Subic was way cool until my new novia committed a major faux paux, as I straddled her missionary style one day, she uttered the “Lxxx” word to me and totally freaked me out. To add insult to injury, the newbie novia bargirl says that her “puki” was getting sore from the 3-pops a day regimen. After advising the novia that the combination of sore puki and falling in love at stop lights was an unacceptable development, I decided to drop her and her sister off in AC. I was still getting texts and calls from ex-HK, so I knew I couldn’t stay in AC for fear of an attack by trike driver friends of HK. I quickly dropped off sore puki and sister and headed back to Manila.

Manila Filipino Rally

In Manila, I hooked up with my Bandido honekyo who derives great pleasure watching me bust up each day watching Filipino Wheel of Fortune (“Mando, I’d like to buy a ‘Bowel’ ”). One day, the show was interrupted by some breaking news that the Filipino Congress had adopted a recommendation to dismiss impeachment charges against president Gloria Arroyo. I didn’t think much of it, but was peeved that they interrupted Filipino Wheel of Fortune; for something that seemed so inconsequential to me. Well, it turned out to be a big deal.

The next day, while my honeyko and I were returning from a mall in a cab, we saw crowds here and there near Roxas avenue. Eventually, some military guys in black uniforms, boots and riot gear stopped all the cars. Traffic was at a standstill. With no sign of movement after 30 minutes, the taxi driver tells us we might as well just walk the rest of the way back to the COPA. We got out of the cab and noticed more and more demonstrators gathering, obviously pissed off about the recent events in the Philippines Congress, milling about. What a motley crew of protestors, some Abu Sayeff looking ruffians with head scarves mixed in with some well-coiffed clergy types, all heading towards some sort of government building on Roxas.

As HK and I attempted to walk through this mass of humanity, a group of blacksuited military guards blocked our progress and told us we could venture forth no further. Then one of them demands that I open up my fanny pack. “What? Why?” I ask. Buzzz, ….wrong answer. The guard then demands HK and me to produce IDs, which HK did not have as it was back at the hotel. I did produce my drivers license from home, but had no passport or copy on me. After inspecting the identification, the guard orders us to stay put, and walks off with my license. With my license held hostage, we were sitting there in the drizzling rain for about 30 minutes.

Finally, the jackbooted peon with my driver’s license, now accompanied by a more senior looking jackbooted peon, appears and starts off with a “You come with me to the Station, Diba?” Startled by the thoughts of a Filipino prison, my HK whispers to me, “he just wants some pesos, give him some pesos”. Naively, I try to whip out my wallet then and there, and the senior peon says “wait” and leads me to a smallish alley, with less people. Then he tells me, “you want to pay the fine now”. I said for what? Peon makes some lame, incomprehensible excuse about needing proper ID or something for walking around during a demonstration. HK again tells me, “give him pesos, Diba”. Finally, I ask what the fine is and the senior Peon immediately utters: “10K pesos each”. Before I knew it a “No way” cleared my throat, and again, Peon and Senior Peon feign anger and pretend to call for the paddy wagon. After much mental wrangling, I realized a good day of boinking HK would be lost if something wasn’t offered to Mo and Curly here. So I offer up 2K total and tell them I have no more. They ask to see my wallet, which I did out of sheer wanting to end this ordeal, and luckily, I had 2k and some change (I learned after my TJ cop mugging years back to always leave my ATM and Credit cards at the hotel). They took the 2k and the change and HK and I quickly made our exit and back to the hotel. Whew, got off lucky. In the immortal words of Cartman (Southpark), “don’t question my AuthoritY” especially in a third word country. I chalk this up as an educational expense.

TYPHOON #2

A few days later, while I prepared to return home, got news from NWA that a Typhoon (#2) hit Japan the day before and all planes that were supposed to arrive in Manila the day I was to leave, were grounded in Tokyo. NWA kindly offered a hellishly circuitous route from MNL-Nagoya-Tokyo-Detroit and L.A. the next day which I had to take to meet some work obligations. To worsen the situation, the seat next to me on the longest leg to Detroit was occupied by a monstrosity of a human being with terrible B.O., sickening cough, and a nasty habit of opening the window shades every 30 minutes.

What a whacked out trip this was, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat for the mongering.

Wow - sounds like the PI cops took a page out of the TJ playbook!

While some may perceive this as weakness, I'm happy to pay a couple of bucks and be able to continue on with my day. When in the Third World.

If in the US, I say "Am I under arrest? Good I'm leaving. Now."

Of course, I know what my rights are in the US. And Amenesty Intl aside, I'll take my chances with a US cop over a Third World cop any day of the week.

Hey WS. Your thoughts are my own sentiments when in the third world, where I've experienced similar payment requests by cops in Cambodia, Mexico and once with boys in brown in LOS. My earlier TJ incident was especially bad when I tried to call the bluff of 2 cops, who actually went ahead and drove me around to numerous ATMS for about 2 hours on trumped up charges that I had viagra w/o a recibo (prescription). That TJ experience made me realize that being overly stubborn over some chump change can detract from valuable vacation time.