For more than 30 years prior to its ban, the fishing method muro-ami was commonly used in the Philippines. During its heyday, it was the most lucrative of fishing techniques outside of larger-scale fishing businesses, primarily because the Philippines is an archipelago of 7,101 islands.

During the time when muro-ami fishing was widely practiced, the Philippines ranked 12^th in the world in marine fish production, had 1,700 islands that yielded almost two million square kilometers of fishing ground, and a sprawling 27,000 square kilometers of coral reefs in good condition. About 80-90 per cent of the income of small island communities came from fisheries. An estimated 10-15 percent of the total fisheries in the Philippines came from coral reefs. Coral reef fish yields ranged from 20 to 25 metric tons per square kilometer per year for healthy reefs.

While other factors destroy coral reefs, the muro-ami style of fishing with its totally destructive effect on the reefs has contributed to the dying of Philippine coral reefs. Today, 70 percent of all reefs in the Philippines are completely dead, unable to regenerate. Many species of fish have disappeared, and fish production has tremendously dwindled.

The Japanese-inspired muro-ami fishing technique involves sending a large group of divers to depths of 30-90 feet, without protective clothing or gear save for homemade wooden goggles. These divers plunge into the waters below armed with metal weights or large stones fitted on ropes to vigorously pound or bang on corals to drive fish out and into the waiting nets. Corals are eventually smashed in the process.

The divers are little boys.

When the nets have been cast, hundreds of little boys jump off the ship’s ledge and plunge into the water with their metal weights or stones. Far down to a depth of up to 90 feet, they proceed to pound on the corals to frighten the fish out and into the gaping net.

To lure the fish quicker into the net, the boys swim with the fish as if part of the catch. With lungs about to burst, they have a few seconds to escape the net before it closes up. The unlucky ones that are not able to get out in time come up to the surface along with the catch, lifeless. The luckier ones, having proven their gift of agility to their sea masters, spend the rest of their lifetime hearing-impaired or maimed. The top crop only have to fight extreme exhaustion, after pushing the limits of their endurance.

Muro-ami fishing trawlers, mostly unseaworthy, stay out at sea for up to ten months. They roam the seas and drop anchor in areas of coral reefs and atolls. The stinking, unsanitary, and cramped quarters are often packed with as many as 400 to 500 adult crew and little boys as young as 7 years old.

The net is cast anywhere between 7 and 10 times a day, with the children working from 6am to 5pm. The harsh adult crew would whip and lash at the kids if the nets didn’t produce fifty to seventy big containers of fish in every dive. In some occasions, the boys are made to stand under the sun for hours as punishment. When these fishing trawlers encounter Navy patrols out at sea, the children are confined and hidden in the engine room for days. The kids are made to work even on days that they are ill.

The children divers, usually on a ten-month contract, are promised to be paid at the end of the contract. Their food budget on board, however, is deducted from their salary of 20 pesos a day, even if food is extremely limited on most days. The kids and their families find out after the ten-month contract, when the trawler comes back to the island to discharge the kids, that they have no payment left.

In 1986, muro-ami fishing was banned in the Philippines after a national outcry when bodies of 100 children divers, unable to escape from the closing net, came up with the catch.

Though most coral reefs in the Philippines are now dead, muro-ami still survives to this day.

Death of Muro-Ami Boys

Dwindling Marine Resources Due to Death of Corals

Fishing Method that Kills Reefs

An eyesore to those who are used to seeing asphalted roads, at least, the terrain here is of the mushy, squishy type. A crust of a curious kind that covers the unseen ground is made from layers of refuse at different stages of decomposition. All sorts of organic stuff fill the ground, from the raw to the maggoted to the egested. As to the garbage that doesn’t decompose, the place is also a grand showcase of an amazing array of synthetic items, from the ubiquitous plastic bags to polystyrene in many shapes and sizes.

The biodegradable trash emits the distinctive stench of death and dying. The non-biodegradable expels the frightening smell of kill. Plastic that has been left out in the open, under the elements, lets off a putrid sulfuric stench that comes with smoke. Some say that the killer methane must be coming from the chemical reaction between biodegradable and non-biodegradable, mixed with H20 from the rains and the CO2 that comes from somewhere. My little knowledge from high school chemistry cannot comprehend all that.

