Philippine Islands – Discover the beauty of its 7,107 islands

ON THE streets of Manila in the Philippines, the jeepney, with its bold colors, flying streamers, and host of other eye-catching ornaments, is a familiar sight. It is a uniquely Filipino solution to a problem that nations around the world are grappling with mass transportation. To anyone who has never been to the Philippines, however, even the word “jeepney” is strange. Authorities suggest that it is a combination of the words “jeep” and “jitney” (small bus). Allow us to introduce you to this fascinating vehicle.

In his book Urban Mass Transportation, George M. Smerk spotlights a common problem with mass-transport systems: “It has often been charged that mass transportation is inflexible, meaning usually that a transport line cannot be altered to meet changing needs of the population over time.” This is not true of the jeepney, however. The jeepney has shown itself flexible, economical, and easy to operate. Let’s take a ride

ORGANS have existed in one form or another for over 2,000 years. Techniques for building them have varied, but common to all organs are the rows of pipes that are part of the sound-producing mechanism. These are generally made of wood and metal. The organ we wish to tell you about, however, has pipes primarily made of bamboo. A total of 832 of its 953 sound-producing pipes are bamboo. The others are metal. In addition, there are some pipes that are only decorative.

How does the bamboo organ work? The principle is the same as for other pipe organs. Two types of pipes are used, and wind is pumped into them to produce musical sounds. Flue pipes with half-circle holes close to their points of connection with the console produce sound in much the same manner as a flute. Reed pipes with a vibrating element

ITS total length is said to be ten times that of the Great Wall of China. Some say that if its sections were placed end to end, it would reach 14,000 miles [20,000 km] or halfway around the earth! Some even call it the eighth wonder of the world. Nevertheless, many people have never heard of this awesome sight in the Philippines. What is it? The stairway to the sky, the rice terraces of the Cordillera Central. Tucked away in the heights of Luzon, the terraces are an amazing display of beauty and ingenuity.

Why were they built? The precipitous mountains of the Cordilleras are so steep that they could normally not be used for farming. The incline of some slopes exceeds 50 percent. But ancient farmers were not deterred by this. At an elevation of 4,000 feet [1,200 m] or more, they carved thousands of terraces into the sides of the verdant

AN ELDERLY woman living in Singapore visits her doctor to complain about a persistent cough. In Papua New Guinea, a nervous father takes his daughter to the white man’s clinic to show the physician her swollen and grossly distorted face. An Iranian farmer comes to the hospital in town to ask what he can do about the nonhealing sore on his head. All the afflicted ones find that they are suffering from what seemed, until recently, to be a “Western” disease cancer.

The very mention of cancer has long been enough to stir emotions in the West. Recently, though, more and more cancer cases are coming to light in the developing countries of the East. A recent forecast placed the 1977 cancer-death toll at about two million people in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. In the Philippines, cancer has moved from the seventh to the fifth place among the killer diseases.

Imagine fishermen walking down to the seashore, ready to carry out their early morning routine of preparing their boats and nets. As usual, they hope for a good catch of fish. But to their astonishment, a horrible sight meets their still sleepy eyes. Thousands of fish have washed ashore dead. The cause of this mass destruction? A RED TIDE!

RED TIDES are a global phenomenon. They have been observed on both the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts of the United States and Canada. They have also occurred in Australia, Brunei, northwestern Europe, Japan, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and other places. Though relatively few people are aware of them, red tides are not new.

In the Philippines, a red tide was first seen in the province of Bataan in 1908. In 1983 a red tide poisoned fish and shellfish in the Samar Sea, Maqueda Bay, and Villareal Bay. Since then, red tides

THE airliner dips low over green hills and flat rice paddies. Suddenly it swoops over a wide bay, close to the roofs of a modern-looking city, and onto the runway. The door swings open, and you are in the Orient, on an island in the Philippines, only 500 miles from the coast of China.

By any standards the more than 7,000 tropical islands that make up the Philippines are beautiful. And there is such variety! To the north are pine-clad mountains and cool, clear air, and in the south there are steaming jungles. In central Luzon, on the group’s largest island, wide rivers meander through beautiful flat plains. This is one of the great rice bowls of Asia, one of the most fertile areas on earth. But what many visitors especially enjoy are the palm-studded beaches long stretches of sunlit sands washed by the waters of a warm tropical