bit dumb as their Babies were just a few weeks old and could not even speak yet so why give them a name if they did not understand what it meant! Well, Business comes first so we went along with them and played their naming game and this ceremony got quite popular with lots of people! Some wanted the Babies Naming in the Bar, Some in the Garden, some by the Swimming Pool and some even in the Swimming Pool but lots of these Babies who got named in the Pool were a bit old for naming I thought as some were as old as me but I do understand that to some mothers there kids will always be their Babies how ever old they get! We had Filipinos doing the Ceremony as well as some Foreigners but at the end of the day all went away happy as they had a much better idea of how to tell one kid from the others and its a much simpler way than Branding or Tattooing and not half as messy as Painting them!

Shark Transplant into Sarangani Bay.

In Sarangani Bay we have probably as many different species of fish as any other place maybe in the whole world but one group of creatures which are noticeably missing are the Reef Sharks!

These Sharks used to be plentiful in the area but unfortunately they have always been easy to catch on Hook and Line or in Nets and even worse now, as the Fins are so valuable in countries which place great value on Shark Fin Soup, even the very babies are captured and the tiny fins removed!

As we dive in and around Sarangani Bay we do see Sharks, usually White Tip or Grey Reef Sharks but the locations of these we keep secret in order to protect them! On a Night Dive if you get lucky you might see the nocturnal types of Shark especially the Bamboo Shark but even these are few and far between as they get finned also!

We have been trying to locate Juvanile  Sharks for sometime now but all the people who say that they can supply them never seem to have any when we need them so we keep looking! Just a few weeks ago, my friend John Heitz was in Manila on a Business Trip when he got a contact for a Sharks Supplier which he followed up and lo and behold, the contact really had Juvenile Sharks so John made a deal with him to get them to General Santos where we would set them free in Sarangani Bay in the Tampuan Marine Park where they should have a good chance for survival! Better than in an Aquarium anyway!

The first batch of 10 Bamboo and 6 Black Tip Sharks arrived at Gen San Airport and many people I am sure thought that we were completely crazy as we opened each package to check the contents and they noticed that the cargo were Live Sharks. We loaded them into the vehicle and rushed them to the Marine Park where we already had holding pens ready for them in order for the Sharks to acclimatize before full release!

Once we arrived at the site, there were other divers waiting to assist us get the Sharks into the temporary accommodation and the transfer went very smoothly and within 30 minutes they were in the water again! This created a lot of interest for the local people who also probably thought that we were nuts but accepted the fact that we were trying to get the balance of nature correct once again by adding these top predators back onto the reef!

The Bamboo Sharks were released from their pen the very next day as they just huddled in one corner of the Holding Pen with no place to hide as they usually hide under corals during the day so their pen door was simply left open and the Sharks left sometime during the night to find more natural accommodation for themselves! The Black Tips we released after 4 days and as they left the confines of their pen they just swam away at a leisurely pace. We did not harass them during the release, just let them go their own way and let them do their own thing because you must remember that Small Sharks make good eating for large predators so we did not want to stress them out at all!

The second batch of 8 Black Tips and 2 Bamboo Sharks arrived by Air Cargo once again but this time we decided to release them directly into the Bay as we had noticed that the first ones had injuries on their noses from banging the sides of the Holding Pens. We loaded them onto the boat of  John and took them to the release point where again we were joined by other divers to assist and take pictures of the release. Again this went very well but 2 of the Black Tips needed a Bump Start as they were a bit stressed from their journey but at the end of the release operation they swam away so we hope that they will survive!

We have not seen any of the Juvenile Sharks since their release but we are sure that some if not all are still around and we do not really expect to see them very often as the still have to grow a bit bigger and be able to defend themselves before they show their faces in public too often!

We will be happy not to see these little guys again for a while! We hope that they can learn how to do what Sharks are supposed to do and when they are ready and street wise they will show themselves to us once again!