Human beings scale this place and spend hours on this mountain in the only livelihood they know how to eke out – picking trash that can be sold. Armed with long and thin metal rods that are bent on one end to make a hook, hands quickly search the area, hook items that are mostly plastic, and throw them into used rice sacks slung on emaciated backs. Like a metronome, rods held by grimy hands pierce into the refuse, expertly search and hook, and deftly shoot into the sack the coveted discards. A graphic oxymoron. Whole families can be seen plying this trade.

At the foot of this garbage mountain is a thriving colony of illegal settlers, known more colloquially as squatters. These people who have not known the more pleasant side of life, are buried under ignorance, social degradation, economic desperation, senseless infighting due to gross crab mentality, and vice. An entire family’s meal budget for the whole day may be thrown away on betting for the much publicized and legalized lotto. There is a not so half-hearted joke that poor Filipinos used to run to church to pray for hope and solution to their never-ending economic woes, but now run to the lotto betting stations for brighter hope.

Drugs proliferate the place in such ridiculous ease that one can turn on a corner, hand a ten-peso bill to one of the many people packed on every possible square foot space, and openly receive a packet of weed or a smaller sachet of what is locally known as ‘shabu.’ This drug of choice is synthetic amphetamine, regarded as poor man’s cocaine and even lower in cost than crack. It slowly fries the brain to a crisp. Peddlers are users. Users are couriers. And the whole shebang is of people drugged enough to forget that they haven’t eaten for at least two days.

On July 10, 2000, the mountain of garbage caved in on the slum colony below, killing hundreds of people and rendering some more hundreds of families homeless. That is, if makeshift contraptions made out of derelict wood, rusty galvanized iron sheet pieces, and cartons of milk assembled to stand up can be called shanties.

Days of heavy rains during one of the fiercest typhoons that ravaged the Philippines loosened the mountain of rubbish. Three days after the crash of the dumpsite, rescue teams were still pulling bloated decomposing bodies out of the heaps of garbage. Society’s debris buried under plain debris, seen over CNN.

The place has remained ugly. It is a picture postcard of squalor and pain. It is so ugly that it starts to look pretty on pictures that accompany some NGO’s country report.

Three months out of a year, every year, I live in this place on a self-funded and singular mission to do whatever I can to upgrade the literacy level of out-of-school youth who are drug dependents. Because the drug trade along the dark dingy alleys peak from 10 in the evening to 2 in the morning, I schedule my classes during those hours and call it the Midnight School. We hold it under a mango tree on the yard of a kind old lady that keeps me there, with the dim sputtering light from the lone incandescent bulb of the tiny house spilling out to provide us some form of illumination. It looks poetic to survey a sea of heads huddled over seatwork exercises.

When the police frisk these youth during the months that we don’t have school, the law enforcers find drug packets and fan knives inside pockets. During those three months, however, police are surprised to find little pocket dictionaries, ballpens, and crumpled folded makeshift notebooks instead.

I always look forward to those three months, every year.

Hope in the Midst of Squalor

Payatas Garbage Dump Collapse

After the Crash

Fired up by earnest concern, downright zeal, sheer creativity, desperation, confusion, or a whole slew of mental and emotional states, some folks have come up with ideas and put out remedies to the malady that ails planet Earth. Some of the initiatives may be downright wacky, still some a bit impractical. But, hey, they’ve made a step towards solving the woes of this one and only planet we call our own – something not all of us can actually claim to have done.

“Bitublocks” are construction materials made out of junk and waste such as recycled glass, sewage sludge, and incinerator ash. Invented by an engineer at the University of Leeds in England, the refuse with which these materials are made are kept from ending up at landfills. On the other hand, some scientists want to make more environmentally-friendly plastics out of chicken feathers.

Somewhere in Los Angeles, some employees keep a plastic bin of wriggly worms that they feed with their leftover sandwich crusts and apple cores, which the worms turn into compost.

Because carbon dioxide builds up in the atmosphere and warms the Earth, some scientists have proposed to capture plant emissions, compress them, and bury the carbon underground.

China wants to do away with what it calls “white pollution,” or those ubiquitous plastic bags that carry all and sundry, because they clog city street drainage and waterways. Australia wants to eliminate incandescent bulbs, thereby helping reduce greenhouse emissions.

