In end June, with sheer coincidence, I was required to visit a distributor in Philippines in July.
Although Philippines is part of ASEAN and I have several friends from there, I have never gotten a chance to visit that country yet. Thinking that Philippines is a metropolitan and transportation should be readily available, I also planned to take this opportunity to visit to our SGI centre and therefore, applied a visit letter from HQ.
My first impression upon arriving in Philippines after a 3.5 hours flight was very similar to Thailand. Traffic was messy and not as convenience as I had imagined. Roads were generally too narrow to cater for the volume on the road, and thus, jam on the road was a norm. I was fortune to be staying in a rather luxurious hotel in the city heart surrounded with a massive chain of shopping malls, another similarity to Bangkok. While I had no issue walking around the place and since transportation had been arranged for me to/fro the company and distributor, it would not be a problem for work too. But realising the bad traffic in Philippines, I started to ponder on how I could visit our SGI centre which would be some distance away, I was contemplating to hire a car and driver to bring me.
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| Huge shopping mall |
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| At GSK Office |
Following day, I visited our office to meet up with some customer service leads. After our morning meetings, I shared with them my plan to visit our SGI centre in Philippines and also explained to them our worldwide SGI movement to promote peace, culture and education. Following that, I showed them the SGI centre address and seek their advice on how I could to travel there. Surprisingly, they kindly offered to fetch me there with the company car and then back to my hotel. As a result, from the help of these “Buddhist gods”, I finally was able to visit our beautiful SGI centre which it was a wonderful experience.
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| SGI-Philippines Manila International Peace Centre |
The remaining days in Philippines were a typical city life per se but the visit to the SGI alone had made the visit worthwhile. Although not as big as in India, I realised the contrast between the Makati city and the places outside was apparently too big a gap to be filled. It was just amazing how our pioneer leaders had advanced Singapore so well in the right direction, building the country with the right fundamentals and infrastructure. The next question is for the next generation leaders to maintain this advancement for another 50 years. Could they?
My first impression upon arriving in Philippines after a 3.5 hours flight was very similar to Thailand. Traffic was messy and not as convenience as I had imagined. Roads were generally too narrow to cater for the volume on the road, and thus, jam on the road was a norm. I was fortune to be staying in a rather luxurious hotel in the city heart surrounded with a massive chain of shopping malls, another similarity to Bangkok. While I had no issue walking around the place and since transportation had been arranged for me to/fro the company and distributor, it would not be a problem for work too. But realising the bad traffic in Philippines, I started to ponder on how I could visit our SGI centre which would be some distance away, I was contemplating to hire a car and driver to bring me.
Following day, I visited our office to meet up with some customer service leads. After our morning meetings, I shared with them my plan to visit our SGI centre in Philippines and also explained to them our worldwide SGI movement to promote peace, culture and education. Following that, I showed them the SGI centre address and seek their advice on how I could to travel there. Surprisingly, they kindly offered to fetch me there with the company car and then back to my hotel. As a result, from the help of these “Buddhist gods”, I finally was able to visit our beautiful SGI centre which it was a wonderful experience.
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