JeepneyShop update!

JeepneyShop is our Alumni Shopping feature!

Recently launched, JeepneyShop has great books, CDs and videos related to the Philippines. You can use it like any other online shop - we recommend you browse the selection and send an alumni a gift for the holidays!

Recommended Fiction:
Cryptonomicon with it's perfect depiction of the Philippines.

Recommended Nonfiction:
Tropical Living: Contemporary Dream Houses in the Philippines by Liz Reyes '65

CDs:
Badly Browned is a pinoy comedy classic by Rex Navarrete featuring "Maritess and the Super Friends"

Videos:
A Dangerous Life is an HBO special that stars Gary Busey as a reporter in a political thriller set during the time of People Power I.

Send in your favorite Books, CDs and Videoes that relate to the Philippines!

Write to webmaster@jeepneygang.com

Pinoy Phone Support

At 2 a.m. in Manila, It's Time to Break For a Midday Snack

Phone-Center Workers Live In an American `Bubble'; Cheesedogs and Hip-Hop

MANILA, the Philippines -- Marvin Luna calls it the Breakfast Club.

Every Friday morning, he takes off his telephone headset and heads to a bar for pizza and a round of beers with his work chums.

Mr. Luna, 23 years old, spends nights answering calls from people having trouble with their computers 12 time zones away in the United
States. Dawn is when his day ends. And as he and his friends swap jokes about Arnold Schwarzenegger, the morning traffic builds up in
the streets below.

"It's like living in a bubble," Mr. Luna says. "Often, I don't see my family for days."

It's a very American bubble. The Philippines' growing share of the multibillion-dollar call-center market is creating a subculture of Filipinos with American accents, tastes and time-zones.

That's not a great leap to make for the former American colony, a country that worshipped Gen. Douglas MacArthur and thrilled to images of Imelda Marcos dancing with Ronald Reagan.

President George W. Bush came here for a brief state visit and was welcomed by crowds of people, most waving American flags, but some burning them, too. One group, made up of a few dozen mostly elderly Filipinos in combat fatigues calling themselves the United Soldiers for America, or U.S.A., demanded that the Philippines formally become a U.S. state.

The Philippines is full of people who appear more American than Asian. On remote palm-fringed islands, schoolgirls typically don majorette outfits and twirl batons to the beat of marching bands. In cities, business leaders and politicians cut deals at Rotary Clubs. So handling payrolls for U.S. companies or doing paralegal work for
the Justice Department doesn't seem all that odd.

"For a century, the Philippines has been sending professionals to work in the U.S.: architects, doctors, nurses. In a way, this is just the next wave," says Jim Franke, president of one of the biggest call-center operators in the Philippines, eTelecare International, which provides customer support for computer maker Dell Inc. and American Express Co., among other companies.

There are 30,000 people answering phones and e-mail queries in Manila, doing work -- for $600 to $800 a month -- that generally pays better than bookkeeping in a bank or similar white-collar employment. That figure could double over the next couple of years, call-center operators predict, creating a middle class that actually stays in the Philippines rather than one that must emigrate to work overseas, as millions of Filipinos have done.

At 2 a.m. on a recent Saturday, Sherylyn de la Santos bit down on a microwaved cheesedog on the steps of a 7-Eleven store. Her friend Gabriella Manalo held her Coke. It would be a midafternoon break in Baltimore, but in Manila it was time to hit the booming all-night cornershops for some refreshment. "We get to hang out for half an
hour or so," Ms. de la Santos says, applying mustard to her sausage and gringo lingo to her speech.

Trisha Canapi, a human-resources manager at a Manila call center, says her staff isn't just talking American these days. "Some of them dye their hair a lighter color and wear baggy hip-hop-type clothes," she says. Some employees have been virtually conditioned into thinking that theirs is prestigious work. "They're like: `Hey, look at me, I talk to Americans,' " Ms. Canapi says.

Drive around Manila's financial district at certain hours of the night, and hundreds more call-center employees -- or eReps as they are sometimes called -- can be spotted drinking Slurpees or puffing on Marlboros during their breaks. A few wear L.A. Lakers or Philadelphia 76ers basketball jerseys over their sweatshirts.

