FOREIGN travel is overrated.
Especially if you are unfortunate enough to use a Philippine passport, considered by many immigration authorities around the world as a license to commit random acts of terrorism, crack bombing jokes at airports, and carry excess baggage.
And if you happen to possess a very limited travel budget—which, to many Filipinos, is the only kind of budget available—the difficulties posed by leaving the country can be limitless.
For instance, a delayed flight connection anywhere outside the country can mean spending a night or two at an airport bench since paying for a hotel room can severely compromise your finances.
However, of the many inherent dangers facing Filipinos traveling abroad, none is more insufferable than encountering their fellow countrymen who live abroad, legally or otherwise. Always secure in their superiority over those who have chosen or have been fated to stay in the Philippines, these immigrants eschew their heritage as long as any Filipino—or any member of a dark-skinned race for that matter—is within a two-kilometer radius.
But whenever slighted for some injury, usually imagined and/or exaggerated, they are the first to cry discrimination, always demanding special treatment since they belong to a minority.
This explains why Filipinos such as myself, given the choice, prefer to stay at home.
Besides severely reducing the chances of meeting these kinds of people, I am not required to secure a visa for lounging in bed, even for prolonged periods. Nor will I need a passport to wear overused, underwashed boxer shorts raring to begin to its next life as a rag.
Unfortunately, despite being a self-confessed, stay-at-home, armchair adventurer, I have managed to visit to a number of countries, thanks to the generosity of my superiors and the heroic efforts of my wife.
Owing to her accomplishments, my spouse has been invited to many programs in the US, Asia, and most recently in Europe, where she was given a month-long fellowship to focus on her work while staying in an Italian villa. As it happens, the Italian grant covers board and lodging not only for the grantee but also for her spouse (also known as that lucky bastard whom she agreed to marry for reasons heretofore mysterious to many people).
So while I am enjoying the cool Italian weather, I am nevertheless looking forward to going back to Manila, home of my set of tattered boxer shorts.
