Filipinos fly flag in South China Sea
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PUERTO PRINCESA — For the few dozen Filipinos living on a remote speck of land in the South China Sea, each day is a battle against loneliness but also a love affair with nature.
Contact with the outside world is limited and comforts are few for the residents of “Freedom” town, which exists mainly to raise the Philippine flag and fend off the other claimants to the Spratly islands.
“People here just play billiards, ping-pong. We have no markets and no malls. You need a special mindset to stay here,” said Eugenio Bito-onon, 55, mayor of the town of Kalayaan, the Filipino word for freedom.
Bito-onon, who initially went to Kalayaan in 1997 to work as a town planner, said he learned to cope by playing guitar, watching videos and simply walking around the small islands surrounded by the purest blue ocean waters..... MORE
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110719com7.html
1 comment
Freedom town. Sounds like paradise.
I said..It sounds like it. Only.
No traffic, no crowding, clean, tranquill. White sands, clear waters and blue skies, Chinese Coast Guard cutters on the hirizon, golden sunsets. An errection. Wow...
Wonder if tsismis is a vice in Freedom town. It only takes one toxic animal to start the ball rolling and ruin it. You might think why I have to make somthing positive into a negative, well I live in a real world. Nothing is perfect. Are you? Rural, rustic, some uneducated folks, and there is bound to be innuendos flying all around. They must be bored. I am bored of Metro Manila.
Sure sounds like a great retirement place though. Solar powered green home, satellite dish, internet webcam, a little salty drinking water.
Great if you own an amphibian airplane like a Lake 250 and start a mail and goods charter service.
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