The COLOMBIA Story.

Previously posted on my Facebook page. Not updated.

NEWS. “Gustavo Petro wins the Colombian election, becoming the country’s first leftist president.” News adds: “The victory by the former rebel sets the third-largest nation in Latin America on a new path.” I don’t feel any weight on “Leftist” prez whatsoever. As 21st century strode in, we blurred the ism line no matter how media continually draw/s us to paradigm stereotypes. None of that figure in my head, not anymore.

       China is capitalism with a bit of “Common Prosperity” modification in between. Russia shed its hardline apparatchik girth to sell its crude oil and natural gas a-la market economics of the West. And what about oil-rich Middle East? Or the vaunted Asian Tigers? Goodbye, cultural/religious exclusivity. Compromise, interface, rebranding work.

       Patron Petro could be a Leftist revolutionary then. But the present time requires leadership acumen that goes left to right and center and wherever in practical agility per needed. Right here and right now. And this is Gustavo’s board: GDP growth rate is 6 percent, higher than the U.S. right now. But unemployment is 11.2 percent. And other pressing issues per heightened superpower benefactors’ “war” of narcissism. 🇨🇴🇨🇴🇨🇴

LET’s cut to the chase: Colombia is, no doubt, United States’ best bet in Latin/South America, especially following the recent lukewarm Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, hosted by President Biden.

       Top leaders of the region snubbed Potus or simply were out. Mexico, Honduras, Bolivia, El Salvador, Cuba, and Nicaragua. Others sent “token” diplomatic representation. How Biden would work around these facts, and how Petro reacts and responds, are what interest me. Remember, Senor Gustavo campaigned on several promises that run counter to years of U.S.-Colombia relations.

       Yet in the background, here are pertinent facts: Colombia is 4th top U.S. oil importer, dislodging Russia out of the Top 10 due to the obvious. Colombia is the only NATO member and top recipient of US aid in the region. Clearly, Colombia has long been one of Washington's closest allies in Latin America. Pre-2022 change of leadership, Bogota could be the best Washington buddy in the Americas. 🇨🇴🇨🇴🇨🇴

BESIDES what I mentioned below in the area of trade and security, Colombia and the United States had close dealings on the Venezuelan migrant crisis and the fight against the illegal drug trade. But would these still hold with Petro on Bogota’s steering wheel?

       Consider that Petro seeks reestablishing Bogotá’s direct relationship with Caracas per the election runup. Take note as well that Petro has strongly criticized the U.S. policy in Latin America on narcos, which has focused on the eradication of crops and the extradition of cartel leaders. He instead wants to legalize medicinal marijuana and create more economic incentives so impoverished farmworkers don’t see the coca plant as their only choice for livelihood.

       Petro, a former guerrilla fighter, also proposed reopening peace talks with the ELN rebel group as another step in “peacefully dismantling drug-trafficking.” But Washington has dismissed the ELN as a terrorist organization.

       President Biden could probably explore “climate change,” which is a cornerstone of Petro's promised policies. But that’d be less priority in Petro’s agenda: He has to live up to the expectations of voters who shunned the traditional parties over worsening inequality and persistent violence. First things first.

       For Biden to still hold on Bogota? Talk about the oil. Rest the security pitch. Talk economics. Oil. I am sure Gustavo Petro would love to talk more of that. 🇨🇴🇨🇴🇨🇴

Visual: BBC. Local Travel Agency in Colombia. iStock.

HOW IT WAS.

Compiled from my previous Facebook posts. 

Old fan magazines in the Philippines. The most popular was called Kislap (sparkle). Showbiz gossip. The “better” read was Liwayway because this komiks-magasin also featured short stories and illustrated, serialized novels. Entertaining though. In those days, many categorized Kislap etcetera as “bakya” or low-class. Let’s fast forward to present times: “Gossips” are tossed via the internet. Then shared as silly, juvenile memes on Facebook. Tell me then, what is “low class.” 📰🇵🇭📰