I just hope that the people who target Sharks for their fins do not try to get to them as these guys are evil and will take any shark no matter how small they are!

The total number of sharks released into Sarangani Bay to date is 62!

South Point Divers, Paradise!

If you drive about 45 km from General Santos City following the US Aid funded road South West you pass into Sarangani Province and once you leave the fishing village of Tinoto, you come to the home of South Point Divers! This is a reasonably new Dive Resort but has the potential to become World Class as the diving can be magnificent!

The Resort is owned by the Partridge Family, not that lot who used to sing on TV, this family, the father came here with Dole Philippines nearly 40 years ago, married a local lady, had 3 sons and decided to stay here after his work was over! They have owned the land for many years but now are developing it from their Private Sea Side Weekender into a good quality Resort for Divers and others to enjoy!

The main buildings, the Club House with Restaurant and Bar where you get a very good selection of different kinds of food and cold beer, essential after a good days diving!  The Guest Cottages have AC. there are Day Cottages and other Facilities and are all of these are situated on the Cliff  Top some 60 feet / 18 meters or so above sea level so you get a spectacular view of the mouth of Sarangani Bay and the Ocean beyond with its boat traffic and at times Dolphins and Pilot Whales which can be seen passing just a couple of hundred meters off shore!

At present, there are lots of projects going on as the owners are expanding and improving all the time! More Cottages are being constructed as well as a Conference Center! A Cliff  Top Swimming Pool is also getting near to being finished! WIFI Internet is also planned as the communications are quite poor in the area but an extension to the already existing Light House should give the extra height required in order to make getting the Internet a good possibility here!

Sarangani Bay in this area is 2,000 meters deep and just some 50 meters from the Cliffs the sea bed drops off down a wall or undersea Cliff to depths far below the limitations of Human Divers! The wall itself has been well decorated by Mother Nature with all kinds of Hard and Soft Corals, Sea Fans etc which in turn are inhabited by uncountable amounts of fish and other marine creatures! This area of water is also a Marine Park so there is no fishing in any form allowed so with good management the marine creatures should be allowed to grow and the whole area should provide a good and safe habitat for all kinds of occupants! Even now there are several resident Turtles, Napoleon Wrasse, Barracuda, Bump Head Parrot Fish and just recently we have released 26 Juvenile Black Tip and Bamboo Sharks into the Park where we hope that some of them will mature and stick around thus completing the Food Chain here! These Apex Predators are probably the most magnificent creatures to see in their natural habitat as they really belong there! Other creatures which can be seen are: Spotted Eagle Rays, Dog Tooth Tuna, Schools of Jacks, Rainbow Runners, Parrot Fish of many kinds and colors, Blue Lined Fusiliers and the full itinerary of Colorful Reef Fish! Even Whale Sharks and Manta Rays enter the bay at time but unfortunately not too often!

The diving here can be wonderful but the chances of having encounters with strong currents which can go in any direction, even up or down make it an area where novice divers must be supervised by a Dive Master or Instructor! There are great areas for non divers to Swim or Snorkel as there are very shallow corals which give a good view of the marine life to people who are not sure if they want to dive or not! Some people, once they have seen the natural beauty of a shallow reef easily get hooked and sign up with South Point to take a full training course! Divers can dive directly from the Resort or take the Boat to sites further along the wall or to areas where there are several Off Shore Reefs which can be reached in about 40 minutes or below and even the far side of the bay is less than one hour away if the weather is calm!

Everything is either in place or is being made ready to ensure the comfort of both divers and other guests at South Point! The Resort itself is already good but will be improved in stages! I am sure that the Resort itself will do very well indeed but there is a Black Cloud on the Horizon as there are plans being made to construct a large Coal Fired Power Station just to the West of the Resort and on land next to the Marine Park! Say what you want, there is no such thing as clean coal and it could cause environmental damage in the area but we all hope that this does not happen and are thinking for a bright future both for the Resort, the Marine Park and the area in general! We want to keep it CLEAN and GREEN and an inspirational so that the future generations can also enjoy the wonders of nature that we can see today!

