Why Rio de Janeiro is like the Philippines

Brazil is a huge, beautiful and well endowed country with over 160 million people...and plenty of beautiful women. It is the largest country in South America geographically and economically. Their annual per capita income is over $5000, two and a half times more than that of the Philippines. They have oil, gas, large timber deposit, (it has the Amazon forest), heavy manufacturing, steel and car manufacturing, and plenty of agricultural lands. It should really be a first world country. The question is "why are they not?"

It is such an interesting country. I really took the time to learn as much as possible about Rio de Janeiro and Brazil in the time I was there. It helped that I was in an international conference with participants from higher echelons of Brazilian business and government, with a lot of English written brochures. It also helped that I can understand some Spanish and Latin as it allowed me to understand the written Portuguese, but I can hardly speak them so going to the Sunday Masses with a pamphlet was fine.

Rio has a population of 7 up to 11 million if we include the neighboring towns, about the same as Manila and Metro Manila. Their squatter population which is some 15% or 1.5 million, again about the same as Metro Manila except that Rio's squatters have their shanties in the hills around the city, while Manila's are in the lowlands. There is a wider disparity between the haves and the have- nots in Rio, as the rich in Rio are richer given their higher per capita income. The rich in Rio live in high-rise condos mostly fronting the lake or the beach surrounded by shops, restaurants and hotels. Quite a number of them are retired citizens and expats who have made their fortunes or are independently wealthy and do not have to work for a living. This is noticeable in the number of stores that cater to the elderly, such as orthopaedic bed stores, delis, and small quaint restaurants in the neighborhoods.

The "Cariocas", as Rio natives like to be called, have two consuming interests, whether rich or poor: soccer and the annual carnival. They have the biggest soccer stadium in the world and the biggest and only "sambadrome." They love and play soccer so much. One night as I was on the way to the hotel at one o'clock in the morning, I saw a soccer game still going on at one of the many soccer fields in the city. And you can see a soccer game going at anytime of the day in the beaches of Ipanema, Leblon, and Copacabana. All year round, there are a number of samba dance studios that does business preparing for the February Rio Carnival. This addiction to soccer and the carnival also affects the expats and the tourists so it gives the city a perpetual air of fun, games and parties.

One Thursday morning, I stepped out of the hotel to go to the conference, and was amazed at the number of people in the beach. I estimated it to be some 200,000. I jokingly asked the concierge: " Don't these people have to go to work?" He replied, " It's the first day of bright sunshine in these summer months, and these are the people who don't have to work. They will double in number in the weekend, and the beaches can accommodate two million people as what happens during the fireworks on New Year's Day." True enough, I went to the beach that Saturday, and there must have been 400,000 people there. We were almost shoulder to shoulder, just sitting on the sand.

The sights and tourist sites around Rio are aplenty. Aside from the beaches, the mountains are beautiful. There is the Corcovado mountain, the site of the huge statue of Christ the Redeemer, and the Sugar Loaf mountain - both within one hour from the city. There is the beautiful Metropolitan Cathedral with its enormous mosaic stained glass, the botanical gardens, and quaint little barrios, like the Santa Teresa with its turn of the century cable cars. The food and the restaurants are plenty and as varied, from Italian to Japanese, with a bias for Italian and Latin American fares. They do eat a lot of meat so that as the native Brazilians grow older, they tend to gain weight, although this does not deter them from still wearing bikinis on the beach. Out there, every woman wears a bikini and Havaianas slippers.

The downside of Rio is its criminality, its peace and order problem. Rio was in the world news this December as there was a hold-up of a busload of tourists on the way to Copacabana. There was also the burning of two commuter buses and an attack on a police station before Christmas. They had to deploy 12,000 police in Rio for the New Year fireworks in the beaches of Ipanema, Leblon, and Copacabana on that day to ensure peace and order. The root cause of the civil disturbances is the large chunk of Rio's population who are living below the poverty line, fuelling a lucrative drug trade and making drug lords well armed and powerful. It also does not help that Rio is accessible to all the drug sources of South America. Their political situation is also wanting. Like the Philippines, they are also saddled with corrupt politicians, who are not addressing the existing social inequities. This is the reason why Brazil, or Rio for that matter, is not much better off than where they are now.