Thursday, March 25 from Cliff

Today was probably one of our more interesting days.  Unfortunately, Lew was sick with a bug and could not come with us.  We were hosted by Rotary Club of Parañanque St. Andrew.  We started off by meeting one of their members at Lufthansa Technik, an airliner maintenance and repair facility.  Here commercial airliners are brought for various kinds of maintenance.  There were two planes in the hanger getting there four year maintenance overhaul.  For this, everything inside the plane, seats, lavatories, kitchens, and walls are removed.  The parts are taken to different areas for inspection and repair and cleaning.  Inside the plane the controls are exposed and checked and repaired, the engines are broken down and overhauled.  The planes are also repainted.  They work on three shifts 24 hours a day to turn around a plane in 20 to 30 days.  We went to their training classrooms to see examples from their riveting class.

Our next stop was to see Congressman Edza Zialcita.  He is ineligible to run for congress due to term limits and so he is now running for mayor of Parañanque City.  Our discussion with him was very interesting.  Of all of the politicians that we have seen so far, he seemed to be the most knowledgeable and had a good understanding of the problems facing his country and city and what needs to be done and the difficulties ahead in accomplishing his goals.  

After meeting with Edza we went out on a balcony of this 15 story building, we were only on the 3rd floor, to have lunch by a small swimming pool. During our conversations, someone came out of the building and said we just had an earthquake.  To be honest, I never noticed, but it was pointed out that the water in the pool was sloshing back and forth as if someone had entered the pool.  It turns out there was a 6+ earthquake in Mindoro, over 100 miles away.  In Manila, the quake was only about a 4. 
After lunch it was off to the University of Santo Tomas.  We were guided through there museum with its rich collection of stuffed animal specimens, Chinese porcelain, and religious artifacts.  Then we went to the library and the Head Librarian took to their rare book collection.  There we saw books in various stages of restoration and were able to see their oldest book written in 1492 and this copy translated into Spanish in 1537. We also saw a copy of Il Filerbusteremo written by the Philippine national hero, Jose Rizal.  This was a printed copy that he had inscribed a note to a friend.  The book was from the 1800’s.

And now for the hard part of the day.  We went to Manila Harbor Rest and sat out on a pier, had a few beers and watched another sunset on Manila Bay.  Then we went to Atcha’s Grill near the Mall of Asia for a Rotary Fellowship Meeting.  Dinner and more beer.