The Cleanest Sari-Sari Store in the Philippines!

In General Santos City a new type of Sari-Sari Store has been introduced, A Clean One, not the Standard Type of building where you have to do business through a small hole in a cage front but a fully open plan walk in and customer friendly building!

This was the brain child of one of our resident Ex Pats when he acquired another property next to his own in the perfect position on a busy arterial road leading to several thriving sub divisions to open a Store!

He thought about what kind of business he wanted to operate, in fact his missus does all the work, not him! Instead of having the usual very small store he decided to make it multi-purpose not only serving groceries and drinks but also having food and a beer garden as well! To this end he has used up most of the house!

The front of the store has a large doorway which is closed off with a Roller Shutter Door on the odd occasions when it is actually closed, the outer wall is a bright yellow color so that its easy to find! The main Glass Display Cabinets can be seen from the road which makes a lot of people stop and take a look at what this building really is!

Inside the building is a Flat Screen TV so this place is now the Venue for the Formula 1 Motor Facing for the local Ex-Pats as Filipino’s are not too interested in this sport, its a very comfortable venue and has plenty of cold San Mig Beer and good food! There is also a TV in the Beer Garden for use of the customers there! The next fights of Pacman will be screened here also and this will be for the general public to watch also so that will be a busy day!

With the floors being fully tiled, the walls being freshly painted, the toilet is clean and in good working order and all the cabinets and shelves being glass you get the impression of a very expensive type of store but you would be so wrong to think that as all the prices are the same as the local Sari-Sari store prices and the food and drink also is sold at local eatery prices! This set up as been commented upon by many customers saying something like: Why can’t all stores be like this one instead of some of the horrible sheds which are used for stores! The answer to that is probably permanence, most local Sari-Sari Stores open, run out of cash as the profits are not put back into the business or the stocks have been given out to good friends and relations who do not pay what they owe! It is re opened again when a relation who works overseas takes pity on the family and donates money for the new stock and once again the cycle continues as the store is reopened for a short while but once the money is gone it will close once again until the next helpful relation appears on the scene!

As the time goes by, the other Sari-Sari Store owners are losing business but they cannot see what is really happening and do not get the big picture! People do not want to have to bend over under a usually too low Zinc or Nipa roof and then do business through a small hole in a grill when just locally there is a very pleasant building which you can walk into and actually see what you need to purchase and the prices are the same! There is even a 12 volt backup lighting system installed for times of Brown Out which again is much more pleasant for the customers rather than doing business by candlelight or a kerosene light made from an empty rum bottle!

The owner is a very pleasant person who always give out candies or lolipops to the children of customers who usually persuade the parents to shop there again as the like the nice Old Joe or Lolo who always treats them! This old marketing trick is not well known here but give a kid a candy and he will always want his mum to shop there in the future!

The Wife of course is the driving force behind the Store, she is the one who runs to the Markets and Malls, gets up very early in the morning to do this, organizes the cooking of the breakfast menu and the ordering of the stocks! All of these type of stores are run by the women while the men sleep, that’s a fact of life here especially if the man of the house is an Ex Pat and not prone to getting up too early in the morning!

With a bit of effort, there could be more such Stores put up all over the country so we just have to hope that people will see the light and try their best to improve their business!

This Store still has things to be done to it in order to make it more customer friendly but these types of projects, like Rome, are not built in a day!

The people of the Philippines are really trying to improve their lives in most cases and it really should be the duty of the small business owners also to try and keep up with the times! I am not saying that this is the perfect example of how a Store should be set up but if all stores could just carry out small improvements as time goes on then it should only mean happier customers and better income for them!

A Murder at Cambridge Farm!

