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Hey guys!
new blood to the cannabis.com community.
wo0t.
whats up?!
im female, living in manila...philippines
ohhh we getting all international up in here now right?!
haha
so yeah, thought i'lld introduce myself from one weed loving person to another
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hi..welcome to the site..enjoy the boards, and you should give chat a try some time..
Princess
Welcome. Back in 1986 I was stationed at Camp Fuji, Japan while I was in the Marine Corps. I was a Tank Crewman. While the whole unfolding drama of the People Power Revolution was going on we were on high alert. We were told that there were some factions in the military there were loyal to Marcos and others were loyal to the people and Aquino and we were worried that the country might be on the brink of Civil War. I have no idea what our role would have been but my guess is that we would have minnimized our actions to guarding the bases there like Clark Air Force Base in Angeles City and Subic Bay in Olongapo.
The Philipines or the "P.I." as we called it was a very popular place for Marines to go on liberty. In fact as you probably know the place was pretty notorious. Up at Camp Fuji, Japan we had one heck of a winter there that year. I was based in Camp Pendleton, California but was on a 6 month tour in Japan, 4 months at Fuji on the mainland (right at the very base of Mt. Fuji.) and 2 months at Camp Schwab on Okinawa.
We were at Fuji from February to May of 1986, all during the time of the People Power Revolution. Meanwhile up at Fuji mother nature had no mercy on the mountain and the mountain had no mercy on us. It snowed just about everyday. It usually snowed an inch or two every single morning and by afternoon it would melt into mud. Every 5 or 6 days though we would get a good snow of 6 inches or so. Then we would get a foot of snow and another 6 inches. Then we had a blizzard where we got like 4 ft. of snow.
Everyday I would start off by shoveling snow off our tanks before we worked on them all day. If we went out in the field to train it meant we would be very cold for those three days and nights. If it was ever warm enough for it not to snow then that meant it was raining. We lived in old fashioned quonset huts and lived very sparse. There was just a tiny town outside the gate called Takigahara but there was not much there, just a bar, a laundrymat and a restaurant. I fot to go to Tokyo a few times and Kamikura and a few other cool places but for the majority of the times we were confined to just the small area right outside the base. Since there was not much else to do but drink, guess what we did all the time? Yep we drank to excess because we were trying to shake off the misery and the madness of everything. Then we got out of hand every now and then and after awhile I wanted to get the heck out of there.
So after a few months of that stuff I decided I wanted to take leave to the P.I. The P.I. was off limits to us because of the Revolution and for a month or two after. This was also around the time that the U.S. bombed Lybia and because of the Muslim population there were outraged it was not safe. There was this one guy who got attacked and just about killed because they thought he was American but in reality he was a Canadian.
So finally they lifted the leave restrictions for us and we were so glad that Revolution was for the most part peaceful. A lot of people that I knew really had a deep love and affection for the Philippines and the Philipino people. It was very near and dear to the heart to many because a whole bunch of people have been to the P.I. Especially Sailors and Marines.
Turns out I had a friend in the Marines who was from the Philipines. He heard that I was interested in going so he said hey man let's go together and I'll take you to my friends in Manilla. So I said heck yeah, let's do it. So we got 15 days off and left the miserable snowy mountain wilderness and the tanks, took a bus to Yokahama Air Force Base and hopped a MAC flight to Clark Air Force Base in the Philipines.
It felt like Paradise when I hit your country. I went from driving the tank down treacherous icy mountains in Japan during snow and howling winds to all of a sudden Palm trees and hot humid air with those perfect breezes. I just knew I was in the right place at the right time.
We spent the first night in Angeles City and in the morning we paid the guy who owned the hotel to drive us to Manila. We stayed at a guy's house named Long Correos at 15B (or maybe it was 15D Silag St. in Quezon City. Long and his friends took us all around the city. They took us to the Ali Mall that was named after Muhammed Ali after the "Thrilla in Manilla" fight.
They drove us all around and they showed us where all this stuff happened during the People Power Revolution. They were like "This is where we had 100,000 people", and "This is where so and so got shot", and so forth. It felt electric. You could feel the energy and the optimism all over the place. There was so much excitement. It was unforgettable to me, the feelings there. I will be forever influenced and inspired by the People Power Revolution and being there around that time. I was there for 15 days in May of 1986. I remeber that it was right during the time of the Chernobyl Nuclear power plant disaster. It was on the cover of Time Magazine when on the day that I got there.
I remember driving to Manilla and watching the countryside unfold, the jungles, the rice fields - water buffalo shoulder deep in the water with their heads sticking up, staying cool. I remember getting to Manilla and just amazed at the city, that mega huge megalopolis! It sorta seemed like Chaos to me. In Japan, everything is so orderly, almost like a perfectly choreographed ballet, a scripted screenplay. But I get there and the place just buzzes with such a different kind of energy than Japan.
Long and his family were great hosts. We cooked out on the grill a bunch of times. We would go to the market and get fresh fish and crabs and meat and good stuff. They weren't as into the meat as much as me, they liked the fish but we got it since I was there. There was a place right down the street we used to walk to get beer. We drank San Miguels of course.
After 4 days there we seperated. My friend who I went down with went to his families home in a small province somewhere down south and I went to Olongapo to do some serious partying. I don't drink at all nowadays but back then I sure did and Olongapo was the place to do it. The drive from Manilla to Olongapo was pretty cool too. I took an old dilapitated bus.
What went on in Olongapo should probably stay there as they say but it was very wild. It had a feeling almost like the Wild American West. Anyhing could happen there. It could be dangerous but for the most part it was a party city.
I could tell you so many stories...
So, after my time was up there I got a ride back up to Angeles City to Clark Air Force Base where I met my friend to go back up to Japan. I remember while I was on the bus headed from Olongapo to Angeles I was approached by Phillipino Christians. We had this long talk and I broke down and accepted Jesus Christ into my heart right there on the bus and tears were streaming and you should have seen it. They were playing the Beatles song Yesterday and it was hot and humid and the windows were all down and the bus was swaying. I went back to Japan a Christian right as it was starting to warm up finally and then we left the mountain. I gazed up at Fuji one last time, said goodbye and then it was off to Okinawa.
I remember that even though there was so much optimism there it seemed mixed also with a sense od skepticism and realism. I don't suppose that the People Power Revolution finally solved all the problems of the Philipino people. I'm sure there was no happy ending where everyone lives bhappily ever after and all of a sudden there is magically no ore corruption or anything. Still though, I hold onto that special moment in time when the people stood up for themselves and forced a dictator to step down. Wow. That just doesn't happen everyday.
I got out of the Marines in July of 1987 and the Cold War between the US and Russia was starting to thaw and in 1989 I was thrilled at all the Revolutions around the world - in Poland, Checkylslovokia, Hungary, Romania and then in 1990 when the Berlin Wall came down. Did you guys start that whole wave of FREEDOM when you won your own peaceful revolution?
My brother also went to the Phillipines when he was in the Navy right before the first Gulf War in 1991. It was a pretty special time there also because every Sailor and Marine down there knew that they were just about ready to go to war.
And then came Mount Pinatubo and closed the whole show down.... Was that Karma, or what? Clark and Subic were covered in ash... they closed the bases down for good...the whole hedonistic sin cities were changed forever...Good or bad, that's how the story goes and that's how it's told. There's a lot more to this story too but what the heck I don't want to write a book here, I just wanted to let you know that I've been there and oh yeah...
PEOPLE POWER!!!!
Welcome, Hows the herb in the philippines?
Take care
Hey!, I'm from manila too! Quezon City to be exact! welcome!
Welcome to the boards.
hey!!! i'm from QC as well!