The Philippine Islands are on the front line of Global Warming. The slowly rising sea level around Manila may not be so obvious.  The attack of tropical storm Washi on the southern island of Mindanao is unprecedented. As the weather becomes more extreme, Pacific Islands are among the first to suffer from this pathology of modernity.

Some excerpts from a GUARDIAN story:

The death toll from the devastating flash floods that swept across the southern Philippines in the wake of a tropical storm has risen to more than 400.

The Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC) said 436 people are now confirmed dead based on a body count in funeral parlours.

The storm sent walls of water cascading through coastal cities in the country’s Mindanao group of islands, with 215 killed in Cagayan de Oro and 144 in nearby Iligan and the rest in other southern and central provinces, said the aid agency’s secretary general Gwen Pang.

Exercise buffs enjoy a hot cup of coffee and gossip in the “Kapehan under the bridge” at the foot of the newly-built Carpenters Bridge in Mandurriao, Iloilo City. [Link]

The re-dedication of Carpenter’s Bridge in Iloilo City, Panay, Philippine Islands, is a month-long event in the city.  The old Bridge is along  a linear park, developed as part of a flood control work.   A number of banners are posted on lamp posts on the Bridge telling the story of Carpenter’s life and legacy in the Philippines.  See the one above which shows him with a number of others who worked at the same time in the American occupation.

Here’s what the Bridge looks like now…..

For my birthday, my son Will came out from Massachusetts for a visit.  Whenever he visits we have an educational opportunity.  As I have gotten into my Father’s career as my retirement project, I thought of the William Howard Taft birthplace as a good place to checkout.  It is the only historic site dedicated to the 27th President of the United States.

As Taft served as the first Civil Governor during the American occupation of the Philippine Islands during my Father’s service there. we were particularly interested in artifacts from that period.  During Taft’s 1905 Far East trip as Secretary of War he received the Key to the City of Manila, seen here:

One of the primary issues confronting Taft and the American occupation in the Islands was the so-called “Friar Lands.” The major cause of the rise of the Filipino independence movement against Spain in 1896 was the arrogance of the Catholic Orders in the Islands and their land holdings which included much of the best cultivatable land. An early step in resolving this problem for the occupation government was Taft’s visit to the Vatican in May, 1902, to discus purchase of these Friar Lands.  As mementos of his visit to Rome, he was given a gold pen and a photo of himself with Pope Leo XIII:

Empire at the End of Decadence

By CHARLES M. BLOW

From The NY times comes this op-ed item responding to various claims of American exceptionalism, such as the US has the best health service in the world.  Well, this chart shows how we, the US, ranks on a number of scales.

Where do you fit in the chart?

Needless to say I have been interested in how the bridge initially came to be built.  I understand that the Center for West Visayan Studies thinks the Carpenter Bridge was part of the infrastructure projects that came during the sugar industry. Iloilo City is on a estuarine flood plain so rivers snake through the city. Iloilo River and the city proper area are actually part of the sea and have freshwater outlets running through from the Panay central mountains. The wharf or Muelle Loney was built around the 1910s and the Custom House or Aduana was done a few years later. The old Spanish iron bridge that connected the Iloilo City proper to La Paz District was widened and renamed General Forbes Bridge. The Carpenter Bridge connected the Molo District to Jaro District. Most of these districts were separate towns that were eventually absorbed by the city. The old Spanish bridges were draw bridges at some point in time so the Iloilo River was navigable for trade many years before the Panay railway which connected the northern Panay province of Capiz to Iloilo in the south was opened in 1910. Along the way in the town of Santa Barbara the British engineers of the Panay Railways found the rolling hills to be ideal for golf reminding them of St. Andrews in Scotland. The golf club has been in existence since 1907. To Carpenter Bridge might have been built around the 1910s as part of the infrastructure projects. It connects Molo District to Jaro District both important trading towns in the past via Mandurriao District. The area where the carpenter brdige is at is called Tabucan which literally means a river crossing.

In 1931 Conrado Benitez wrote a review of Forbes’ THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, (Boston 1928), entitled “A FILIPINOS POINT OF VIEW.” Benitez  remarks that in the Philippines he was not known as W. Cameron Forbes but as W. “Caminero” Forbes.  “This was because he did so much for the construction of roads and means of communication.”

Benitez began the review, that he “always considered myself a good friend of both Governor Forbes and Governor Frank W. Carpenter.” As a good friend of both he would have known of the close working relationship between the two Americans, and understood that THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS was the work of both.  My Mother and Father met while working on these two volumes at Forbes’ estate in Massachusetts.

The linear park to which the Carpenter bridge connects.

The Old Carpenter’s bridge is here.

I recently received an email from a “member of the Iloilo City Cultural Heritage Conservation Council in Iloilo City, Philippines. A few years back the Carpenter Bridge that was named after your father was scheduled to be torn down but through the intervention of some offices including this council it has been preserved.  The bridge is now going to be part of a linear park and is due to be inaugurated this February 15. “  A volunteer on the commission, “By doing this I hope the youth will have a sense of ownership and pride so they will be active protectors of our heritage sites.”

A bridge is a wonderful memorial to my father.  Building bridges between people, developing relationships between individuals, religions, and cultures was a major part of his work.  He had a great talent for friendship.  Among Americans his close friends were W Cameron Forbes, Edward “Peter” Bowditch, Victor Heiser and Generals Pershing, Clarence Edwards, James G Harbord, and Franklin Bell.  His friends among Filipinos included Rafael Alunan, Ildefonso Coscolluela,  Felipe Cuaderno, Francisco A. Delgado, Teopisto Guingona, Ludovico Hidrosollo, Vincente Lozada, Sergio Osmena, Juan Posadas, Aresnio Roco, Jose G. Sanvictores, Jose Topacio and Miguel Unson.

For an Egypt, it was the moral force of non-violence — not terrorism, not mindless killing — but non-violence, moral force that bent the arch of history toward justice once more.

Text of his remarks.