No longer ‘la civilisation de pommes-frites’

BRUSSELS, Belgium – That’s what John Gunther – the late, great journalist who wrote those "Inside" books – said of Belgium thirty years ago. Other Europeans, he quipped, referred sneeringly to the Belgians as "The Civilization of Fries" – Belgian fries, not French fries.

My wife and I were lured back to Brussels the past weekend and found this no longer true – indeed, Brussels has metamorphosed into a bustling, cosmopolitan Tower of Babel in which you hear conversations and roars of laughter in ten languages on every side every minute.

There are so many "foreigners" now crowded into this city of almost a million (the capital of the Region de Bruxelles), that even in the local dialect, the word for a good chat is babbeler.

I used to think Brussels was a dump. In the old days, it was drab and dingy, outside of its fantastically quaint Grand-Place, also known in Flemish as the Grote Markt, one of the most lovely squares in the world, "an oasis of light and peace in the heart of the city". The baroque-style facades combined with Gothic architecture, like the Maison du Roi and the Hotel de Ville, were always a delight to the eye, and sand-blasting recently has now restored each to its original freshness and lacework luminosity.

Outside that oasis, though, and the teeming, delicious little restaurants in the adjoining streets like Rue des Bouchers, Tete d’Or, Chair et Pain, Rue de la Colline, Rue Ch. Buls, and des Chapeliers, Brussels was, to me, dull, dull, dull.

A few years ago, I made a flying trip to this town to see then Ambassador Bert Pedrosa and his wife Chit, now one of our STAR columnists and found Brussels a bit more lively, but still "provincial".

This trip, when our friend Martin drove us into the city from the train station, it was another Brussels we discovered. This stodgy burgh has indeed become, as it has been boasting the past decade, "The Capital of Europe".

The magnificently ugly, blue-mirrored and gigantic new building complex of the European Parliament is nearing completion, as I speak. Part of it is already occupied, and when it is fully in operation, high-speed trains will whisk members of the Parliament of Europe from their home bailiwicks to a computer-age railway station underneath and inside the building compound.

Imagine politicians and personnel streaming in and out of that chromed and polished anthill every few minutes, determined to decide the fate of Europe. Next door, in the European Commission (EC) headquarters, the bureaucrats and beamters already literally run the continent – and someday may even decree the color of jockey shorts and boxer shorts each male must wear.

In fact, every morning no less than 300,000 commuters invade Greater Brussels (which covers an area of 63 square miles), some traveling great distances daily, from France, Wallonia and Flanders, even Holland, to work in the newly-erected medium and high rises, some of the structures attractive, while many are boxlike and repulsive (would you believe?). The European Union’s edifices, from the aesthetic standpoint, alas, leave very much to be desired – but each building throbs with power and euro-wealth!

Brussels’ tourist-touts love to ululate that their city, with its cathedrals and beguinages, its museums and palaces, is one of Europe’s great art nouveau centers. Victor Horta’s architecture, indeed, shines – but the bulk of the metropolis is not even ma-arte, much less Horta.

However, it’s not all work and gray bureaucracy here. Astonishingly, within and just outside the city limits there are no less than NINE golf courses! Yep, siyam as in our lingo. One wonders, in this light, how do they find time to "run" Europe?

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Ever since Brussels became the capital of the European Union in 1958, it has been growing by leaps and bounds. With ten more countries, from Eastern and Central Europe mostly, now joining the EU, real estate prices are shooting up. Not by the month, but by the week, mind you.

This is now the only capital city in the planet which hosts three diplomatic missions from each major foreign country: First to the Belgian State (headed by King Albert II, the sixth king of the Belgians – whose Queen, Paola, comes from Italy, a daughter of Prince Fulco Ruffo di Calabria).

The next is to the European Union, and the third to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) whose headquarters is in a Brussels suburb.

Fortunately, we have a very capable envoy here, Ambassador Clemencio Fortu Montesa, who heads our Mission to the EU, and I must say our Embassy chancery on the Avenue Moliere, 297, is one of the most beautiful of our diplomatic establishments in the world.

It was bought by our government, fortunately, some years ago (but installments are still being paid, I think). In 1997, we paid a mere 19 million Belgian francs – now 4 million 750,000 euros in current terms – for a three-story "palace", so elegantly Old World that it deserves to be a Filipino mecca even if only for achieving a feel-good high. The highest and snottiest foreign dignitaries and envoys can be entertained in its chandeliered Hall of Presidents, and be impressed – I kid thee not.