Some scientists have proposed to put a ring of sunlight-scattering particles or micro-spacecraft in orbit around the equator. The ring which could cost trillions of moolah will reduce the amount of solar radiation and cool the planet a bit from greenhouse gases. Think Wayfarers on a beach bum.

Alternatively, some scientists have suggested injecting sulfur into the atmosphere to counteract global warming, in the hope that it could have the same cooling effect that occurs after a sulfur-spewing volcano erupts. Of course, we will need tons and tons of sulfur to do that regularly, as well as expect a lot of acid rain.

There is a suggestion by some people in the know to fertilize parts of the ocean with iron. Iron accelerates phytoplankton growth. Huge plankton blooms will use more carbon dioxide to make food. All the better to make those planktons happy since we have an excess of carbon dioxide.

Some of these ideas may sound zany to you but, most definitely, not to those who conjured them up. Let’s leave them to their insightful concepts. We have some thinking to do on our own, too.

Let’s start to make at least one step towards the solution of the problem. And we’ll do that today, won’t we? If you walk, instead of drive, you will help reduce carbon dioxide emission. The planktons will not be happy for it, but surely they’re already giddy with delight over the glut in CO2. You might also want to consider limiting meat in your meals this week. The meat industry is responsible for 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions through fertilizer use, animal manure, and the energy required transporting food and meat, so says the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

You may not opt to use “sewage bricks” for your dream home but you can carry your next batch of groceries in a reusable cloth bag. And if you find putting giant sunglasses on earth an out-and-out madcap suggestion, you may simply choose to replace your broken incandescent bulb with a more cost-saving compact fluorescent bulb.

The call is yours. And we’ll take crazy ideas, too, if you have some.

Crazy Ideas to Save the Environment

Bitublocks

Phytoplankton

Dark chocolate is a potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agent. As an antioxidant, it eats into free radicals or those destructive molecules that are associated with heart disease and other ailments. Dark chocolate has 8 times the number of antioxidants in strawberries. Bet you didn’t know that!

Flavanols are strong antioxidants that help maintain healthy blood flow and blood pressure. Cocoa beans contain 10,000 milligrams (10 grams) of flavanol antioxidants per 100 grams. This equates to a potent 10% antioxidant concentration level. Flavanols, found in pure dark chocolate, prevent fatty substances in the bloodstream from oxidizing and eventually clogging arteries. They are also known to help make blood platelets not clump and cause blood clots, heart attacks, and strokes.

The fats contained in cocoa butter are healthy fats. Cacao contains oleic acid, a heart-healthy monounsaturated fat that is also found in olive oil. This type of fat is known to raise the level of the "good cholesterol" known as HDL (High Density Lipid) cholesterol. Conversely, dark chocolate is also said to reduce LDL cholesterol (or the bad cholesterol) by up to 10 percent. Dark chocolate also contains stearic acid, a saturated fat but one that has a neutral effect on cholesterol.

Here are more paeans sung to dark chocolate:

· If you have high blood pressure, have a small bar of dark chocolate a day to help you reduce blood pressure.

· Aside from tasting good, dark chocolate also makes you feel good. It stimulates endorphin production and contains serotonin, both feel-good mood hormones that blow your blues away. It also contains theobromine and moderate caffeine which are stimulants.

• Studies have shown that small portions of dark chocolate can improve blood vessel flow, especially in older adults, and may improve blood sugar and insulin sensitivity to help reduce the risk of diabetes.
• Dark chocolate contains a number of minerals, including calcium, magnesium, and potassium.

With paeans come caveats:

• To get the full health benefits of dark chocolate, still limit your intake to 1 ounce-3.5 ounces a day. It is still a high-calorie food.

• Look for dark chocolate that has 70% cocoa content or more.

• Don’t wash it down with milk. The proteins in milk bind with the antioxidants in chocolate. The antioxidants are not being absorbed to the same extent as they would be.

Dark Chocolate

Dark Chocolate Nutrition

Contribution to Good Health

Dark Chocolate: A Health Food

Antioxidants in Dark Chocolate

I am one of the recipients of this chain email going around. I normally just delete these kinds of emails. This time, I decided to keep it and share it here.

The Dash

In July 2006, a short 3-minute movie was launched on the Internet called The Dash. Since then, over 40 million people from around the world have watched it; and over 20,000 a day continue to watch it as a result of people passing it along.