Since 1992 when Cambridge Farm Hotel first opened there has never been any real problems on the property except for some petty thefts from the rooms! We have been Raided for Drugs on a couple of occasions by the Police after Tip Offs by people who meant to do us harm but on both occasions nothing was found but we still got bad press from the Local Lower forms of Media!

In mid August this year, 2009 this changed as we had a very Serious Crime committed on or near to our property! I had just finished my evening meal at around 6.30 pm when one female staff member called me and told me that there was a girl laying down in the car park near the entrance. I was thinking that it was a young girl who had probably had too much to drink and had been abandoned by her friends as had happened a couple of times before! Young people would come into the Garden or Pool Side and order soft drinks but secretly they had hard drinks with them and would quickly get drunk! If they could not walk or passed out they were just left where they fell!

I went to the car park as directed by my staff and found the girl laying face down next to my Pickup in a darker area. I noticed that her Cell Phone was laying on the ground beside her along with her Bag, whatever had happened to her, robbery was not the reason! I shook her and asked if she was OK but got no reply so I turned her onto her back and then noticed that her eyes were open with a blank stare! I checked for her pulse but found none, unfortunately she was dead!

I asked my wife to call the Police but the telephone was not working at the Police Station so instead I sent my driver to bring the Police to Cambridge and as he drove off I noticed there was a blood smear on the passenger door of the Pickup! I instructed my staff to get a bed sheet to cover the body as there were still children swimming in the pool and I did not want them to see the body as there was blood seeping from I think 2 wounds! Once the body was covered it was only minutes before the first batch of Police arrived and the first thing that they did was remove the cover from the body of the girl leaving her exposed for anyone to see! I noticed at this time that she appeared to be pregnant, as it turned out she was said to be 7 months pregnant and her age was just 17.

Somehow, the word spread and a crowd started to form to watch the proceedings and the Police did not bother at all and let them stay and watch. I decided to walk up the road as I noticed that she only had one shoe on so I thought that maybe she had lost it on the entrance road coming in as she had not been in the Hotel at all! I found the missing shoe about 50 meters from the Hotel Car Park Entrance but still on our land! According to neighbours, they had heard screaming some minutes before  near the entrance of my property so it sounds like the girl was attacked on the road leading into Cambridge Farm but she managed to walk into the Car Park before collapsing and dieing to her wounds where she was found by my staff!

More Police arrived along with the media and even the SOCO, the local CSI Unit who immediately started to process the area for clues as to what had happened! I thought that they did a good job, everything was photographed, even the contents of her bag were removed, laid on a cloth and each piece individually tagged, recorded and photographed. All the evidence was put into brown paper bags for transportation!  After a Doctor examined the body, her hands were put into paper bags to protect the finger nails for later scraping for trace I suppose! During this whole process the body was treated with the utmost dignity at all times by all concerned!

This whole process had taken well over an hour before the body was taken away to a funeral home! The press were then asking some really dumb questions like: Have you found the Ice Pick yet, the murder weapon? I do not know who told them that the weapon was an Ice Pick, it was not the police! I was also asked if I was going to install CCTV Cameras just in case it was to happen again, to this I asked them where I should fit them and they told me to fit them in the same area, just in case it happens again! Did you see the Killer and so on.

We really got too much coverage from the Gutter Press and Media who made it sound like people were killed at Cambridge Farm on a regular basis and this has certainly not done our business any good because as of now, many people seem to think that we have a Bad Spirit here and will not enter our  premises again! Our business has really suffered after the event, not too many customers are using our facilities as of writing this but we are hoping that the usual short memories of the local people will kick in and our business will pick up once more for Christmas at the latest!

Its very tragic when such events happen but unfortunately this is the real world and bad things do happen! For about 10 days after the event we had daily visits from different branches of the Police but since then we have heard nothing at all so it looks like the case is left unfinished finished with no suspect apprehended, just another unsolved statistic in the back of some filing cabinet and another 2 young lives lost!