The U.S. acquired these islands in the South China Sea almost as an afterthought to the 1898 Spanish-American war and set about remaking this Spanish colony in its own image. Despite a brief but bloody war of resistance, the U.S. largely succeeded in its goal. Boatloads of teachers introduced democracy, a rule of law and a modern education system. Frustrated that many Filipinos weren't exactly up in arms over being ruled from afar, the Philippines' first president, Manuel Quezon, once complained: "Damn the Americans! Why don't they tyrannize us more?"

The call centers now mushrooming across the Philippines are reinforcing these historical ties as well as filling an important niche in the global economy. Recognizing that the fast-growing outsourcing business is a valuable cash cow, the government in Manila has recently reinstated English as the language of instruction in schools and universities, putting local languages such as Tagalog out to pasture.

Bong Borja, president of People Support, which employs 1,500 people at several sites in Manila, is relieved about that. He doesn't have to coach his young university graduates how to speak like an American. "There's no need. Filipinos adapt very quickly," he says. "There's no lengthy assimilation process -- we already get it."

Mr. Borja's only worry is whether the nation's universities can continue churning out English-speaking, hip-hop-savvy graduates to feed the call centers' voracious appetite.

So far, there is no shortage of people who want to work on U.S. time -- companies such as eTelecare and People Support get as many as 200 applications a day, thanks in part to an unemployment rate of nearly 13%. But those who get jobs often find it difficult adapting to "the bubble."

Che Che Montero has been working in a call center for nearly a year. "Most of the time I feel isolated," she says. "You can't tell your old friends what kind of day you've had because they are either sleeping or at work."

Staying awake is less of a problem, the 25-year-old physical-therapy graduate says. "I don't get sleepy at the office. There's a lot of irate callers to keep me awake at night."

For others, there are things to do while everybody else is going to work.

Outside the 7-Eleven store, Ms. de la Santos and Ms. Manalo made plans for when they clocked off later that morning. "First a big breakfast, then stay up late to watch a movie," Ms. de la Santos said.

The first showing at the nearest cinema was at 10.30 a.m. The two women examined a newspaper to see what was playing.

"What do you think?" Ms. de la Santos asked. " `Freddy vs. Jason' or `American Pie'?"

Souce: James Hookway, Wall Street Journal, 20 October 2003

ALUMNI DATABASE AT 800

We're constantly making improvements to it thanks to volunteers like Linda Hardman '65 and Suzie Dimblad '81. Kudos to them!

Sige na, spread the word and ask your classmates to sign up!

ALUMNI DATABASE:
http://www.jeepneygang.com/database

Plotline of a Coup Transfixes Philippines

Ex-President, a Former Actor, Is Given Role of Villain; Mortal Kombat in Jail

By James Hookway
9 September 2003
Wall Street Journal

MANILA, Philippines -- Joseph Estrada, the jailed ex-president of the Philippines and former B-movie actor, has found himself typecast as the leader of an unsuccessful plot to restore himself to power. The case is about as weird as his movies.

Under heavy guard in a hospital suite where he has been locked up on corruption charges since 2001, Mr. Estrada claimed the role of innocent.

"The government's legal case against me [on corruption charges] isn't going well, so they are harassing me and my family with these coup charges," he said, wearily lighting a Lucky Strike.

On the TV set behind him, the nation's National Security Adviser was alleging that a quickly aborted mutiny by about 300 soldiers on July 27 was an attempt to topple President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and reinstall Mr. Estrada.

The corruption charges involve allegations that Mr. Estrada had accepted millions of dollars in kickbacks from illegal gambling syndicates. Now, the apparent coup attempt has Filipinos wondering along with the security adviser: Could the putsch have been scripted by the raffish ex-president who sports an Elvis pompadour and pencil mustache and spends much of his hospital incarceration playing Mortal Kombat on his PlayStation?

A rapt national audience following the unfolding cop thriller on the airwaves has been fed a couple of tantalizing hints: Police recently filed a criminal complaint against one of Mr. Estrada's mistresses for allegedly storing the plotters' ammunition. Mr. Estrada's wife and one of his 11 children are under suspicion of transporting it. Police officials say they have yet to find evidence directly linking Mr. Estrada to the uprising. They are still looking.