The movie has been more successful than they could have ever imagined. More importantly, however, it has inspired many, many people to reflect on their lives and ask that all important question, ‘Are my priorities where they should be?’

I hope you enjoy this movie and share it with those who are close to you.

The Dash Movie

Having lived in a tropical country that knows warm almost all-year round, I’d surmise that the 34° Celsius indicated on the Yahoo temperature widget on my desktop makes this a typical almost-summer day. Scientists have pegged the temperature of a ‘normal’ room as anywhere between 23° and 25°, but 34° Celsius only makes me head to the malls more often for their excellent air-conditioning. I know for a fact that the temperature of a “normal” human body is 37° Celsius, but I still, however, think that 34° Celsius is just warm. It really does not cause me to panic. I know warm like the back of my hand.

Even if I have personally witnessed some very fierce typhoons, nasty flash floods, and the effects of the El Niño phenomenon, I just take them as hazards of the tropics. Besides, I have come to fully agree that flash floods in the urban areas of my country are caused by the clogging of waterways by garbage, and in the provinces by the denudation of forests by illegal loggers and weakening of the soil leading to erosion by indiscriminate and greedy mining companies.

NASA and the National Research Council report, “For the time period from 1979-1998, it is estimated that on average, over the globe, surface temperature has increased by 0.25 to 0.4 degrees C and lower to mid-tropospheric temperature has increased by 0.0 to 0.2 degrees C.”

Scientists claim that the layer of the atmosphere called “lower troposphere” or that which extends from the surface to about 5 miles up high would be warming at a slightly faster rate than the surface. NASA scientists warn that the earth’s temperature is dangerously high, and continues on an uphill climb.

The global temperature average in 2007 was 14.73° Celsius, the second warmest year on record. This is a mere 0.03° Celsius behind the 2005 maximum. January 2007 was the hottest January ever measured with a full 0.23° Celsius warmer than the previous record. August was also a record for that month, with September as the second warmest September recorded. The eight warmest years on record all occurred in the last decade.

Data maintained by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies reveal the rising pattern of global average temperature: 14.02° Celsius in the 1970s, 14.26° Celsius in the 1980s, and 14.40° Celsius in the 1990s. In the first eight years of the 21st century, the world averaged 14.64° Celsius.

Upwards of this current earth temperature, these things will occur according to the National Geographic Channel blog:

At plus 1° Celsius, hurricanes may hit the South Atlantic, rising tides could submerge the land around the Bay of Bengal, and new deserts could form in the western half of the United States.

At plus 2° Celsius, Canada’s melting tundra will give way to forests, insects may change their migration directions, the Pacific islands of Tuvalu may sink beneath the rising ocean tides, and majority of the world’s tropical coral reefs will die.

At plus 3° Celsius, repeated cycles of drought and fire may occur in the Amazon rain forest and release the carbon stored there, the snowcaps on the Alps will disappear, the Mediterranean and parts of Europe will experience terrible summer heat, superstorms and Category 6 hurricanes will occur, and thousands of species worldwide would face extinction.

At plus 4° Celsius, oceans will continue to rise and devastate countries like Bangladesh and Egypt, and cities like Venice could be totally submerged.

At plus 5° Celsius, the tens of millions of climate refugees will fight over extremely scarce resources resulting in worldwide strife.

At plus 6° Celsius, the world could resemble the Cretaceous Era, more deserts will dot the planet, natural disasters become common events, and the world’s great cities could be flooded or abandoned.

All these may sound like doomsday scenario, true. But, fact is, global temperature has risen by 0.33° Celsius since 1990. If we do not halt the rise in temperature, we can only calculate when the abovementioned scenarios will happen.

Let’s do some Math.

While it is true that not even thousands of cars can match the gases emitted by a single volcano, we have to agree that we expedited the condition behind the buzzphrase. Anyone who hasn’t added to greenhouse gases, raise your hand.

The good news is that there is still time to undo, in this lifetime, what we have done.

For starters, do the Math.

