My foreign project employers flew in from Singapore. We had a business presentation with a client at Fort Bonifacio. Frodo was nice enough to drive us around.
Anyway, the Manila they had in mind was different. They were particularly surprised to see that Makati, Ortigas and Fort Bonifacio, well, let us just say they didn't expect to see the CBDs to be so First World. I made them walk through Greenbelt 1 to 5, the whole stretch of the Mall of Asia from the parking at one end to the Hypermarket at the other.
Frankly, I'm tired of explaining to foreigners that the Philippines isn't all about poverty. We have such a negative image abroad that we Filipinos are already immune to it. I just give them a smile when they tell me of some horror stories they have heard about the Philippines. And then when they find out that that is not always the case, they get surprised.
That's when they realize that we do have a significant middle-income market, that the poverty situation is sometimes blown out of proportion and sensationalized for media purposes and that not all Filipinos are poverty-stricken.
It's annoying but I've ceased to care, really.
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