Philippine Culture in One Photo

The most typically Filipino thing I have ever been able to photograph

What do we see here?  On the far left, we see a rice field with newly planted rice seedlings.  If you look carefully, above the green rice field, you can see an as yet unplanted field.  In the middle, we see an irrigation ditch that services these same rice fields and many others.  To the right of the ditch, we see dirt dredged out of the ditch with a backhoe.  And finally, on the far right, we see a concrete road.

As you can see, irrigation workers have dredged the ditch and left the dirt in the margin (or if you prefer, on the road shoulder).  In any other place, the workers would have used the backhoe to move the dirt into an awaiting truck, to be hauled off to some place in need of fill.  Believe me, the Philippines has no shortage of places that could use the extra fill.

But as you can see, that is not what they have done.  They have left the dredged dirt in the margin.  Where, because of the road, it can only go one way:  Back into the ditch.  And with the amount of rain we see in the Philippines, that will not take long at all.  It was raining when I took this photograph.

Again, what is this?  Many people consider Filipinos to be lazy.  But that is not true; I see extremely hard working Filipinos every day.  That rice field was planted by hand; back-breaking work.  And believe me, the guys I saw dredging this ditch are not lazy.  I passed them working on this project many times.  But what is this?  I mean seriously.

We are going to all the trouble to increase the flow and capacity of the irrigation ditch, but then we are going to leave the excavated dirt where it can only flow right back into the ditch that we just worked so hard to clear.  Practically immediately.

And how often is this done?  I mean, if the excavated dirt was trucked away, would this need to be done again?  Maybe once a decade, or so.

What is that?

Before we go, one final note.  Look again at that dirt.  That is grade A volcanic top soil.  I know North Carolina coastal plains farmers who would kill for dirt like that.  Just one example of the many natural resources of the Philippines.  Judging by natural resources alone, the Philippines should be a rich country.  But it is the culture that keeps it poor.

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