Global Warming

NASA News

Proofs and Indicators of Global Warming

What Happens to the Earth if Temperature is Plus 1 degree Celsius

What Happens to the Earth if Temperature is Plus 2 degrees Celsius

What Happens to the Earth if Temperature is Plus 3 degrees Celsius

What Happens to the Earth if Temperature is Plus 4 degrees Celsius

What Happens to the Earth if Temperature is Plus 5 degrees Celsius

What Happens to the Earth if Temperature is Plus 6 degrees Celsius

All Darfuris are Muslim and black. The “African” and “Arab” distinctions pertain more to lifestyle and livelihood categories. Comprising 35% of the population are the “Arabs” who are nomadic herders. The remaining 65% of the people in Darfur, the “Africans,” are farmers. These two groups used to have coexisted on the land, even under the conditions of environmental calamity, desertification, and high population growth. The approximately 6 million inhabitants of Darfur are among the poorest in Africa.

In 2003, the Sudanese government gave arms to some “Arab” clans and incited them to attack “African” villages. The government’s motivation was to control the diminishing land and water resources.

Five years later, the United Nations estimates that nearly 400,000 people have died from violence and disease, and over 2.5 million have been displaced. There have been countless aerial bombardments. Entire villages have been razed to the ground. Arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial summary executions have come wholesale. Torture, abductions, rape, and other forms of sexual violence have been commonplace. Livelihoods have been rendered nil.

Sudan persists in its scorched earth policy against the Darfur farmers. The trouble has crossed over into neighboring Chad and the Central African Republic. The United States has dubbed it the Darfur Genocide, while other parties contend that it is nothing but ethnic wars among tribes.

International diplomacy has failed, with promises of conflict-resolution and threats against President al-Bashir in his Khartoum regime remaining unfulfilled. With the US Fiscal Year 2008 budget, there is a projected $186 million shortfall for Darfur peacekeeping, and a $6 billion shortfall for America's core humanitarian assistance. The monetary gap is seen to have grave impact on international peacekeeping and aid efforts, negatively affecting millions of Darfuris. 

For now, China continues to remain as the Sudanese government’s primary supplier of weapons and fighter jets, in its attempt to obtain oil and gas in the country. China also happens to be Sudan's largest trade and foreign investment partner.

Some have raised their faces to heaven, asking if nightmare in Darfur is going to end – and what will it take for it to end.

So long as war is a business, there will always be reasons to go to war.

In the meantime, one of the more public faces of the advocacy to end the conflict in Darfur US actor George Clooney says in an interview published Saturday in Spain, “Boycotting the Beijing Olympic Games to try to pressure China into taking action to stop the violence in Sudan's war-torn region of Darfur would be "excessive."

Darfur Genocide

War in Darfur

Save Darfur

George Clooney: Save Darfur Poster Boy

The former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger now known as Pope Benedict XVI, and once called ‘God’s Rottweiler,’ has always been a hardliner for conservative doctrine. The once powerful and influential Dean of the College of Cardinals has always made a clear stance against what he calls the move towards the dictatorship of relativism. He has made it apparent that he is against non-definitive actions, as well as the rule of ego and desire. Therefore, a fence-sitter he is not.

He was once head of the Catholic Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith whose mission is to "to promote and safeguard the doctrine on the faith and morals throughout the Catholic world." Originally called the Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition, his office’s duty was to defend the Church from heresy.

He once sent a letter of advice to U.S. bishops about denying communion to politicians who support abortion rights. He stopped a nun from ministering to gays and lesbians in the United States.

It was also as head of CDF that Ratzinger disciplined church dissidents and upheld church policy against attempts by liberals for reforms. These include the priest sex-abuse scandals that have cost the church millions in settlements in the United States and elsewhere

The Los Angeles Archdiocese owns the largest church settlement of sexual abuse lawsuits of all time, paying a total of $660 million to more than 500 alleged victims. The Boston Archdiocese paid $157 million to 983 claimants in several different settlement agreements. The Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon paid $129 million to 315 claimants. The Diocese of Orange, California paid $100 million to 90 claimants. The Diocese of Covington, Kentucky settled with 350 claimants for $85 million.

He did enter the eye of the storm with his US trip, on precisely a mission to deal with sexual abuse perpetrated by the clergy. The hardliner in him will not pass up the chance. The man who was once dubbed as “The Inquisitor” will not sit on the fence.

But then, again, his current position is largely political in what is said to be the world’s wealthiest organization.