Do you still iron your pants? Or clothes? Years ago, I did so diligently. My pants would have a neat “fold mark.” And so whenever I walked, I was like a robot-walkin’ lest my pants would get crumpled. In the Philippines, before drying or ironing (freshly laundried) pants and polo shirts, we soaked them in “gawgaw” or water thickened by cornstarch or cassava powder. Dried under the sun, then mom would iron them. Voila! Well-pressed pants!👖👔👖

These days a singular soda brand has many “incarnations.” Coke Classic, Coke Zero, Diet Coke etcetera. Then, when I was a little boy in the Philippines, the most popular was Cosmos Sarsaparilla. Aside from rivals Coke and Pepsi, others were Sarsi, Merinda, Uva Canada Dry, Royal Tru Orange etcetera. But soda were special drinks or treats-only when we had extra money. We usually drank “samalamig” or cold drinks concocted from fruits and coconut. 🥤🍼🧋

I used to obsessively watch all awards shows on TV: Oscar, Grammy, Emmy etcetera including beauty contests, a family favorite. I even kept a notebook of lists: Whoever won. But times have changed, indeed. I lost interest in awards shows, all of them. Judges seem to line up nominees and winners per diversity quotient, not because of aesthetic merits. Hosting is insulting. How many Oscar Best Picture nominees? Ten? Everybody’s happy. Uh huh. 🎬🎭🎼

“Songhits” was a publication that featured lyrics of popular songs. I used to save up from my school allowance to get me Songhits, especially when there were new pop hits on AM radio. And since I was already collecting vinyl records at that time, singing along with my fave cuts was sheer fun. My pleasures: “Il Mondo” by Engelbert Humperdinck, “I (Who Have Nothing)” by Tom Jones, “Walk Away” by Matt Monro, and Beatles and Bee Gees songs. 🎼🎼🎼

Santacruzan is a Catholic pageant held on the last day of the Flores de Mayo or “Flowers of May.” It honors the finding of the True Cross by Helena of Constantinople a.k.a. Reyna Elena and Constantine the Great. Its connection with May is the May 3 date of Roodmas etcetera. Highlight is the parade of village queens: Reina de las Flores, Reina Elena, and Reina Emperatríz. We walked alongside, singing: “Dios te salve, Maria. Llena eres de gracia…” Memories. 💐✝️💐

Share food with neighbors. Those days? The Reyes’es and Smiths could smell your seafood paella or beef bourguignon, Shared some! These days: People are suspicious of people. Worse, in case they see a sticker in your car, decor in your yard, or breed of your dog that suggests you’d be conservative or liberal, forget it. Or if you offer your neighbor air-fried chicken feet or squirrel casserole, ask first if they’re vegans or wellness personages, okay? LOL! 🍲😋🥘

Familiar with “Letter to the Editor,” Uh huh? (Print) newspapers of yore? Letters should be no more than 200 words. “Be sure to state your main point in the subject line and in the first sentence of the letter.” Brevity. Still, letter-senders were edited further per available space and subject’s current significance vis a vis current events. These days, we have Facebook et al. We write/post whatever zips along in our noggin, 24/7. Yet we whine per the First Amendment. ✍️📰✍️

“Inuman ng barkada.” Or drinking socials. Drinking alcohol wasn’t always done alone or in the solitary confines of one’s house. It was a sociocultural function. Drinks were equally shared. One round, one bottle each. Or via “tagay,” everybody drank on the same glass in a round interval/process. No one overdrank otherwise everybody overdrank, which was seldom. Jokes and songs were obligatory, no arguments, no unfriending. Everybody laughed. 

       Staple in “inuman ng barkada” is “pulutan,” finger foods while drinking with your homies. Examples of pulutan: grilled shrimp, raw oysters, “kinilaw” (ceviche), fried calamari, green mangoes, bacon skewers, fishballs, corn-dogged quail egg (“kwek-kwek”) and other street foods, including “balut” (you know what that is). 😊🍻😜

“Talipapa” is a temporary makeshift market selling food (in the Philippines), with easily removable stalls under inclined flat sheds. These spots are usually located in small villages, complementary to the bigger open market (“palengke”). Talipapas are put up in either private lots owned by a generous resident or an idle government property. My dad used to work (pro bono) for City Hall permits for a talipapa in our Quezon City suburban village of Project 6. 🍆🍞🥦

Photo credit: The Falcon Press.

