Flying like a nationalist
The recent crisis surrounding Philippine Airlines and the government’s reaction to it got me thinking: we see travel simply as a way to get from point A to B, yet there’s got to be more to its political dimensions. Consider this a two-part travel guide seen from the eyes of a nationalist (in its first part) and a communist (in its second) looking to plan their holidays.
I didn’t mind the seven-hour stopover as soon as I arrived at Singapore’s Changi airport. With good food, shower and spa facilities, designated 24-hour napping areas and free wireless Internet enabling me to send this article to my Young Star editors, staying overnight at an airport is no longer such a bad thing. That seemed to be what the Singaporean government had in mind when they designed what’s less an airport than a city within a city complete with its own shopping mall and subway. The journey becomes the destination as passengers reluctantly leave the airport that’s treated them so well — something that those of us waiting for our next flight at crummy old NAIA can’t seem to relate to.
This luxurious airport is just another reason to rake in the frequent flyer miles on Singapore Airlines — the world’s first five-star hotel in the sky — and part ways with our own national carrier. The question is whether we as Filipinos will let material things draw us away from subscribing to Philippine Airlines. Sure our planes are as old as the airline itself, our airport rundown and overcrowded. But those old planes are our old planes. That rundown airport is our rundown airport (at least until the new terminal finally opens). NAIA is part of our history. It’s the same airport that’s served millions of ordinary Filipinos heroically looking for better opportunities abroad. It’s the same airport that received Ninoy Aquino on that historic August day that changed this country forever (and the airport’s name along with it). It’s even the same airport that’s received The Beatles, the Pope and Michael Jackson. So long as our international flights are relegated to this rundown old airport, we shouldn’t be embarrassed for what this country has to offer. Sure, its retirement is almost a decade overdue thanks to ongoing legal disputes over the new NAIA Terminal 3, but so long as it’s in operation, we should take pride in the fact that what it lacks in facilities, it makes up for in history. And that is something that Singapore’s wireless Internet can never match.
Philippine Airlines, too, is a national treasure — we know it as the first airline in Asia, a title that speaks to this country’s former greatness that some now seem to doubt. It’s an airline started and run by Filipinos, employing Filipinos and for Filipinos. It’s an airline that, since its founding in 1941, circled the world before Singapore even gained its independence from the British and, like NAIA, helped make the OFW dream come true. Its revenues, too, keep money flowing within the Philippine economy. And if Filipinos themselves don’t support the national airline, who will? Surely all that is worth more than the flat reclining seats and personal televisions onboard Singapore’s international flights.
To fly on a foreign airline in deference to our need for more leg room is to forsake the stubbornly nationalistic attitude captured by Manuel L. Quezon’s famous words — that he would rather have a country “run like hell by Filipinos than one run like heaven by the Americans.” To fly anything else is to choose the latter (and Quezon, in any case, was just trying to make a point. PAL flights really aren’t all that bad). In short, to fly like a nationalist is to fly PAL, our national carrier, the airline of true Filipinos. Whenever a flight is available, and as soon as this ongoing crisis is over, remember to fly Filipino. You are doing our country a favor by keeping that in mind next time you fly.
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Next week-: Part 2 — Flying like a communist.
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The author is a high school senior at the International School Manila. For comments and suggestions, feel free to email levistel@gmail.com.
