Homecoming, Part 1

It wasn't as dramatic as the mushroom cloud that violently sprouted from the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, but the haze that hung over Detroit-my first stopover on the flight home to the Philippines-had the eerie appearance of a catastrophic aftermath. Once the showcase of the American Dream, the Motor City’s many years of decline are made even graver by the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression. In some neighborhoods, many foreclosed homes auctioned by banks reportedly don’t even attract any bids. Even the wildly successful “cash for clunkers” government program was a short-term remedy and was not really expected to restore most of the lost jobs in the moribund auto industry.

The descent to the Detroit-Wayne County International Airport reminded me of the two reasons why I finally decided to visit home.  First and foremost, this being just a brief leg of a painfully long 24-hour trip to the Philippines, visiting home is not your typical vacation—it has to be really well-planned and judiciously timed.  For me, it had been more than 8 years since my last visit in 2001, which was really a whirlwind trip considering that it was mainly for business, as I joined a delegation of overseas Filipinos lobby the passage of absentee voting and dual citizenship laws (both of which are now in the books).  Prior to that was a quick trip to Manila and Boracay in 1999, when I didn’t even really visit Iloilo, my home province.  The one extended stay I had in the land of the genteel Ilonggos was in 1996, so in practical terms I really had not been home for more than 13 years, and so the long absence easily justifies the drawn-out plane ride.

The second reason was the somewhat delayed impact of the Great Recession.  In August, unlike the busier first 6 or 7 months of 2009, things were really slow on the work front—I was clocking probably just 40 percent of the usual hours.  Between 9 A.M. and 5 P.M., I spent more time reading, doing errands, and taking the corgis for a run and/or walk than actually working.  So I figured if August was the beginning of a trend, now would be a good time to plan a vacation; at least so I could enjoy the slow hours.  The non-negotiable condition was that while on vacation I needed to be able to work when projects became available.  The mortgage and the bills have to be paid.

To be able to take a working vacation, I made sure that technology would allow me to work remotely while in the Philippines.  I’d been used to working from home, so now I just had to make sure Internet access in the Philippines would allow me to continue telecommuting without any issues.  There was an initial scare:  when I first landed at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila, my attempts to attach a 1MB file to an e-mail to a colleague in the States consistently failed.  Immediately, I wondered if I probably should just visit my siblings for a couple of days and then head back to the States.  It wouldn’t work if I couldn’t send a 1MB file, let alone up to 10MB files I sometimes would need to work with.

It turned out to be an unwarranted concern.  I was using the airport’s free wi-fi connection so perhaps the bandwidth was very limited, but internet speed here seems to be undistinguishable from my Comcast broadband connection in the States.  In Iloilo, my brother helped set me up with a local DSL connection and bought me a SmartBro air card as back up.  Both, after a couple of weeks of actually using them, have allowed me to work unimpeded.  I have even gone through a few power outages now, but my work remained seamless, at least for as long as the laptop battery outlasts the often short blackouts.  The world, I have to agree, has become truly flat (see Friedman’s The World Is Flat).

After weeks of advance preparation in the States (paying my car registration ahead, setting up my bill payments online, making arrangements with regard to mail, getting vaccinated, etc.), technology has enabled me to do work for a Boston-based company in the comfort (or discomfort during hot and humid days) of my abode on the opposite side of the globe and on a time zone almost 12 hours ahead of eastern standard time.  In theory, I can work and stay here for as long as I want, although it will probably be until March, when my return trip is scheduled.

(To be continued)

---

Factual Errors? Email us at editorial@thelobbyist.biz.

Copyright 2007 The LOBBYiST. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without the expressed permission of The LOBBYiST.