RECOMMENDED: Book. “Destined for War" by Graham Allison.

RECOMMENDED: Non-fiction Book. “Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?” (2017) by Graham Allison. Another book, published in 1976 and co-written by Mr Allison with Peter Szanton, that I found in rummage sale in Manila during college: “Remaking Foreign Policy: The Organizational Connection.” The book had a significant dent on Jimmy Carter’s dovish foreign policy as he took office in 1977. That time, I was already into voracious immersion into Washington’s overseas tact. 

       I must say, Graham Allison is a top 10 major read for me when it comes to U.S. national security and defense policy, and governmental decision making on times of crisis. What is Thucydides Trap? According to Allison, it refers to the theory that "…when one great power threatens to displace another, war is almost always the result.” 

       Without expounding, and which I assume you already “see” through it, President Biden’s hawkish playbook seems bent on jumping into that hole although, especially via Ukraine, he sends a pitch that delivers the contrary. 

       Meanwhile, since “Destined…” was written in 2017, the author was referring to President Donald Trump's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Writes Allison: “Both major players in the region share a moral obligation to steer away from Thucydides's Trap." And we know that both leaders didn’t fall into the war trap—although China has been very successful with its “art of war,” delivered via Sun Tzu: “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” That’d be trade and economics. 

       Trump was faced with a plethora of foreign policy boiling points: North Korea, Iran, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria etc etcetera. Yet war didn’t happen in the level of Russia/Ukraine tempest. Sure, the other side of the polar/political extreme will still thumb-down Donald, no matter what. 

      Allison's Thucydides Trap follows the ancient text “History of the Peloponnesian War,” in which Thucydides wrote, "What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta." Of course, those were past tense parallels. Yet although we are faced with an entirely different (high-tech) reality along a geopolitical grid that has long shuddered and tilted, West to East, still the theory makes sense.

       “Divide and rule” is another ancient policy that gains utmost effectivity these days. Attributed to Philip II of Macedon, the strategy means gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into pieces that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy.

       Anyways, you don’t have to believe in a book or other people’s perception, scholarly analysis or simply whacked-out theses, to learn what’s going on and what fits humanity. Try this book. Another book that I disagree with but enjoyed reading is “Asia's Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific” by Robert D. Kaplan. I scored it for $1 at Dollar Tree. 

       Mr Kaplan served as consultant to the U.S. Army's Special Forces, the United States Marines, and the United States Air Force. I first encountered his work via The Atlantic Monthly, through the article “The Coming Anarchy." From that, I am led to Samuel P. Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations.” The struggle between primitivism and civilizations etc etcetera. 📚✍️📚

The SRI LANKA Story.

Previously posted on my Facebook page.

NEWS. “Sri Lanka Collapsed First, but It Won’t Be the Last.” / “Out of Cash and Out of Fuel, Sri Lanka Runs on Patience.” New York Times adds: “The rage at the failure and corruption of a ruling elite is matched by generosity and ingenuity to prevent complete collapse and anarchy.” Yet this new story of gargantuan economic ruin is summed up as this: “Western debt killed Sri Lanka.”

       Others may as well follow, I fear—as beleaguered nations crippled by Covid pandemic and the ensuing oil/gas crisis, are poised to repeat the same mistakes as West’s I.M.F./World Bank and East’s AIIB and Asian Development Bank compete in dangling carrots to the hungry.

       What happened to this ancient South Asian land of rich and diverse cultures, languages, and ethnicities? Fact is, Sri Lanka's GDP in terms of purchasing power parity is the second highest in the region in terms of per capita income. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Sri Lanka—formerly known as Ceylon--became a plantation economy famous for its production and export of cinnamon, rubber, and Ceylon tea, which remains a trademark national export.

       You may google/wiki rest of history. Let’s fast forward to 2021/2022. Observers blame these factors as contributory to the crisis: Tax cuts, money creation, a nationwide policy to shift to organic or biological farming, the 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings, and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Trade complexities that ensued per Ukraine War also added to the problem/s.