At the back there’s a beautiful garden full of green and bright flowers, dominated by handsome bust of our hero, Dr. Jose Rizal.

In truth, Belgium looms large in our Rizalist history. It was in the Flemish city of Ghent where Rizal published his second revolutionary novel, El Filibusterismo. He had lived there on the Rue de Hainaut, with his friend Edilberto Evangelista, where both took lectures at the Universidad de Gante on Vlanderstraat, 66, in 1891.

Rizal also lived in Brussels at No. 30 Rue Philippe de Champagne, and stayed in the home of a lady friend Susan Jacoby. (JR, truly, had many lady friends – one in every port, it seems.)

Belgium, too, is prominent in the personal histories of many of us. How many of us Filipinos went to schools run by the Belgian Sisters or the Belgian Fathers (known here, really, as the Scheutists, since their "father" house is in Scheute)? My sisters studied in St. Theresa’s on San Marcelino, under the Belgian nuns whom we jocularly called the "artillery of the Church", since they used to be known as the Canonesses of St. Augustine. Our parish in Paco was run by the Belgian Fathers, and we boys would serve the 6:30 mass there daily, whipped into sanctuary duty by our very pious and terrific mother.

You could go to the remotest barrio or barangay in the Mountain Province and find a Belgian missionary in situ among the head-hunters, not to mention St. Louis University in Baguio. Now, alas, in this Age of Reason, we are beginning to send Filipina nuns and Pinoy priest missionaries to Belgium!

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It’s a pity that President Macapagal-Arroyo cancelled her scheduled one-day visit to Brussels and the European Union, which had originally been planned to take place after her UNESCO speech in Paris. She had meetings set with Dr. Romano Prodi, president of the European Commission, as well as Javier Solana and possibly Chris Patten (who recently went to Jakarta to dispense oodles of EU aid to Indonesia).

Oh, well. La Presidenta had to rush home to proclaim her decision to run for re-election and now Ping Lacson’s grapevine boys are spreading the tale that the Palace’s Dirty Tricks department (guess who, only two guesses!) are plotting to assassinate the Senator to stop him from revealing "more" about the legendary Jose Pidal.

We could have gotten more assistance from the EU, it appears, if GMA had made that extra effort to get here to Brussels – but that’s in the realm of speculation. Her coming "arrival" had already been well-publicized here, such as in the influential La Gazette Diplomatique which ran an article on her and our mutual Catholic heritage with Belgium and Western Europe, entitled L’Europe et Les Philippines.

I culled the following figures from our Embassy’s Second Secretary and Consul, Ms. Maria Elena P. Algabre – who, by the way, topped our Foreign Service (FSO) exams in 1997, I think.

Mariel revealed that the EU has been the largest source of foreign direct investments (FDI) in our country in the past decade, overtaking both Japan and the United States. In 1990-2001, EU direct investments accounted for nearly one-fourth total FDI in the Philippines. In fact, from Euros 364 million in 1997, it increased to Euros 1.4 billion in 1999. In 2000, investments shot up to E 5.1 billion, bigger than in other Asian countries of that period (E 4.8 billion in Singapore, E 4.1 billion to China, E 2.6 billion to S. Korea, and eclipsing India, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia). I suspect that after FRAPORT’s debacle in NAIA terminal 3 and PIATCO, this is true no more.

Over the last ten years, the European Community has provided more than E 12 million in emergency and humanitarian aid to us. Total ECHO aid in 2001 was E 1.26 million – mainly to victims of natural disasters and man-made ones, too, such as floods, typhoons and earthquakes. These are channeled through the European Community Humanitarian Office or ECHO.

ECHO is now concentrating on the conflict-areas of Central Mindanao – with E 3.96 million approved in 2000. These projects we’re implemented by Accion Contra el Hambre (Action versus Hunger) of Spain and OXFAM of the United Kingdom.

There could be much more, say both the Ambassador and Mariel, if we exerted more effort and demonstrated more interest. Alas, we’re all waiting, I must say, for Mr. Bush, who’s a good guy but is today terribly embattled and harassed. He’s still Tall from Texas, and we welcome him – whatever some of our surly congressmen may now be saying.