But the star of "King of Goons" and "Dodong the Tricycle Driver," who specialized in playing thugs with a heart of gold, says he doesn't need to stage coups: In his mind he is still president of the Philippines. He still wears his familiar white wristband embossed with the Philippine presidential seal. And he still delivers his lines with executive brio, beginning most sentences with: "As duly elected President of the Republic, . . . ." Throughout his career, Mr. Estrada has lived at the crossroads of show business and politics. When the armed forces turned against him in 2001 and joined a "people power" uprising on the streets of Manila, it barely tarnished his appeal among poor Filipino voters far from the center of power. They remembered Mr. Estrada's underdog movie roles, and they benefited from his subsidized food programs.

Mr. Estrada was never formally impeached under the Philippine constitution, though the Supreme Court has confirmed Ms. Arroyo as the sitting president. Allegations of the sort against Mr. Estrada are typical of politics in the Philippines. Often, the truth is left unknown.

Filipinos say they don't know whether to laugh or cry about the daily sensational media reports. Some blame a culture built on Spanish Catholic moralism unshackled by American pop culture -- a legacy of America's 48-year rule here, which ended after World War II.

"Three hundred years in a convent, 50 years in Hollywood: that's us," says Miguel Pereira, who runs a small electrical-repair store in Manila and watches televised inquiries into the coup attempt on a portable TV set on his counter. Yet this latest episode in the Estrada saga has even the most jaded observers transfixed. Inquiries into the coup attempt are broadcast live on national television. Newspapers and Internet sites carry blow-by-blow reports. The latest shocker: Officials dared Estrada ally Sen. Gregorio "Gringo" Honasan, already accused of planning the coup, to show his armpit in public. The mutineers, it seems, marked their underarms with a distinctive symbol from the Philippines' pre-Hispanic alphabet as part of a loyalty ritual.

There is a serious side to all this. The political free-for-all is unsettling investors, who worry about whether the country's politicians can buckle down to pass legislation and strengthen the nation's fragile economy.

Two weeks ago, the Philippine peso slumped to record closing lows. Many businessmen fear Mr. Estrada's populism. In Mr. Estrada's hospital suite, where old movie posters compete for space with crucifixes on the walls, he receives a steady stream of longtime allies and supplicants. One recent afternoon, the mistress and mother of three of his 11 children, Laarni Enriquez, turned up to talk legal strategy. One of his sons, J.V. Ejercito (Estrada is a stage name), also arrived.

Mortal Kombat would have to wait. Shuffling around his suite, Mr. Estrada --66 years old and arthritic -- said he isn't playing political games or engineering coups. He said he plans to ignore the noise and await his acquittal in his corruption trial while working through the memoirs of Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter and reflecting on his own post-presidential career. He faces the death penalty if convicted.

"Nixon was a peacemaker, he helped end the Cold War," Mr. Estrada said. "Carter builds houses." If freed, he hopes to move to the southern region of Mindanao and bring peace to Christians and Muslims who have fought a brutal guerrilla war there for more than 30 years.
First, though, he has to clear his name. The cornerstone of Mr. Estrada's defense, he explained over a lunch of prawns and smoked fish, is that he is an elected official immune to prosecution. "I've made many mistakes in my life, but I've never engaged in corruption," said Mr. Estrada, who was elected to a six-year term as president in 1998.

Ever since his imprisonment, Mr. Estrada has tried to make his voice heard, employing a variety of tactics. Most memorable was an hour-long video titled "Father of the Masses," in which Mr. Estrada describes his incarceration over a jarring backdrop of baton-wielding riot police and water cannons. In the background, a pair of break-dancing dwarfs rap about how the media conspired to bring him down: "Yo!" the dwarfs chant. "The media is a weapon blatantly abused by intrigue sowers and a tool to influence the minds of the people!"

July's botched rebellion is providing Mr. Estrada with fresh lines to deliver. Mr. Estrada pondered whether he still has the star appeal to influence the nation's future. "Yes," he finally decided. "I think I do." But he won't return to Philippine movie screens, he vowed. "Nobody wants to see me play grandfather roles."