       I say, corruption sealed `em all. The twin sibling of mishandling of sovereign debt amidst these times of super-active geopolitical competition. 🇱🇰🇱🇰🇱🇰

NEWS before the smoke of distress subsided: “Showdown at the Mansion Gates: How Sri Lankans Rose Up to Dethrone a Dynasty.” An army of nuns, farmers and middle-class professionals felt a duty to save their virtually bankrupt nation. Apparently, their fight is far from over.

       The warning call seems a déjà vu of past horrors. The perils of sovereign debt, defined as the amount of money that a country's government has borrowed, typically issued as bonds denominated in a reserve currency. The country’s debt is held by multiple creditors, notably China, India and Japan. If we count the debt held by Chinese banks, such as EXIM Bank of China and the China Development Bank, the percentage of Chinese-held debt is somewhere around 26 percent.

       But then, the largest portion of Sri Lanka’s debt is held by commercial institutions. Over the last 20 years as Colombo’s debt has gone from low interest rate concessionary lending from the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank to mostly commercial loans held by private banks at much higher interest rates. In 2019, 56 percent of Sri Lanka’s debt was held by commercial lenders, compared to only 2.5 percent in 2004. Much of this debt was used for large infrastructure projects that did not produce returns to pay up.

       Sure, media blames China per “debt trap diplomacy” but this trade/debt trickery has long been a creditor/debtor fact since time immemorial, before Beijing fully opened its economic door in 2000. Whoever hands out loan: I.M.F., World Bank, AIIB, China’s 5 state-owned banks, ADB etcetera. If a debtor nation’s leadership is bereft of wisdom, economic collapse is expected. 🇱🇰🇱🇰🇱🇰

RANIL Wickremesinghe, a canny political survivor with ties to the exiled former president, inherits a nation in deep crisis. So light at the end of the dark tunnel isn’t (yet) visible at this juncture.

       The roots of the current political crisis are directly tied to former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his family, including his brothers former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and former Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa. Gotabaya came to power in 2019, and in 2020 his party, the Sri Lanka People's Front (SLPP), was able to consolidate its supermajority in parliament on a banner of populism and Sinhalese nationalism.

      What follows is like a replay of Marcos Family Philippines pre-1986: Dictatorial-styled corruption, nepotism, cronyism, elevation of retired military officers into almost every sector of government, human rights violations. Of course, we have heard, read, even experienced all these in the past.

      What awaits the 22 million Sri Lankan humanity? There is hope, still. Unemployment rate is 4.3 percent which isn’t so bad. The country’s main economic sectors tea export, apparel, textile, rice production and other agricultural products will recover soon. Why? As of June this year, Sri Lanka posted a trade surplus of $21 million, switching from a $652 million deficit a year ago. And tourism should pick up soon.

      But as I said below, the people’s fight is far from over. 🇱🇰🇱🇰🇱🇰

MY THOUGHTS on News.

Previously posted on my Facebook Page.

New York Times: “The U.S.-China Rivalry Is Complicating the World’s Debt Crisis.” Trade war is tricky. The 2019 U.S./China “trade war,” for example, benefited a number of countries such as Vietnam, which gained 7.9 percent GDP from trade diversion. But a continuing rivalry would pummel heavily-indebted nations such as Sri Lanka, Zambia, and Suriname. Yet the U.S. and China would hardly shudder. Profit stays as they push debtors deep in murk.  

       Other countries that gained from 2019’s trade diversion (or additional China imports) were Chile, Malaysia and Argentina. As well as Hong Kong, Mexico, South Korea, Singapore, Brazil and Canada. In Europe, the biggest beneficiary was France. But countries with the highest debt-to-GDP ratios would sink deeper, especially tiny nations that are already ravaged by recession, inflation and astronomical debts. Their relief is held hostage by superpower politics. 🇺🇸💰🇨🇳

Rolling Stone: “Demi Lovato Re-Adopted 'She/Her' Pronouns Because Explaining 'They/Them' Was 'Exhausting'.” Of course, it is exhausting, if not confusing. Beyond male/female or he/she, gender identities seem to expand nonstop from LBTQ or “no gender” or non-binary categories: Transgender, genderqueer, agender, bigender, genderfluid, gender neutral, pangender, two-spirit, third gender, or a combination of these. Just call me Pasckie, okay? 😒😟🤨