Pope in the US

Pope's US Visit

Sexual Abuse Cases by the Catholic Clergy

Traditional publishing is what the big publishing houses offer. Everything in this is conventional. Standards exist in the printing, production, marketing, and distribution processes. Traditional publishing is generally perceived as the best way to validate authors. Prestige and reputation, as well as resources and machinery, have put traditional publishing houses on the top rung of the publishing business.

On the other end of the spectrum is non-traditional publishing. Often equated to “self-publishing,” this concept is generally defined as ‘vanity press.’ Vanity Press or Subsidy Press is “a publishing company that applies its ISBN to a book and charges the author for the cost of production. The author receives only a few copies of the book, and is promised royalties on those copies that might be sold by the subsidy press.” Vanity press is another term for subsidy press. Self-publishing or subsidy press or vanity press will always remain an alternative mode of getting oneself published. It will never be mainstream.

The term ‘self-publishing’ is perceived to be misleading. An ordinary author who wants to be a ‘published author’ cannot possibly publish his work by himself. He will still need publishing machinery (production, promotion, marketing, sales, and distribution). It takes more than personal cash and personally-acquired ISBNs and LCCNs associated with the author to make him a published author.

Writers choose to self-publish for a variety of reasons. Foremost of these reasons is the thought that their work will not be of commercial interest to a traditional publisher because the topic is either remote or controversial, or the writer is unknown. Many times, the self-publishing author has chosen to be so because he wanted more control over his topic and content. In some occasions, he simply wants a bigger cut of the retail sales.

Stephen Crane, Deepak Chopra, Benjamin Franklin, Rudyard Kipling, Carl Sandburg, George Bernard Shaw, Leo Tolstoy, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Virginia Woolf, Margaret Atwood, Stephen King, John Grisham, Jack Canfield, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, Upton Sinclair, and Edgar Allan Poe are just some of the self-publishers that went on to claim fame.

Nowadays, non-traditional publishing authors are those who are cautious about the prospect, scale, and challenge of traditional publishing due to fear (of the challenge and enormity of traditional publishing), ignorance (of the way to get their work published traditionally), even contempt (over past experience with traditional publishing).

But really, you can be a self-published author if you are any or all of these: you have actualized your talent to write, you have the knack for writing, you simply dream of getting down to writing but have been unable due to inability to actually start it, or you are simply determined to write. You can also be a self-published writer if you have the cash to burn and the burning desire and need to be a published name – but without pertinent and sufficient talent to boot.

Just have your manuscript ready. If you do not have it yet, simply hold on to that story in your head. A ghostwriter-for-hire can be ready on the wings for you. Dream big and dream often. Lastly, take up the services of a self-publishing company. You may not rake up sales as much as Stephen King does, but you are sure to have your name on one book’s cover – a book you can call your very own.

Self-publishing can make writers out of plain dreamers, and make dreamers out of plain writers.

Guide to Self-Publishing

Other Stuff About Self-Publishing

Example of a Self-Publishing Company

Traveling for healthcare, also known as the phenomenon of medical tourism, is a fairly recent thing. Well, at least, the tag is rather new. Citizens from developed countries now opt to travel abroad to avail of healthcare services or medical treatments. In the process of availing healthcare in a foreign land, the patient takes the opportunity for rest, recreation, and leisure. The medical patient thus becomes a medical tourist.

Medical tourism is for either a leisure tourist who happens to want or need a medical check-up or a medical tourist with a hospital or clinic as destination and wants sightseeing and shopping on the side. The medical tourist has set aside his health and leisure dollar or euro, but he is not relatively rich. He is someone who is likely not insured in his First World country, or someone who cannot afford private healthcare in the US because the medical treatment he needs is not covered by his insurance.

The primary concern of a medical tourist is the medical treatment or the health and wellness concern he needs to address at the soonest possible time. He chooses to travel halfway around the globe to an exotic Asian destination for warmer climate and a different atmosphere, plus of course the cheaper cost of medical treatment and healthcare outside his country. Most likely, he has also heard of the first-rate service, professionalism, and value-added personal concern of Asian health workers who are known around the world as excellent doctors, nurses, physical therapists, caregivers, etc.

The medical tourist will need a little downtime during post-treatment convalescence, and thus avail of activities that are restive, relaxed, and pleasurable. While in this strange land for a few days, he is curious to know and experience first-hand the culture and history, sights and sounds of this place that he has known only through Internet websites.

