Photos et lettres des Philippines, de France et d'ailleurs

Here we were, we had moved in our newly built house on March 1, 1986 during a full cold spell with a temperature as low as -20° Celsius. We were now living 40 km from Paris in a village near Cergy-Pontoise.

Our son Fabrice was born in Paris on December 28, 1984 and we were now overjoyed with a girl and a boy.

For three years we had spent our summer vacations in the South-West of France, in the Aveyron village of Brousse le Château. So in 1987 we decided to go to the Philippines to change and also to see my sister-in-law Leth and her son Joel arriving from Singapore.

On August 1, 1987 we thus took the plane to Manila but this time I had decided not to remain in the same place for four weeks.

After a few days spent with the family in their house of Bacoor, we went with Leth and Leng in Tagatay at the foot of the Tahal volcano and now the summer capital of the rich Manila people.

Since our last visit Leng had completed her studies and was teaching in a nearby private school. But we will see later that her true vocation was elsewhere.

Then Dhana and I, left alone to Puerto Galera in Mindoro where, you may remember, my friend Jeff the British-Australian, had dreamed to build a resort and now his dream had become true. We arrived at his place in the evening and he let us know immediately that he could not accommodate us for free. We would have to pay for the meals. I was flabbergasted because in France, I had given them full board and lodging for eight days without asking a cent. Therefore the following day we left the resort in the wee hours of the morning without any goodbye. Our destination was Calapan, 50 km to the east.

A few months later we heard that Jeff had been stabbed to death just after he won a case against a Filipino. Many people said that he was stingy but that I had already learned at my own expense. Also that his wife had ended up cheating on him with a young Filipino. Then, that he had made many enemies in hiring construction workers from Baguio for the construction of his resort instead of hiring the local ones, too lazy according to him.

His tropical dream had ended in a tragedy.

After Mindoro we returned to Manila and took off the next day for Iloilo on the Panay Island. We were going there for sightseeing and to visit the family of friends living in France. There we met Didier who had fled France and was wanted by the French police for fraudulent bankruptcy. He had married a local girl and had ended up losing all the embezzled money while investing in stores managed by his in-laws. In short he was the stolen robber. He finished by being extradited and since he deceived his wife without scruples, he was later cuckold as well. She left him for an Airline flying engineer who married her after her divorce.

Once back in Manila, we left for the province of Batangas to visit a Filipina friend married to a French and in her family for vacations too.

So far everything had been fine but a few days before our departure all was ruined.

While returning from the Imus market a few kilometers from the house, I took a Jeepney full of passengers. Suddenly the guy on my right side tried to snatch my clutch bag attached to my belt. All occurred in a few seconds, I was on the verge of punching him when the passenger in front of me rose holding a newspaper with under it a hidden knife of which he threatened me. I had the good reflex of raising my arms as a sign of surrender. Then the first thief grabbed my clutch bag from my belt and the two of them made stop the vehicle and ran away. Retroactively the fear submerged me. If I had had the bad reflex, I may have been wounded or worse and the culprits would still run. The passengers of Jeepney were sorry of what had just happened and even proposed to pay for my fare. I had been lucky because the day before I had removed my passport and my plane ticket from my wallet and had lost only the equivalent of 20 US dollars. Moreover they had been unaware of my other bag with my photo equipment in it, which was the real value.

I had hardly recovered from my fears that the following day the TV suddenly stopped broadcasting. A coup d'état was under process to overthrow the president Cory Aquino. The airport was closed and from the house we heard shots and military aircrafts flying over unceasingly. It is true that we were not very far away from the international airport. For safety sake my in-laws prohibited me to leave their premises and I remained locked up until the day of the departure. The coup d'état failed but when we left there were still soldiers everywhere around the airport.

Finally the holidays were finished and after all that had happened in the last days, I reckoned that it would be a long time before I return to the Philippines.