New York Times: “Secret Service Examining How Suspected Cocaine Ended Up at the White House.” And adds: “An initial test of the white powdery substance found inside the White House showed it was cocaine.” What’s going on, the President’s staff? Pragmatically speaking, coke, shrooms and weed are no brainers to those who can afford them. At least, choose your spot. But that place is the White House, you dig? Remember the 1998 BJ? Common sense. 😏😒😟

Time: “Alcohol Might Improve Heart Health by Reducing Your Stress.” Hear that, my alcoholic buddies? No stress, be happy. Drink more! Just look out for high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, liver disease, and digestive problems. Cancers of your choice from: Throat, esophagus, voice box, liver, colon, rectum. Weakened immune system. Memory loss. Irritating company. Etc etcetera. Don’t give me the Bukowski, Poe, or Keef rationale. Just drink! Don’t stress. Sarcasm, okay? 🥃🥹🍺

Smithsonian: “Male Primate Masturbation May Have Evolved to Prevent STIs.” And adds: “The behavior originated some 40 million years ago to improve breeding success and protect against pathogens, according to a new study.” I am perplexed by the amount of scientific energy and financial resources smart people spend on stuff like this. Medical research is imperative but there are many that I find frivolous such as study of a humongous Viking poop, and stuff like that. 🐵🙈🙉

New York Times: “Xi Jinping needs Vladimir Putin to remain in power, and Russia to maintain stability, to help uphold the countries’ shared interests and to keep challenging the United States.” The contention: Why challenge and wrestle to decide who’s #1? China needs Russia; the U.S. needs its allies. China spent $81.3 billion on imports of Russian oil, coal, LNG, and pipeline gas in 2022, up from $52.1 billion in 2021. Russia’s top trading partner: China. 

       Also: China, the world's top metals consumer, imported a combined $5.1 billion worth of aluminum, refined copper and refined nickel from Russia in 2022, up 16 percent from 2021 with import volumes heading higher so far this year. A week before the Ukraine war, Vladimir Putin unveiled new Russian oil and gas deals with China worth an estimated $117.5 billion. Yet even as armed hostilities continue, the U.S. and Europe are still doing business with Russia somehow, and Chinese trade hasn’t stopped to whoever wants to do economics. (Visual credit: FreightWaves.) ☮️☯️☮️

New York Times: “Generative A.I. Can Add $4.4 Trillion in Value to Global Economy, Study Says.” And adds: “The report from McKinsey comes as a debate rages over the potential economic effects of A.I.-powered chatbots on labor and the economy.” I don’t need to concur with governments that banned ChatGPT–such as Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Syria, and Italy–to buy AI’s braggadocio. AI is not good for humanity, now and whenever. 💸💰💸

New York Times: “Federal Judge Limits Biden Officials’ Contacts With Social Media Sites.” And adds: “The order came in a lawsuit filed by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, who claim the administration is trying to silence its critics.” Of course, Facebook and Twitter et al–or Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk–are blamed, instead. On a larger context, media stories these days are clearly “influenced” by powers that be. Then people say, “AI!” LOL! 🙈🙉🙊

Smithsonian: “Why Fireworks Scare Some Dogs but Not Others.” I don’t need to google why or ask Fizz The Wiz Koolcat. How we hoomans behave rubs off in our pet animals. So don’t tell me your dog is a pitiful little baby on fireworks time. You are. If ever they are, it’s instinctive response for me. Hold the dog and reassure her, it’s okay. Until they get used to it. Arrow The Good Doog, in fact, isn’t bothered by fireworks. But when people seem angry or sad? That’s when she’s bothered. 🐕🐾🦮

Rolling Stone: “Fox News Settles With Former Tucker Carlson Producer for $12 Million.” Meanwhile, Mr Carlson is indeed amassing lotsa moolah! Tucker’s net worth is estimated to be $380 million as of 2023. He was earning $35 million salary from Fox News annually, making him the highest-paid and richest television host in the world. As Nov 2024 comes near, the enormously influential voice in conservative politics would be counting more $. So more drama, upcoming. 📺🦊📺

Events to Remember. Famous Photography. And Stuff.