His budget primarily and largely goes to the medical treatment he came over for (operation cost, doctors’ fees, hospital room, etc). The extra money he has will be spent on getting to know the places nearby in the remaining days left on his visa. He may also splurge most of his remaining money on a farther destination such as the famed beaches in the Orient that he has aspired to see, since these are touted to be a paradise in the Internet websites. He will most definitely sample the food of this strange exotic land.

Several key factors have brought about the phenomenon of medical tourism. There are aging populations in Japan, US, and Europe. Healthcare is expensive in developed countries, such as those in North America and Europe. Patients have experienced a long waiting period in the national health system of some western European countries. Private and social benefit schemes are getting expensive, forcing patients to look for an alternative. At times, the individual ends up paying for his own healthcare. Often, some surgeries are not covered by insurance and will, therefore, be out-of-pocket expenses.

Outsourcing of healthcare becomes an attractive alternative because Third World prices are more affordable. The technology and quality gap between First World and Third World has been eradicated. Developing countries now boast of improved medical technology, as well as competitive healthcare prices. The Internet has compressed the world, offering a wide array of comprehensive information. International travel is easy and affordable. Add to all these is the prospect of fun and relaxation in a new land.

Categorized as an export product, medical tourism is basically marketed to people in the First World countries who are not insured or people who cannot afford private healthcare in the US. The phenomenon of medical tourism is said to now be a US$40 billion global industry and is projected to grow to US$188 billion by 2013.

Medical Tourism

Medical Tourism in the Philippines

Medical Tourism in India

The world’s most expensive home rests on six and a half acres in Beverly Hills, California and costs $165 million. The estate has six buildings, three swimming pools, and a movie theater. There are 75,000 square feet of living space on three storeys, housing 29 bedrooms and 40 bathrooms. Is this making you hungry already? You can opt to dine at l'Arpege, obviously one of the world’s most expensive eateries where lunch costs $500 a pop.

Material acquisition can be fun if you can get your hands on the world’s most coveted things. The Chanel "Diamond Forever" Classic Bag, with 334 diamonds totaling 3.56 carats and set in 18-carat white gold hardware, goes for $261,000. You can hurry to get one if you’re able because there are only 13 such totes available worldwide. The Tulip E-go laptop with a gem-encrusted logo starts at $50,000 apiece. Prefer to have additional diamonds to spruce up a personalized design and your payout can go as much as $300,000.

Groceries may be cheap but a meal can be expensive if cooked on the Le Cornue stove that costs $40,000. This cooking equipment, dubbed as the "Rolls Royce of stoves,” belongs to a hand-assembled line that is available in 16 colors, crafted from porcelain enamel. The Sub-Zero refrigerator, called the "monument to food preservation," automatically adjusts defrost patterns and sends off an alarm when a drawer or door has been left open. You can have all these conveniences for $12,000 per refrigerator unit.

Make your posh home a showcase of luxurious style and expensive taste. The Zuber wallpaper that lines the walls of the White House can be had for $31,845 or $42,000 at its most pricey. Made of pure crystal, the 14-inch tall Lalique flower vase comes at only $7,200. Your guests can be assured of sound sleep on Léron linens made of 600-thread-count Egyptian cotton that cost $4,375. Baccarat champagne glasses are $267 each, while Gracious Style napkin rings of 14 karat gold or platinum and embellished with Swarovksi crystals, semiprecious stones, and enamel come at $125 for a set of four.

I nudge myself back to reality as these figures confront me:

The United Nations World Food Program reports that as much as 25,000 people die everyday because of hunger or hunger-related causes. Close to three billion people or half of humankind today live on less than two dollars a day. 640 million people live without adequate shelter. The world’s homeless population has reached the 1 billion mark. 400 million have no access to safe water. 270 million have no access to health services.

One billion children or half of all children in the world live in poverty, millions of them dying before they reach the age of five. According to UNICEF, 26,500-30,000 children die everyday due to poverty. That means one child dies every 3 seconds. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.”

According to the 2007 Human Development Report (HDR) of the United Nations Development Program, the poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income, while the richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income.

Would you care to daydream about those delicious goodies, too? Unless, of course, you have one or some of those already stashed away somewhere.

Forbes.com

Global Poverty

homelessness