Previously posted on my Facebook Page.

EVENTS to REMEMBER. Fall of the Berlin Wall: October 3, 1990. West Germany and East Germany ended 45 years of postwar division, declaring the creation of a reunified country. The Berlin Wall or Die Berliner Mauer was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Photo credit: The Guardian. ☮️🇩🇪☮️

FAMOUS PHOTOGRAPHY. In the years after the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the ouster of the Taliban regime, Associated Press photographer Rodrigo Abd spent months on assignment there and learned how to use a traditional Afghan “box camera,” a handmade street camera and darkroom in one. He returned this year to document how Afghan life has changed in peacetime, for better and worse, since U.S. troops left and the Taliban returned to power. (Text: Associated Press.) 🇦🇫🇦🇫🇦🇫

FAMOUS EVENTS. Oktoberfest is a beer festival held annually in Munich, Bavaria in Germany. Running from mid- or late-September to around the first Sunday in October, the boozefest attracts more than six million international and national visitors. Locally, it is called d'Wiesn, after the colloquial name for the fairgrounds, Theresienwiese. Oktoberfest is an important part of Bavarian culture, having been held since the year 1810. 🍻🇩🇪🍻

MOMENTS in HISTORY. Old trains and railway tracks. Those old, old trains that we often see in movies are very mystifying. An early (1500s) railway in Austria’s Hohensalzburg Fortress used wooden rails and hemp haulage rope and was operated by human or animal power, through a treadwheel. The line still exists and remains operational. The U.S. railroad mania began with the founding of the first passenger and freight line, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1827. 🚉🚂🚉

PEOPLE and CULTURE. Bollywood refers to the majority Hindi language film industry based in Mumbai, India. Bollywood is a part of the larger Indian cinema, which also includes South Indian cinema and other smaller film industries. The most popular genre is masala, which is generally musical melodrama or mix of action, comedy and romance. On average, Indian cinema produces 1,900 feature films a year, which is clearly bigger than Hollywood’s 500 movies annually. 🎥🇮🇳📽

TRAGIC MOMENTS to REMEMBER. Attica Prison Riot. At the state prison in Attica, upstate New York. The riot started on September 9, 1971, and ended on September 13 with the highest number of fatalities in the history of United States prison uprisings. 43 men died: 33 inmates and 10 correctional officers and employees, mostly by gunfire. The Attica Uprising has been described as a historic event in the prisoners' rights movement. (Photo credit: NPR.) ☮️☮️☮️

FAMOUS PLACES. Bleecker Street is an east–west street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is most famous today as a Greenwich Village nightclub district. The street today is very popular for music venues and comedy, and a center for bohemia. The street is named after the family name of banker Anthony Lispenard Bleecker and writer Anthony Bleecker, through whose family farm the street ran. My favorite night spots at Bleecker: The Bitter End. 🎼🎤🗽

MOMENTS to REMEMBER. On August 29, 2005: Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast near Buras, Louisiana, bringing floods that devastated New Orleans. The devastating Category 5 Atlantic hurricane caused 1,836 fatalities and damage estimated between $97.4 billion to $145.5 billion. In the image above, taken by David J. Phillip of the Associated Press, floodwaters from the hurricane fill the streets near downtown New Orleans. 🌬💨💦

FAMOUS EVENTS. Every last Wednesday of August, revelers hurl tomatoes at each other in Spanish town’s “La Tomatina.” Some 15,000 people, including many tourists, pasted each other with tomatoes per Spain’s annual “Tomatina” street battle for entertainment purposes. The festival is held in the Valencian town of Buñol, in the east of Spain. Since 1945, it has been held on the last Wednesday of August, during a week of festivities in Buñol. Ole! 🍅🇪🇸🍅

FAMOUS PLACES. Banaue Rice Terraces. Terraces that were carved into the mountains of Banaue in Ifugao province in the Philippines, by the ancestors of the Igorot people. Occasionally called the "Eighth Wonder of the World,” the terraces is were built with minimal equipment, largely by hand, located approximately 4,900 feet above sea level. These are fed by an ancient irrigation system from the rainforests above the terraces. (Photo: Lux Travel DMC.) ⛰🇵🇭⛰